00:26 Hey, welcome back to the show. I am so stoked today to have Michael with us because he's talking about a growth path that I don't normally dive into a lot, but this is a really fun, fun way to build and grow. So Michael, start us off, man. Who are you? And what do you do?  

00:40 Awesome, Todd. Yeah. Thank you so much. I'm stoked to be here as well. You know, we, uh, in the simplest form we're, we're florists. And I think when people hear that they say a florist and they think of their mom and pop shop or maybe 1-800 flowers. And it's like, You know, it's kind of a romantic idea. It's up there with bakery and cafe. People might want to open their flower shop, but they're like, can you really make money being a florist? Right. Yes. Yes, you can. Because so many people ask that question. That's where the opportunity is, right. So we'll dive more into it, but we're in the retail florist industry. 

01:11 Love it. And so retail florists, as opposed to what?  

01:20 Yeah. You know, there's different, yeah, there's different models, right? We, we own the whole supply chain except for the farm. So we purchase flowers from the farm, get imported into the airport. We pick them up. And yeah, it's an amazing supply chain. Um, we also design onsite and then we're responsible for the last mile delivery. So think of if you're trying to buy flowers for the holiday season, happy birthday, happy anniversary. Um, we do some events and corporate accounts as well, but it's mostly just the everyday occasion.  

01:44 That's amazing. And so do you have a brick and mortar? I mean, is this part of the, what, what's kind of the setup? What are you doing and how many stores do you have now?  

01:51 Yeah. So we have four stores right now. We, um, it is technically a brick and mortar, but. I think a better way of looking at it is looking at our locations like a fulfillment center or a production facility So we have a little bit of a different business model Than a traditional brick and mortar florist because 95 of our orders come through the website or online And the space that we have it's been really important that you know The margins are kind of thin as a florist. And so how do we? Uh, build better technology. How do we have a better supply chain? How do we keep overhead low? So we have, you know, lower rent costs. Um, and so we can go to these spaces. That's not necessarily a plus commercial real estate, but that we can, you know, do 150 or 200 orders a day out of. So we're building these hubs, um, all across, we're, we're kind of expanding in, uh, the Southwest US right now, but eventually we'll kind of are in the process of scaling nationwide eventually. 

02:43 Okay. So that's nuts because I think florist, and I do think like, A plus location, location, location, location. And like, if people don't see you, they're not buying your flowers, but you're saying 95 percent orders come online.  Talk to me about that. That's insane.  

03:00 Look, the, I, I, we're all about, we're in the business of, of emotions. We're in the business of relationships. Um, we want with any business, we care about customer lifetime value, developing a relationship with our customers. But the reality is, uh, no matter how much I don't want to look at it, you know, we have to, it's a pretty transactional experience. The first time you're ordering flowers,  you're going for convenience, right? You don't necessarily want to walk into your florist anymore. You just type into Google or, you know, even chatGPT are becoming the emerging search engines now. And you search best flowers in, you know, city name, best flowers, Detroit, best flowers, New York, best flowers. Beverly hills and whichever one comes up to the top, whether it's unpaid or organic, you know, granted, that's a decent website has good reviews, you like the designs you're just going to go for pretty much the most convenient option. And so that's where it starts. And so we've gotten really, really good at that digital presence. Um, having, you know, investing in conversion rate, optimization, search engine optimization. And then once we get that customer, then we've invested an incredible amount into like retaining that customer. And that's after that first transaction, that's where we can start to build a relationship. Yeah. So it's online. So we don't, you know, we don't, we don't need crazy high Beverly Hills rents. We can go right outside of Beverly Hills and still service the same clientele because these folks are now, you know, more than ever ordering online. They're not walking into the local. 

04:24 Right. Right. No, I love it. And honestly, like I think of, I think of the typical florist being a one stop brick and mortar and they have their, you local supply chain, and maybe they are getting some stuff, uh, flown in, but not much. It's mostly just like, you know, working with what they've got and they do a beautiful job,  but I don't know many people that have branched into four stores. And you're talking about doing a lot more than that. Walk us through your strategy here. Cause this is a, this is a really cool. It's really cool to hear someone in this industry thinking big,  

04:57 Totally. Yeah. And so, um, I'll give you, uh, kind of the past, present and future. I'll do it as quickly as I can. Um, and, and before I do that, I'll give you kind of like, what's the current state of the industry, right? The current state of the industry is we have 30,000 flower shops in the U S. 30, 000 of them. Uh, I think there's like 34, 000 Starbucks stores. So you can kind of imagine, you know, you don't really,  yeah, in the States. So there's a lot of, and so, you know, the, the difference between the coffee industry and the floral industry, you know, Starbucks or Dunkin, depending on what part of the country you're in, you know, have the dominant market share.There's nobody that has that. The top three brands in the florist industry have less than 10 percent of the market share. And so what that means.  It's just a, you know, wildly fragmented market. It's all mom and pop. And, you know, when you think about it, there's, you know, you go into your local family owned flat florist, that's pretty much it. 99 percent of the time what it is. Um, and so, you know, there's an opportunity to create this exceptional brand that is more nationwide, uh, recognized, um, similar to how, you know, I know there's more innovations with third wave coffee, but right now still, you know, Starbucks owns your coffee. Um, McDonald's owns the word franchise. You know, nobody really owns the word flowers. You might think of one 800 flowers. But they're an online broker. They're not an actual florist. They broker the deal and, you know, take massive commissions and they just syndicate it to the local florist. Um, so there's no real tangible. 

06:30 Which is the opposite effect. Yeah, they're, they're hurting the industry more than they're helping in a lot of ways. 

06:33 They are. Yeah. And it's one of the reasons why our industry has faced the stagnation that it has. You know, it's, it's a big, it's a 19 billion industry, but you know, you have a space where the dominant market players  have a, have a strong grasp and they don't want innovation to occur because they want to stay the middlemen. Um, you know, it's hard to say 19 billion and small in the same sentence, but you know, when you look at institutional capital, like hedge funds and private equity and venture capital, you know, they're really going after the trillion dollar opportunities. They don't care about a 19 billion industry. So you don't have external innovations happening, you don't have innovations from the in, from within. That's interesting happening. Yeah. So it's been a really stagnant, um, you know, uh, industry. And so that's, that's how I came into it. Um, there, uh, my uncle was owned a flower shop and he wanted to sell it. He was struggling. There's no innovation, there's no technology. He wasn't making money. He was working six more weeks. Um, and he was a creative, he's passionate. Um, he loves the industry, but like he's not making money in it. And at the end of the day, like. Financial is not the most important thing necessarily, but it sure is pretty important, you know, have to figure it out. Yeah, for sure. So, you know, he, my background is in finance originally, uh, recovering, you know, finance person. And so, um,  he, he asked me to help him sell the business.  So I said Sure. I was working consulting at the time, you know, working in a room with a bunch of old white guys in suits and I didn't, didn't like it, you know, um, was young and 

08:02 I feel you. Yeah, 

08:03 Yeah.  So, uh, it'll be me one day that, that person, but hopefully I'll work some of the folks that I worked with, you know, back, you know, five years ago. 08:11 Right, right, right. It'll happen, I promise.  

08:13 I'm sure it will, but, um,  so I, I went in to go and help him sell his business and ended up learning about the industry and, and kind of everything that I described to you, um, just now there's, there's an opportunity to maybe take over his shop and invest in some, in building some exceptional technology, building a brand. And so that's what we did. We got to work. Um, and I, I made a deal with him. I purchased the company, uh, from him and, uh, we started, you know, investing in brand, investing in conversion rate optimization, a nice front end technology, a better supply chain, better customer experience. At the end of the day, that's what it comes down to. We have, we have the best, we have the best tech in the world. Our customers could care less about that, right? They just want beautiful flowers, but the tech enables us to create a better experience, right? And so that's important. Um, and so, you know, we became, uh, pretty quickly the largest florist in LA, uh, our, our single shop in LA, the single location we'll do north of 10 million in revenue this year. Um, and then,  yeah, we opened up a couple additional locations and, uh, the first location did over 900K in the first year. The second location. Um, did 1.15 in its first year, the newest location. Yeah. It's in its second year and it's on track to do over 1.8 million this year. Um, so these shops are growing so rapidly and just as a point of comparison, the average flower shop, uh, is doing around 350K in revenue. And we've never launched a flower shop as less than 900 grand revenue in the first year. And so we're like, wow, do we have something really interesting here? You know, we can continue to open a bunch of corporate stores. We could take the technology and license it out and become like a tech company. But for us, like we, we were very mission driven. Um, Obviously this financial motivation in the world, that's, it's a, you know, it's a part of, um, you know, we have to, uh, have our, you know, creative family and have freedoms and financial as a part of that. There's a broader mission. That's so much more, um, that we're after, which is, you know, this industry has kind of been taken advantage of for a really long time.And these mom and pop pops, it's amazing. Like we don't necessarily need. To go and open a corporate location and crush, crush the little guys. Um, we're really creating the company to kind of crush, uh, if we are going to crush somebody, it's going to be the big conglomerate, one 800 flowers, Teleflora, 

10:35 The middlemen, the middlemen, the middlemen out of it. Right.?

10:36 Totally. And so what we decided is we really liked the opportunity, um, that franchising allowed us to do. And, uh, I used to have kind of a negative connotation with franchising. Actually, you know, you can think of like Subway or 7 Eleven.  And there's, there's seemingly there's good systems out there and bad systems. So we really studied the franchise system and we're like, how could we make one of the best franchise systems that exists today? That's very florist first franchise owner first. Um, and us, you know, we only eat if they eat, right? Like, let's set this up in a sustainable way. How do we create a company a hundred years from now?  So, um, so that's the path moving forward. We're, we're expanding our franchise in two different ways. Um, the first way is we can partner with existing florists. And so the industry can stay mom and pop owned, but now they can operate under this cohesive brand with a much better technology stack, much higher average order.

11:30 www.captainscouncil.com

13:10 Hey,  yeah, no, I was going to say like you don't want to, you don't want to replace the mom and pops, but you want to give them access to a system. As opposed to piece of paper and napkins saying, Oh, you need, you got a funeral. Come on. We got this, you got that. Like you're talking about actually building, you've already built the resources that they need to take what they're doing at an average of 300 K a year and turn it into a million plus a year. Is that what you're saying?  

13:35 Yeah. I mean, we say it, we say it, uh, when we're talking to a florist, we, we describe it as we're really good at the boring stuff and you're really good at the passion and the creativity. And when we combine our forces, we get a pretty profound result, right? Like we can do the finance, we can do the operations, we can do the technology, we can do the supply chain. We can give you all of this stuff, but like, if you're really focused on doing the creative aspect of the job and making sure the customer experience is unparalleled compared to anything else out there, you'll be the number one in your portfolio In your, you know, in your county or city, whatever you want to dominate, you'll, you can be that person.  

14:10 I feel like, I mean, I definitely feel like, like most florists that I've ever interacted with, they are, cause you know, I've got, I've got a son that just got married a couple of years ago. I've got like, you know, funerals and all the other normal stuff. But like  those, those occasions where you work with a florist, generally speaking, they're great people. They, they have a great creativity. They really empathize. They try to understand what the situation is so they know how to bring in the right, right product. And I feel like there's such a, there's such an, it's a good creative outlet for people who want to be creative and it's a good business. If you have the right systems, processes, and tools, right? I mean,  and I think that most creatives who are tapping into this as a career path or as a, as a something they do, they don't have access to resources is like tech. Or, or ideas of how to build a better, you know, uh, have better supply chain and better suppliers and better farms. They can, they could buy from like, they don't even think about what's outside their Valley, let alone what's outside the state or the country. Right. So, so you're giving people an opportunity to take their creative side, plug into something that's awesome with supply and with, with systems and really just focus on the things that they love doing, which is the creative and the people and the exchanging of.Of heart and all that kind of stuff.  

15:35  A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, all of that, you kind of hit the nail on the head. Really? I don't, I couldn't really say it better myself. Um, you know,  I will say we, we talked to some florists and you're right. Some florists definitely don't even know anything that's kind of happening outside of their sphere. But you know, more and more actually, you know, florists are, um, becoming smarter and, you know, not using the wire services as And they, they do understand absolutely the, um, we've talked to probably more florists than not that understand. They know SEO is really important. They know email marketing is really important. They know they should probably have a loyalty program. They know more people are searching on mobile than on desktop. Maybe they should invest in a mobile application. Um, they know all of these things, but like, As any small business owner, especially one in the florist industry where there's no tech or, you know, um,  there there's, you're not making a lot of money, so it's hard to reinvest into, you know, all of this new stuff. Um, they know what they should be doing, but they don't have the financial capital. They don't have the human capital to do it. And so, yeah, the beauty of the system is like, we poured literally tens of millions of dollars into, in the past six years with a gigantic team of people that are really passionate and aligned with our values, um, our, our number one value, our values are L O V E. Um, we'll go through all of them, but the first one is for L is love what you do.  And so totally like what you're saying, if the florist can focus on the creative and that customer experience, they're doing what they love and,  you know, we love the boring stuff, uh, we really do. Um, and yeah, again, that's just, it's a, it's a magical combination where we've been able to, you know, we've launched a few franchise stores already and, um, you know, they're on track to hit close to a million in their first year, similar to what we've seen with our corporate locations.

17:18 Um, so we're really excited and the boring to your point, man, the boring stuff is actually really fun when you have more volume that you get to play with. Right. 

17:26 Yeah, totally. 

17:27 We have, I mean, you call, you call a supplier and say, I've got one big event coming up where I'm going to need your product. They're going to not treat you very nice, but I mean, you call a farmer and say, Hey, you know what? We've got, we've got 10 stores all needing this type of thing during these seasons. What do you got? It makes the conversation a lot more fun. 

17:46 Totally. I love it. I think nobody expects a florist to come in and, you know, have a big budget and I have a lot of fun with it. Um, you know, I'll talk to folks and they're like, Oh, what are you looking to spend? Like two or 3,000. I'm like, no, no, no. Like we've got like a four or 5 million budget this year for that. And they're like, Oh, 

18:07 that's not the normal conversation. Yeah. 

18:08 Yeah. Not, not for florist, but it's, it's great. Um, we we're having a lot of fun with it. We would. 

18:11 So, so, so talk to me about this, because again, you know, to, to think of a, of a florist shop, I.  You know, I've not been to your floor shop in LA. I don't, I've never seen a 10 million a year revenue floor shop. Like walk me through that versus my, my typical mom and shop, my mom, the pop shop, because I I'm having, it's gotta be an A plus location, right? Cause this is your first store, right? I mean, is it not, you're just  walk us through this. Cause this is a, it's kind of blowing my mind here.  

18:41 Yeah. So it's our original location. Um, it's 3000 square feet. It's much bigger than, you know, the stores that we're designing these days. It is a little bit of a different beast. Um, you know, to do, um, you 10 million out of one location, it's a little bit different and so when we opened up our second or third location, we were like, you know, we need, we need, We really want to create a system where, um,  we want to give a lot of benefit to the, to the florist, but you know, there are florists that have, uh, what I'm about to say is a little controversial. I'm trying to prelude it. I'm not going to prelude it. I'll just say it, you know, an amazing franchise is going to be a system where the average person that has the average work ethic that has the average intellect, you know, on the average day is going to be able to perform above average results. Like that's, what's going to make a great franchise system. If you pair that system with an exceptional florist or an exceptional, like, you know, business person, that's going to be running it. That's when you get a great franchise system and great financial results. So, um, you know, we looked at the LA store and running it. Yeah. Running a 10 million store is. Um,  it's, it's, uh, it's a little bit of a different beast. Um, and so when we opened up the, uh, other couple of stores, we, you know, used a ton of data to say, okay, we want to open up stores that do between two to 3 million in revenue. Cause it's really easy to run that, the work structure and the ability to manage a store that's doing two to three million night and day compared to, you know, our behemoth in LA. And so, you know, we have, we were able to reverse engineer these territories, uh, based on the data that we have, the demographics and psychographics and a whole bunch of interesting stuff. Um, and so the second location that we have, 

20:23 All the typical stuff, all the typical stuff that a florist looks at when they're opening a store, right?

20:30 So, you know, 

20:32 So you're  bringing value, I mean, my guess is that with all the data you're collecting with all the, all the research you're doing, and as you consider new store locations, you are diving into those numbers and, and I'm just speaking out loud, not, not knowing for sure, but the florists that I do know,  I can assure you, they are not doing that. They are just helping a friend with a wedding and then it turns into, oh, Somebody called them for a funeral and then all of a sudden they're doing a graduation and they're building lathes for the high school and you know, I mean, it's like it evolves. It doesn't go typically these stores don't start because somebody was like, dude, where's the best? What are my stats looking like? Like, where's a good place to plug in? Oh, that's only five miles away. I'm going to go five miles away than going 10 miles that way. You know what I mean, 

21:19 Totally. Yeah, but the reality is it's that person who Happens to do their friend's wedding and then does the lay for the high school Like they care so much about what they do. It makes them feel good. I don't like playing with nature And so those are the folks that we want to partner with we could open up 400 corporate locations And it probably would be more financially beneficial for us But like there's a very intentional choice that we would be It's, it's the consumer experience, like who's going to provide the best consumer experience. That's the route that we're going to go. Right. Cause that's how we're going to create a sustainable company. 

21:54 Interesting.  Interesting. I love it. Very cool stuff, man. I mean, as you look back at the model and your, and your, your growth in your first, say two stores, and you look at what, what did you do to kind of identify the things that you needed to do in order to make it actually grow the way it did? Is there anything that sticks out? I mean, I'm guessing 10 different things, but like in your mind. What were the two or three things that really jumps out at you and say, you know, it's because we did this and that, that we're able to go from, from one to five, for example. 

22:26 Yeah, totally. I mean, the one to five is really, really hard. I mean, I read a book one time that it was, you know, obscene title, but it's kind of true. They said the first billion is the hardest.  Uh,  you know,  kind of true, like, you know,  you know, divide that by a hundred and the first, um, the first million is the hardest, right? And so there is a little bit of, you gotta put in the work, you gotta,  you know,  um,  I, I spent a lot of nights sleeping in the florist.Like we, we come from a background where when I came into the business, it wasn't doing well and, uh, we didn't know how to make payroll and I had to dip into my own bank account to, to make sure that that happened. Um, So there is a little bit of that, but you know, what we've done is you have to love what you do. You have to have passion, um, because if you don't, you will get burned out and you're going to get burned out either way, but like, you're going to be able to pick yourself up if you're enjoying what you're doing. So that's when we hire around that, we fire around that. We promote around that. Um, like you have to love what you do. And, um, so that that's been an important one for us and just adopting that into the DNA of our culture, uh, has been important and all the folks that we bring onto our team, but. As soon as we started to do a little bit better, we had a little bit more resources to hire more people. Um, I always hired people that were way smarter than me. Uh, you know, I think that sometimes people have a little bit of fear of, you know, they want control or, Oh, this person is not going to do it the way that I've done it, but what we found is that person's probably not going to do it the way that you did it, but the result is either going to be the same or it might be better depending on if you can find somebody that's better than you. Um, so, you know, we, we relentlessly, uh, I'm, I'm good at my area of expertise. I love the technology side. I love brand. Um, but I'm not a supply chain guy. I'm not operations. So we brought, you know, our COO in, uh, we've recently brought a CFO in. Like, I, maybe we give myself, I, I love numbers and I love data, but there are people that are smarter than me in finance. And so like, you bring those people in and Yes. Um, and that's been game changing for us. So, you know, and, and it doesn't have to be paid positions too, like advisors. Um, yeah, people just are willing to help if you go out and ask for it. And if you go to people that are smarter than you,  they're so happy to help. So it's been a huge help for us.  

24:40 I agree with that completely. And I think that that's another thing I'm guessing that you get with the franchise model is that, Hey, I'm not just a florist operating in this town. I can be part of a network of florists who are all Operating in similar circumstances saying, Hey guys, what are you doing about this? I got this thing going on. There's this town event coming up. How do you guys handle that? Like there's legit questions that many people struggle to figure out only through experience. And sometimes that can kill your business as opposed to saying, Hey, network of other, of other florists. What am I doing? What, what, what do you guys do here?  

25:19 A hundred percent. Yeah. I couldn't agree with that more. Um, so that's, that's been huge for us and we continue to lean in that super heavily. And, uh, yeah, I mean, to, to join a team of, you know, over 80 people, um, and you're the owner of your business, you're in business for yourself. You're your own boss, but not in business by yourself. Uh, that's, that's awesome. And, uh, again, there's good and there's bad friends out there, but they're really, really good ones out there. Um, you know, I think a lot of that are more aligned with that model. 

25:53 So, so in closing, you know, I, I would love to just hear from you. Like it. If I'm a typical florist or if I'm someone looking to quit my job and I love doing I've done These things on the side. I want to tap into my creative and I want to build something awesome  What are the what are the three biggest things I would get from from? Joining with you as opposed to going off and just trying to figure it out on my own.  

26:14 Yeah, totally.Um, gosh, there's so many ways that we could tackle that Answer, but  it, it, yeah. Thank you for pointing that out. We, we recently launched the opportunity for somebody who, you know, maybe has been working corporate for a long time and, uh, you know, doesn't have any floral experience. Um, they can now join our system as well and they can open a French florist. And we have this incredibly robust training program that we've developed. It's all included in the program, doesn't cost anything, um, besides, you know, the normal stuff that. Even a conversion franchise would pay for, um, but it's called French florist university. It's over 300 videos that trains you literally from soup to nuts on, on how to run a florist  in person training. We help you open your store from site selection, lease negotiation, physical build out. We come to your site to help train you. We're there with you every step of the way. And then, um, so yeah, we, the opportunity for somebody who wants to quit their job and, and start their own business, we have that opportunity. The three things that you get with us.  You know,  my mind's in more of a financial mind. If you ask our chief operations officer, if you ask our chief marketing officer, you might get a different response. Mine would be, you know, the number three goal is  grow your revenue like crazy. Um, let's get you to be a million dollar flower shop. And then let's continue to scale that up. The number two goal is the number three goal doesn't matter if that revenue is unprofitable. So let's maximize your profit as well. I want you to be able to, uh, you know, go and take that 10 AM yoga class, go to pick up your kids from school, um, and not have to worry about, you know, is it, am I going to get fired for, you know,  and, and that, and so that, that, that revenue has to be profitable, which allows you freedom, which leads into the number one goal, which is,  you know, what's the most finite resource any of us have our time. And so it's great in your destiny and, you know, have that flexibility and freedom to get your time back. You know, if our franchise owners call us and say, Mike, I'm taking a three week vacation to France or Japan, uh, you know, in a couple of months, um,  like that's what fires me up the most. They could tell me they're making a million bucks a year in profit. And it's like, cool, man. Like, are you having fun? Are you enjoying life? What else? Um, and so it's really kind of that deeper stuff that is, uh, what are you going to do with your time once you get it back? Like, that's. That's what you get with our franchise program. That's the goal.  

28:30 I love it. You know, I, I, I've not been, uh, I've never owned a franchise. I've never bought into a franchise, but I will say that, you know, in talking with as many people in startup communities as I have, I've, I've been a startup guy my whole life and I've built a lot of businesses and I'll say, when you find something that's disrupting an industry that, that is, you know, has got the tools.  Let me, let me just take even a step back further.  I've interviewed over 500 CEOs on this podcast. And, and if I were to lump sum all three, the three biggest problems I hear about people's growth journey, it's always people, processes, and tools. And, and what I love about franchise models is that for those that struggle with tech or, or aren't. Accustomed to what, what's going to help them systematize and automate and do things that they would otherwise be doing by hand.  The franchise model makes so much sense. And what you're talking about is you're giving an opportunity for someone to tap into  a 300 video series training, a supply chain that's already ready to go. Somebody else is thinking about my, my app and my ads and the, and the ability for someone to order online on my phone. I'm like, This sounds kind of dummy proof. Like if I have, if I've ever thought about opening a floor shop,  I can't think of any reason why I wouldn't look into your opportunity before I tried to go out and do my own thing. You know what I mean? Am I stupid for saying that? I mean, is this.  You've kind of, you've got to be one of the few in the industry doing this, right? 

30:05 We are. Yeah. We're the only ones doing it right now. Uh, but, uh, we're super welcoming. The florist industry needs more competition, more innovation, and that's what we're all about, you know, a rising tide lifts all boats and, uh, yeah, we're the only ones doing it so far, but yeah, we're happy to pave the way. 

30:18 Yeah. I love it. I love it. Fantastic. And for those of you listening who are struggling to get your own thing launched, I don't care what industry you're in. If you love.  a particular thing and you see an opportunity like this, I, I highly recommend just put a pause for an afternoon, hop on a call with someone like, like Michael here and figure out is this opportunity, something that would work for you as you're in your first run of starting a business and building something. Because a lot of people do hit the walls, they hit the wall and they don't know where to go. They don't know how to get over it. And Michael, I love that you've already hit those walls and you've broken ceilings that I'm guessing have. Of growth within a single force doing 10 million a year in one location. Like that's, that's something really cool that people can build up to and say, I've done this. Let me show you how, and maybe instead of doing that, why don't you open another one over here or another one over there? And all of a sudden you're helping build a strategy for people to be multi franchise owners and really grow within a network that's got the systems and processes and tools. 

31:24 Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. And I dunno, there's, like I said, there's so many people that have helped us in our journey so far, and that's, you know, not ending anytime soon. But, um, if anybody wants to reach out, you know, michael@frenchflorist.com. Happy to jump on 15 minutes. 

31:37 Oh, we're going to throw all the contact info below. And, and Michael, I appreciate you taking the time to be here with our audience. This is a fun, fun group of people all trying to learn how to grow and scale. And I love the direction you've taken to, to go franchise with this and congrats on the growth in the first couple of stores anyway, but I love your idea of franchising this thing. I wish you the best. And for those looking,  go check it out, man. I mean, every town needs a florist. So Michael, thanks for bringing this idea. Thanks for bringing the energy you have into the industry. And, uh, can't wait to hear what happens in the next couple of years. 

32:09 That's awesome. Todd. Yeah. That was a lot of fun. Hope to catch up with you very soon.