Tony Zayas 0:00
All right, welcome, everybody. It’s Tony’s is here. This is another special episode of the SaaS coach show. This is one of our founders interviews. And before we introduce today’s special guest, on introducing Silvius, founder, we have Andy Halko with us. Andy, how you doing?
Andy Halko 0:25
Good. Good to see it. Tony. I’m excited to do another show. And we’ve got a pretty fantastic founder that I had the enjoyment of working with for last couple months.
Tony Zayas 0:36
Yeah, absolutely. So we’d like to introduce David Lecko. From DealMachine. So David, welcome.
David Lecko 0:43
Thank you so much, Tony. Excited to be here with Andy, who has, in fact, provided some really awesome coaching to us and recommendations. That’s given some cool results over the last few months.
Tony Zayas 0:55
That’s fantastic. So I guess to get started and just dive in, I think, David, we would love to hear a little bit, just tell us about your app. Tell us about DealMachine . And we’ll go from there. Yeah,
David Lecko 1:10
so DealMachine helps real estate investors find more deals, specifically, that helps them build do execute a marketing strategy called driving for dollars, where they’re looking for rundown houses that physically have the appearance of the worst one in the neighborhood. And so those are really valuable to real estate investors, because you can buy a lot of marketing lists, but you can’t buy a marketing list of actual physical distress, you’ve got to lay eyes on the property yourself. So if you’re doing that yourself, or even hiring somebody to do that, DealMachine makes that process a whole lot smoother, where you don’t have to write down the address, mail the person remember to follow up with the person, but the app would do all those basic things for you with automations. And a nice map that you can click and look up the owner and send mail.
Andy Halko 2:03
That’s awesome. I’m always interested. You know, the place I like to start is the the origin story. So you know, you’re a super hero of the SaaS space now What What’s the origin story? How’d you get started?
David Lecko 2:19
Yeah, so I got started in 2016. And I was I`ve read Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I was inspired myself to be a real estate investor. And I was working as a software engineer for this company. It was a product called chapter builder. And I had built that software with my partner, Dave, but we sold it really early on to this company in Indianapolis. So I was working for them. And so looking for my first rental property, I was told at the local meetup that you need to go driving for dollars, look for houses that look rundown. And so I started doing that, but ran into a few hiccups along the way, specifically, I had a list of you know, 40 40 things on like a piece of paper 40 addresses took me several weeks to put that together. But I couldn’t mail it out to the property owners because all the online mail services required a minimum of 200 to have an order put together. So I was working on building my lists up to 200. And you know, in the meantime, one of those houses actually changed hands and started being renovated. And I was like, oh, man, I can’t wait around to get to 200. I’ve got to take action immediately. And so that weekend, I put together a really basic tool that was just met for my phone. And then I think six months later, I ended up putting on the App Store, realizing you know, a couple friends wanted to use it too. And it organically kind of grew from there.
Andy Halko 3:52
Isn’t that how it works is that you typically we have a pain. And if you’ve got the capability and you know how to solve it. And then it’s so valuable to you that someone else finds it valuable as well.
David Lecko 4:04
Absolutely. And there wasn’t any research. I wasn’t like trying to start a business. It kind of helped us jumpstart all those things, because I was purely just trying to do this for myself. And I did I got a $4,000 house that I renovated in for like 60,000. And it’s rented for about 1100 a month now. So that was my own success. Like that’s all the success that I ever wanted from it. So I’ve been really happy ever since. Because obviously we’ve done a lot more than that too.
Andy Halko 4:36
Yeah. Well, it’s pretty interesting that you know, I find founders that have a passion for the industry that their platform is in or the software that they use expertise, obviously have a leg up over people that are just trying to, you know, find a product and build something to build, you know, for that sake. So yeah, maintain your passion in the real estate industry and has that fueled the growth, do you think of your platform?
David Lecko 5:03
Well, we’ve certainly had to mature and do a bit more customer focused research. But I’ve still definitely maintained my passion. I’ve got 10 rental properties today, I kind of slowed down the acquisitions of those to focus more on the software that was growing a lot faster. And I think I think that ideally, I’d love to start acquiring properties again, myself. So it’s still the passion still there. It’s it’s always just been about prioritization of best use of my time.
Andy Halko 5:35
Isn’t that hard as a founder and owner is to really understand what the best use of your time is? And just to kind of switch off? How do you how do you decide in your own business where you prioritize your time?
David Lecko 5:50
Totally, yeah, it’s, we’ve got distracted even this year, where we were like, Hey, I think you know, this app could work really well for this other industry. So like, let’s hire somebody on let’s have them take our app and kind of port it, modify it. And that was the worst choice ever. We never, we made the decision to kill it right before launch, after, you know, six months of investment. And it was the total right decision, I’m so glad we did that. And I think I see a lot of others get distracted, but not be willing to, like, kill that off, or even realize it. So we’ve definitely had some lack of focus and realize how bad that can hurt.
Tony Zayas 6:30
So that’s a, that’s a great story. Because, you know, that’s how we learn and get better. How did you know to make the decision in a quite short period of time, rather than allow that to drag on?
David Lecko 6:43
Well, so I’ll give you an example. Like one one of these apps was going to be like kind of like a watered down version of DealMachine that could be used for other industries like forestry utilities, you know, a bunch of other industries can use a map with property ownership information. And so we were attracted to it because we were like, this is going to be like way less churn, because a lot of times real estate can be high churn, because a lot of beginners are coming into it without the proper expectations or without the proper budget. And that’s okay. But our solution was like, Hey, let’s go serve these other industries that may have less churn. And so we assigned it to one of our developers, Jared. So it was a quarterly goal, Jared was like my OKR is going to be able to produce this app. And, and we’re going to do that to reduce churn. And so he also had a responsibility of support requests that required a developer for DealMachine. And then, like, we got to the end of the quarter, and he never released the app, because, you know, like, he had been doing a great job. But like, there’s just so much attention needed on the main DealMachine platform, which by the way, we also had OKRs, to expand that. So it was just like, okay, like DealMachine itself is growing, we’re expanding it. And Jared didn’t even have enough time to do the secondary thing. So like, what are we doing? Why are we going to launch a yet another thing, you know, that’s just going to add a bunch of other overhead need additional support team or have to train the support team? And then it just I started to realize, like, Okay, this is like a whole nother business. Like, I can’t ask my staff to, like, spread themselves and like, do this. It’s gonna require different training. It was just like, wow, I got to kill this thing. And it was tough, because Jared invested a lot of time in it for a whole quarter.
Andy Halko 8:38
Well, that’s one of the things I see in companies a lot is not willing to wait, walk away from sunk cost. You know, you have that sunk cost, you put time and effort into something. And sometimes you just have to be willing to go Yup, forget about it. You know, yeah, we have a little I talked about this yesterday with another founder that I went out to drinks with, is I have this little graphic where you kind of put yourself on one side, you put your core vision for what you want to achieve on the other. And you draw two lines across between those circles. And when you’re coming up with ideas and doing stuff, if something doesn’t fit within those lines, and it’s outside, it’s not directly towards that yet cut, you don’t do it? Oh, yeah.
David Lecko 9:22
I even realized I didn’t have the mental capacity to like learn the lingo of Forestry and roofing and all these other groups where I was like, joining Facebook groups doing research, I was like, I’m just not as passionate about this. And it’s gonna like, I’m gonna take a lot of mental capacity just to like figure this stuff out and actually, like, do it justice. So I it was kind of even selfish for myself. I was like, I don’t think I want to stretch myself out like this.
Andy Halko 9:48
So I’m kind of curious desert. Was there a turning point for you? You talked about at the beginning, this was an app for yourself and you kind of threw it out there. At what point did it really become product and accompany something that you want to build like scale?
David Lecko 10:04
Yeah. So I know that the person who gave me a big aha moment was her name is Brittany Wicks. She lives in Texas, but she comes to Indianapolis once a month to buy 30 homes. And like at the time, that really blew my mind, I was like, what, but anyway, she kind of like acquires properties for turnkey provider. Okay, so she was their acquisitions person, she would come once a month to the auctions and buy 30 homes. And I knew her because she also ran a local meetup when she’d come here, and she’d educate real estate wholesalers on how much you know, she’d pay for certain properties. And when I told her about the app, I was, she was like, Oh, I’ll spend $1,000 to try any new marketing method. Like we’re, it’s very much, you know, in our best interest to be trying the latest things. And so my jaw kind of dropped, because, you know, I’m not a salesperson. But I was like, she’s like, definitely a legit player, and she’s willing to spend $1,000 without even seeing this thing. And I was like, alright, well, I have to figure out how to collect the payment. And then I need to figure out how to get it on her phone. So I was like, We hooked that up. And then she spent, I think I gave her a discount. I was like, $750. But still, it was like, the first amount that I’d ever charged, myself not working for a company. And so at that point, I was like, Okay, I think this is proof enough. Like I wanted it, she wanted it. Let’s make this thing usable. And I contacted my now business partner, Dave. And I asked him if he wanted to jump in on this, you know, 50% with me, get this thing on the App Store, redo it, so it looks great. And that was that was the point. So that was we formed the business in May of 2017.
Andy Halko 11:58
That’s fantastic. Okay. I think overall great story of like, you know, finding a problem going out at someone just telling your story, someone wanting to put money into that, and then figuring it out building a business if you guys have built a fantastic company. So thank you. So just kind of on the other side, that that sounds all great. And every, you know, software owner and software founder, they look and we see these companies be successful. They think it’s overnight. So tell me why it’s not an overnight success. What have you, you know, tell me the reality of it, What What mistakes or barriers have you had? And what challenges do you tend to face? Yeah,
David Lecko 12:45
well, man, so I guess I didn’t make it sound kind of easy. But I lived for a whole year off of savings. And so that took years of sacrifice, because at the time, I was like, 27, and I had saved 40% of everything, I made it every job along the way there. And I’ve pretty much like depleted that for living off of it for a whole year to work on DealMachine , you know, plus the, like, 10,000, or whatever dollars. So preparation there. And then also, like, it’s a really good thing that like my partner and I like grew up together. Like he’s just wildly talented on the development side. And I know, that’s always like a huge barrier to get over for software companies. And I am a developer, but like, I recognize she`s way better than me. So I would say that preparation and sacrifice, like on my side financially, you know, plus, like the luck of just like, having a great relationship with somebody who’s super talented, technically, are definitely factors for us.
Andy Halko 13:53
Would you recommend for other founders to find partners or more versus trying on their own?
David Lecko 14:00
I, I wouldn’t really recommend jumping into a partnership with somebody you don’t know well, because especially in real estate, people always like do that. And then it kind of like breaks up because they didn’t take the time to like really get to know each other people change. You know, it’s kind of more serious than being married if the business is a real legitimate business. And so I would, the advice I give is like go to Upwork spend 500 or $1,000 creating like a minimum viable product. And then actually like sell some stuff and prove to yourself that this is something people are willing to buy, you know, gather feedback and then either spend your own more of your own money or just like fundraise. That would be my or get alone. That would be my recommendation. Excuse me, but there was one point I wanted to address was I think an our one reason why we’ve been so successful in our industry is because There are a lot of people who believe heavily in multiple streams of income, which aren’t bad. But I think they go on to diversify their streams of income way too early. For example, like there’s like, now that we’ve like approached like 10 million arr. And we’ve been there for a little while, like, seven copycats, literally just exact clones that use the same exact language on their, their app, their ads, and their websites and their app store listings have come out. And a majority of them RP are just individuals that have five other businesses already. So there’s just not a there’s not as much focus as we’ve had on on making one thing really great. And I think that is why we’ve had the success that we’ve had.
Andy Halko 15:54
So how do you how do you maintain that with all these, you know, people coming off the street? And I’m sure that happens in the software space all the time is that, you know, you come up with new things. How do you stay ahead? How do you, you know you’re growing?
David Lecko 16:09
Well, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that affects me, you know, and I just listened to your Saas podcast, I forget who it was his recent episode. And the guy was saying, like, this happened to them. And like, it literally didn’t make any difference. So he, he was, he wouldn’t have worried so much. And so if I think about it, in the last two years, three, two or three years, there’s been always like somebody, right, somebody that’s like, ooh, that’s really making me upset or worried. And then like, it changes like months later. So I think I finally felt more comfortable. Still keeping an eye out, but like, not getting worried. And one, one thing that really helped me is, this quote, like the, the amount of uncertainty that you are able to deal with in your life is proportional to the quality of life that you can have. And so having a really successful business is, you know, part of that is going to come with a lot of copycats. And so I think that my focus is like better to focus on our mission. And their mission is just to copy us so that there’s no way they can get ahead if they’re just copying us. So as long as we focus on our mission, and we execute that really well, we will always be ahead. And so that is that is what I have told myself and what we focus on.
Andy Halko 17:30
Yeah, I think we, we had a call probably a couple of weeks ago, where you were worried about something and I asked that you, you said that quote, you’re like I just went out to my pool with just sand on it and stop worrying. Yeah, so I mean, you’re living it for sure. I believe it. Um, so tell us a little bit about a challenge, you did mention a little bit into that space of like, it wasn’t as simple as it seemed. But were there any like Pitfall, like major mistakes, or, you know, big barrier that you hit somewhere along the way?
David Lecko 18:09
The, the biggest problem is actually what we hired you to help solve. And that was we hit a growth ceiling, because our churn rate was so our monthly churn rate was too high. And it’s still something that we’ve we’ve got to keep staring in the face to get down much lower. But believe when we came to you, it was about like, 15%. And then last time I checked, it was around like, between 10 and 12. And so, like, it went from 15 to seven I knew going in, I was like, Oh, this is like a $50,000 a month problem. So like already, like there’s 1000s of dollars being saved, and retained. And so thank you. I know, the biggest project that we did with you guys that really helped was addressing our passive churn, which is like credit cards being failed. And then also this, this dashboard, because you guys said, hey, when you like start the machine, you just go this map, and there’s like, not a lot of instruction on what to do. And we created this dashboard that had software tutorial case studies that rotate, webinars sign up, and then like steps for the for the member to like be able to follow. And so we iterated on that since then. But those are the two biggest things that I believe helped push us down. And I know we’ve got a list of things we’re gonna continue to tackle today.
Andy Halko 19:35
Yeah, no, I appreciate you mention that. Obviously, we really enjoy working with you. And that’s my passion isn’t software, obviously our company, but you know, you guys are amazing. And I just want to put this out there. We work with a lot of people in this space. I think you guys are amazing that we bring ideas and three days later, you know, your team’s already showing us showing us examples of okay, This is what it can look like. And we’re gonna have it launched in two days. And I, you know, that kind of turns into a question of, you know, how have you have you purposely developed such an agile, like quick culture to take an idea on a Wednesday that we have a meeting and next Wednesday say, what do you got to think about launching this tomorrow?
David Lecko 20:24
Yeah, well, yeah, in terms of our culture, there’s a trade off. And we’ve definitely aligned it, at least initially to be a speed advantage. So are developers like they just commit to master, and they’re careful. And we can’t keep doing that we’ll eventually need to have more mature processes. And also hiring a third party to fix a problem when they say something that carries a lot more weight than an internal team member saying we need to do this or fighting for doing something. And we definitely saw that because we Elise joins our calls with you and me, right, she’s our customer success manager definitely has some product recommendations all the time. And we’ve always pushed those off to say like, I think those are really great ideas. And thank you. But we’re building this other thing. And everybody’s really busy building this other thing right now. So we we are not going to do that right now. But then we hired you and you said like similar things that Elise said, and then the conversation was like, hey, like, we should listen to what insivia saying because we’re paying them to tell us what to do. So we do it. And so it was just weird to see that happen, but certainly a learning experience. And that’s definitely a big reason why stuff happens so quickly.
Andy Halko 21:48
Yeah. No, I mean, I think that’s common that we deal with, we deal with marketing companies, or companies for years in marketing, you always hear marketing manager say, I need you to come in and talk tell the boss exactly what I said. He’s not going to listen to me unless you say it. So I mean, it’s just one of those things that I think when you’re paying somebody to come in with an outside perspective, it’s it adds more weight to it. So interesting. Um, so what kind of inspires you every day get up and do this, like, what keeps you passionate? What keeps you you know, motivated at the energy level that you are? Because I feel like you’re always a great energy level. But what keeps you there?
David Lecko 22:33
Thanks. Well, at first it started off where I was, like, dreaming of, I don’t know, something like growing up was like, like, I’m gonna fight and actually have financial freedom and like, be able to have like a nice house and a nice car that I want to drive and like, go on trips when I want to. And then my parents got kind of worried when I got into real estate, and they were worried about the risk that that wouldn’t take. So then it changed to like, Okay, I want to prove my parents wrong. And anyone else wrong, who would laugh at like the idea of like, doing whatever I said I was going to do. And now like, all that’s been done, I’ve got a great house, my parents like love that I went in real estate, I’ve been able to, like, buy them treats, like going to see Elton John or Paul McCartney and stuff like that, that they really enjoy. And I enjoy doing with them. But now it’s, it’s more of and I had a period where I was like, Okay, I’m kind of happy and satisfied. So I’m gonna kick back a little bit. But now it’s more like I’m kind of being I’m building my own person. I’m building myself that’s like, the most valuable asset is yourself. And the business for me is like the vehicle for personal development, because every new challenge every uptick with MRR is like something that I’m going to have to learn and do. And if I were to say, like, sell the business, or just kick back and relax. I feel like I kind of be lost because it wouldn’t deliver that why for me, it wouldn’t be improving myself for me. So that’s, that’s my current wise, I’m kind of like, afraid of not becoming the best version of myself that I can be. And that keeps me going.
Tony Zayas 24:22
Yeah, so David, I love that story about your parents kind of there was like, you know, there was a negative, right, like you wanted to prove them wrong, in a sense, right? And it kind of fueled and pushed you for so I’m a big believer in that. I think, you know, positives will take you so far. But when things get difficult and like times are tough, it or even when when things are just kind of like like status quo, that doesn’t always motivate you and drive you past you know, work you know, to get you to the next level. So what is there anything now that you would say is kind of like a negative driver like that that keeps you on your toes always pushing forward.
David Lecko 25:04
Oh, yeah. So there’s like a recent copycat that came out that some people who I would assume are like my friends, like, kind of like covertly like made. So I was like, dang, I guess I would appreciate like a heads up, you know, if we had that kind of friendship, I thought we have. And so that’s not my primary motivator. But like, when I’m thinking about, like, bigger moves that we want to make. I’m really fueled by like, oh, yeah, like they, they definitely wouldn’t be able to do that. I think that’s healthy or not. But that’s, that’s,
Andy Halko 25:39
I was on a webinar with Mark Cuban not that long ago. And it was really interesting to hear him talk because he would talk about how for his team, he put so much effort into them, and, you know, love them treating them well. But he was extremely competitive on the outside, his job is to crush competitors. And it was such a really interesting dichotomy for me of, you know, this kind of love for his people and, and standing behind them and seeing it as a team. But then the outside world, look, we’re in a game, and we’re all fighting the win. And that’s just the way it is. Yeah, I’m totally on board with it.
Tony Zayas 26:22
I actually put a list together not too long ago of kind of those type of people prove me wrong list. And I even I told my wife about it. And I said, like I told her and like you kind of surprised at some of the people that are on there. And to your point, David, there’s some of those people that are out there that you might think are friends, and then whatever. But those are the ones sometimes that motivate you more than anybody else. So pretty interesting.
Andy Halko 26:46
Was there. You know, a couple more questions. Was there any like major catalyst or turning point for growth in the business, like something that really just drove that that hockey stick up for you guys?
David Lecko 27:00
Yeah. So early on, I started going to conferences, real estate investor conferences. And serendipitously, I ran into somebody who’s the biggest person on YouTube and in our space now. And he was he had no followers when I first met him. So his fifth blog, he made about DealMachine , he really liked the product. And he had already picked it up himself. But like, we definitely rose along with his popularity because of those videos that he made. And then it caused other people to kind of mimic what he’s doing. And so well, he’s promoting DealMachine . So then others kind of fell in line with promoting DealMachine . So partners, I mean, partners we’re, we’re in are a huge part of our growth affiliate partners. And so a strategy that has worked really well for us, you know, that was pretty serendipitous, you could certainly put yourself in the places for that to happen, right? You can only control what you can control, and that’s going to the conferences, and meeting people like that. But I would say like if you can score the biggest, you know, influencer, or the fastest growing influencer in your space, you’ll reap the benefits of others just falling in line and like mimicking that, and that’ll be really good for your business.
Andy Halko 28:27
You know what, when I think about you talk about the copycats and thinking about they can’t do this, and you know, they’re probably sitting there going, Wow, it’s so lucky. He really is just a lucky, you know, he just stumbles into this. He’s getting locked his preparation meeting opportunity. And the fact that you go to a bunch of conferences, and you’re active, and you, you know, start your session when you’re prepared about, you know, what you want to say, I disagree. You know, I mean, that’s where there’s a lot of people out there that look at successful books and say, Man, you’re lucky. That’s not the case. Yeah,
David Lecko 29:02
well, I am lucky, but I also did a lot of work. And it’s always a combination of the two, I feel. Yeah, yeah. Cuz I mean, I had an app, and I went to all the conferences. So the preparation was ready for that to happen. That’s awesome. But I guess going back to that big problem with the churn, I would say a pitfall that we definitely ran into is like not tackling it soon enough. So my, one of my other mentors, he told me about this thing called a growth ceiling. And I ignored it for like, over a year. We were just growing so fast, the churn, the 15% churn, it didn’t actually we didn’t feel it, because every month was like, Wow, 15% growth this month. Wow. 15% growth again this month. You know, it was just like, What are you talking about a growth stealing that’s, that’s silly. We’re better than that. But then it finally caught up to us. It always will. there’ll be come a point where you just can’t outsell the number of people that are dropping off. And you’ve got to fix that churn. So if we, if there’s like a do it again, I would have definitely brought you in like a year sooner.
Andy Halko 30:17
I can’t say I don’t we’re, you know, we’re not even pushing yet. But no, it’s been great. I, you know, that’s what I love about us working through churn with folks is, it’s very tangible. You know, it’s something that you can sit and say, Okay, we make this change. We can see in this, these analytics that something’s improved, we can tie that to revenue and dollars. And so I love working through stuff that has set up, you know, concrete impact to a business.
David Lecko 30:52
Absolutely. You got to measure it
Andy Halko 30:56
can’t cut until you measure, right. Yeah. So just my last question, and you guys are happy to jump in with other thoughts. But like, what kind of advice would you give to other software founders that are looking to either startup product or are in the early stages of their, their journey?
David Lecko 31:19
Gotcha. What Yeah, so I get I’ve given the same advice several times about like, hey, just go build a minimum viable product, find somebody on Upwork to do that for you. And then like, try to see if you can sell anything. That’s definitely the first one. I think going to those industry meetings is certainly a good idea, as long as there’s not a COVID Scare. Let’s see what other advice. They I’m big mentors. And thinking about, you know, in SaaS, if you make a small tweak, like that has really big effects, really big effects, especially if you think about every dollar of revenue is potentially worth $10 In a sale, because the 10x multiplier that software companies so often get. So just always think about how big the return on investment can be, you can usually calculate it, and then quickly make decisions, you know, like hiring a consultant to fix a certain problem, because you know, how big of an impact that can make.
Tony Zayas 32:27
Very cool. So David, I have one last question for you unless Andy comes up with another one. But I just a two part question. So what does the roadmap look like for DealMachine ? Part One and Part Two for you?
David Lecko 32:42
Yeah. So for DealMachine , we’re going to be the HubSpot of real estate. And we’ll be at 20 million, so about double the size within two years. And the plan is just like HubSpot has like a CMS hub, a sales hub, a marketing hub, but it’s all in the same app. They’re all like intermingled. But they’re all separate products as well, at the same time that has, they’re all linked by this free CRM. So that’s like a definitely a huge influence for us. And what drives a lot of our product roadmap in the real estate investor space. So as I was kind of saying before, like a lot of these other companies, they’ll have like an app here and app, their business here business, they’re a cold calling company, a va company, blah, blah, blah, like we’re just trying really hard to focus in on making that all an enterprise level software that’s like seamlessly designed together in the same app. So we’ve got our work cut out for us, because we really, we only have one of those hubs today. We’ve got like an alpha version of the free CRM that’s out there and you can use but it’s got to have, it’s got to be beefed up for like an enterprise level investor to be able to run their entire business off of it. So we’ve got an exciting roadmap, I would say for the next couple of years. And we’ll definitely be leading the pack in that space.
Andy Halko 34:07
Yeah, oh, another question I have is, you already taught your cat how to use the toilet. What’s the next thing that you’re gonna eat?
David Lecko 34:15
Oh, he’s overweight. Now. We got to stop feeding him. I heard
Andy Halko 34:20
Oh, is he still doing it?
David Lecko 34:22
Oh, yeah. He we actually moved into a new house. And then we very intentionally kind of like, left him in the bathroom at night for the first week. And then just kind of kept a close eye on him. Make sure he goes in the right spot. So he did use the sink a couple times. But we we stopped that. And now he’s, he’s, he’s situated. He’s actually right here.
Andy Halko 34:44
Let’s see him.
David Lecko 34:48
He said on that chair on if you
Andy Halko 34:50
can see almost all of our meetings so
David Lecko 34:53
yeah, he’s a special cat. He’s a bangle and their personality really loves to be around people, so he just he’s either sitting by me or sitting by my girlfriend over in her desk. That’s funny.
Andy Halko 35:08
Well, thank you so much anything else that you’d like to leave our audience with? Or any final thoughts?
David Lecko 35:16
Well, I always say this to the people who are starting real estate businesses. And I think the same applies with software. And the same applies with me battling churn is like, don’t give up. And I decided that is their biggest problem is that they, they think it takes 20 properties, and then they give up and move on to something else. So you got to have the right expectation set, and then you got to consistently execute on there. With that in mind. So I tell that to myself, as well, in terms of this turn, I know some of my peers with software companies this size in the space have 7% churn. So obviously, it’s doable. So like yo ou better believe, like, I’m not giving up on reducing that. So we’re gonna keep working really hard towards that goal. And that’s my, that’s my advice. Everyone else is like, talk to people who have done it before and know that it can be done again and figure out how but don’t give up if that’s truly your goal. So it’s up to you guys. Take that away and read your journals, and live the life and have the business that you want. With that advice.
Tony Zayas 36:32
So awesome. Yeah,
Andy Halko 36:33
I think that’s awesome. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to jump on this show with us, obviously been a fantastic client that we love working with. And yeah, I think, cheers the continued success for all of us. Right.
David Lecko 36:49
Absolutely. Cheers, guys. Thank you so much for your help. And thanks for having me on.
Tony Zayas 36:55
Thanks so much, David. All right.
David Lecko 36:58
We’ll talk to you soon.
Tony Zayas 36:59
Bye, everybody. Thanks for tuning in.