for having me today s Oh, my background waas in financial services. Um, I attended a Princeton University and studied financial engineering there. And then afterwards I went to work at a headphone um, this Waas Ah, in the late, uh, kind of like 2000 to 12,009 time when everyone was still going into finance. Obviously, it became a lot less interesting after 2009 but I was fortunate enough to get a job at a hedge fund. Uh, when I was at the hedge fund, we were, um, doing a bit of crawling, looking for data online and using that to make investment decisions. Um, so we were building all this technology to just collect data, and I found it really frustrating to build technology within a non technology company and obviously had many friends who worked in finance. I had the same problem. So everyone is struggling to build their own internal technology to collect the same data. So, um, I decided to partner up with a friend from college and we said, Hey, if we can build a single platform that does this really well, then we can sell this data to everyone. So, um, that's what we did

so they know is Ah ah, an alternative data company. So essentially, what we do is provide what's called alternative data from the web. So traditionally, if you work in finance, you have access to things like market data. So what the company reports to the world, they usually report once 1/4 obviously, you know, there, public company, their stock trades on every single day. So you so you have a price. Um, however, business activity has been coming online for a long time now. Um, so you see a company, you sell products online, they hire employees online. Uh, the same employees complained about the bosses online to complain about products online. So all this activity that's coming online create data that's very useful to telling you, uh, this company doing well or not? I can see for a restaurant where they're expanding, I could see for a technology company who they're trying to hire if they're laying off employees. According to social media, my contract, how much? They're Paris cost over time. So all these not data trails that are created when companies come online are really, really useful Teoh investing purposes. So when we first started off. That was the market we're going after Now it's become something much bigger. We sell a lot to of data to big corporations who dont invest. But they want to, you know, see what their competitive the way or they want to find people to to sell to a prospect. But but basically, think them up with the largest provider of, ah, public data from the web that is organized and map and can be used for for business purposes. Um, to answer your second question, you know, the first, the first few weeks and the first few months were were pretty difficult. We, you know, didn't really, uh, have a product, so we had to figure out a product. But we also had Teoh, uh, also had Teoh, you know, make sail so we could keep doing this. So, you know, we were we had two founders, and then we hired, um, two engineers to kind of join. So we're a team of four people that just, you know, um, we were coding away in a kitchen in the city and we were just trying to build a spot off, and then, you know, we were trying to show to people and trying to solve the chicken egg problem. Right? You need Teoh have a cool product to get people to actually look at it. But, you know, um but to go to Copa, you need a sales and money to actually bought the product. So yeah, the first, the first few moments and really the first you know, their 1st 2 years were difficult. Teoh, build this bill, This product, I mean, I was figure out how to distribute it.

the, you know, initially, where we have, like, two people. So, um, because you can't even call that a team. Uh, you know, we, uh we met our engineers through furrows through some friends, and we just got really, really looking that they happen to be really, really good at what they did there. Literally. You know, they literally like two of the best engineers. Uh, I I've ever encountered. Still, And, you know, somehow we were able to get them to work of us. A two person company. Um, so, you know, um, we were a small team, so I don't think there were There were any challenges per se. We just needed to build this product. And we got lucky that our friends where it would connect us to these excellent engineers. Um, obviously, the team is much bigger now. You know, we have, Ah, 30 34 people. So now there is, you know, now does much more process, right? Like, uh, you know, culture fit that this person would. He worked well in this role if it doesn't work on this bill. But, you know, we think he's a very intelligent and very able is their notable we can fit him into. So, you know, Is there, like, a long term timeline for this person? Like, what is the long term time I look like? Is he more of a leader or is it more of a follower? So now there's all these kind of typical oh, you know, hiring process questions for us to answer. But in the early days, it was just, you know, whoever we thought could do a good job and was willing to join us, we were very happy to have them.