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Transcript: Marius Ciocirlan - Managing Director Techstars Seattle, Co-Founder of Sharegrid (Acq by Backstage)

In this episode of The Startup Project, Nataraj Sindam talks with Marius Ciocirlan, Managing Director of Techstars Seattle. Marius shares his journey from film school to founding ShareGrid, a creative marketplace he sold to Backstage. They discuss navigating the acquisition process, the challenges of building a two-sided marketplace, and what it takes to get into a top-tier accelerator like Techstars.

2023-03-26

Host: Hey Marius welcome to the show.

Guest: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. excited to be here.

Host: Um so, I think we first met um at a venture event talking about crypto. I think then you were selling uh or you sold your company by then, I was not sure.

Um but uh yeah I'm glad to have you on the show and talk about you know startups and your entrepreneurial journey and what you're doing right now into in at Techstars Seattle.

Um but before that, can you give a little background on what your education background is and how you first got into tech?

Guest: Mm hmm yeah, certainly. Uh I have kind of a unique background when it comes to getting into tech. Uh, I certainly didn't go kind of the stain for a traditional way. I actually went to film school believe it or not.

So, I went to film school at Arizona State University. Uh, I mainly focused on 3d animation and video editing.

Um, but throughout college at the same time, uh, I had my own kind of production company, but also that production company led into me starting a startup during college.

ASU was actually a really great university that had a lot of innovation and entrepreneurial programs. So, I was able to raise some like grants and uh early seed funding there for for the first startup.

So, while I was in film school, at the same time I did focus on uh starting a startup. That startup then it essentially failed and never really went anywhere.

But again, with any venture that you typically do, there's a lot of learnings coming that come along with that. So, took that one and learned a bunch from it.

Um, after college I decided to move out to New York City because that was always kind of a dream of mine.

I had a lot of friends that moved out in uh to New York City as well. and I was able to get a job with Samsung and I worked in their marketing department uh focusing on creating video content for some of their flagship phones. um, and um, worked there for two and a half years.

But while was working at Samsung, similar to to my college experience, I was always working on the side on some app or some startup. Um, more specifically I attend as many startup weekends as possible.

And those startup weekends actually became really important in my development uh of my skills in design and UX design, because I would go to these startup weekends.

For people that don't know what startup weekends are, they're essentially like 48 hour hackathons. A bunch of strangers come together and um, you know, somebody pitches an idea and then others say I like the idea I'd like to join that team.

And uh for 48 hours, you work together trying to develop that idea into a a product and then pitch it on stage for some type of prize.

But this sort of format really got me into the entrepreneurial into tech because I got to meet a lot of other like minded people. I got to create those connections. People that even 10 years later I'm still in touch with and still today actually.

So, I was working in Samsung while at the same time um, uh playing, you know, essentially being a UX designer for these startup weekends. and uh one of the apps ended up we started working on for for longer periods of time and developed that app was it was an app that helped teachers communicate with parents on a more frequent basis.

Um, did that about for about eight months again, didn't really pan out. another sort of you know uh put that under learnings. Uh, but then I had a interesting opportunity I got the opportunity to join Groupon in the very early days.

So this was uh 2010. Uh, so, you know, I think at that point I'm not sure if Groupon didn't go public just yet. They were about to go public or just have gone public. And I got the opportunity to join their mobile team.

Um, so I got to move down to uh Palo Alto where the mobile team was based. and had the opportunity to design the iOS and Android apps essentially from scratch.

Um, and that was a really exciting and interesting opportunity because Groupon was one of the fastest growing companies at the time. Uh, and it attracted some of the best talent in the valley.

And uh I got to join the mobile team, which was just um myself and one other designer. eventually that team grew to over a dozen designers, but in the beginning, it was just me and uh the other designer Rash, which later on would end up becoming my co-founder in uh in my startup.

Um, but yeah, it was an exciting time. We we got to develop uh the Groupon app, saw the speed that we were kind of rolling features out, the product managers there were amazing, the engineers were amazing.

So got to learn kind of from the best of the best. So, that's how I got my foot into technology and that's how I got started within tech uh in a more non-traditional pattern way. but um, it was it was fun along the way.

I had a lot of fun along the way and I learned a lot.

Host: Did you study design uh or did you study animation or like was it a mix of both?

Guest: Uh yeah no I my formal training was certainly in film and uh a little bit of animation. But I went to a very traditional film and media production uh school. So, certainly did not study UX design.

Um, studied it, you know, from books and online and from other designers and just kind of um really you know, YouTube and and dribble and all everything else that that was out there that I could get my hands on.

So, almost everything I've learned in my career has been through non-traditional education methods.

Host: So, I'm curious like what was your motivation to go to like a film school like was your motivation to get into movies or make videos like what was that motivation?

Guest: Yeah. We'd have to go back to actually prior to college. Uh, so, uh let's see, the motivation to go into film school was actually born out of my inability to skateboard.

So, I had a lot of friends who would be uh who would skateboard and I was just not very good at it.

So then I started picking up a camera and started filming them and I just really enjoyed filming my friend skateboarding and then me editing uh skate videos to really fun music.

Uh, so then that led me to when I went to to high school, I used to live in Chicago, I got transferred my parents moved me to Arizona.

And the school we went to was a really nice school compared to the one in Chicago. that had the ability to that that had a broadcast department.

So, every morning we had the ability to do a show, a morning show for the entire school. and that really fascinated me that you know, as a high school student, I could film and direct uh a morning news show.

Uh, and given my background with filming skateboarding videos that it really peaked my interest.

And because of that experience throughout high school, it kind of led me to being interested in film and prior to going to college I actually took an internship in uh Los Angeles through like uh one of my teachers to and I intern on a documentary uh that Russell Crow was narrating about um uh what was it?

It was about surfing. So, I I got to go to LA, I got to see a little bit of the scene of what's happening the whole vibe and it really peaked my interest and going into college, I chose to go into film.

Host: Do you still like follow that world of like what's happening and um are like are you nerd about uh you know what what is the production happening like that side of things still?

Guest: Yeah, I mean you know, we'll talk more about my latest startup, which I end up selling um, but that was highly influenced by my background in film. So that kind of stayed with me.

Honestly when I was in New York, uh I had to make a I had to like there was a a kind of a point in my career where I had to decide because I kept doing, I kept doing startups and I kept doing film.

So I was like, you know, working in Samsung making videos and then also like working on sets like reality TV shows and stuff like that. While at the same time doing a startup and uh learning UX design. So, I had to make a decision.

I couldn't do both. and the reason I decided to go into tech, I remember having this kind of conversation with my significant other, is that in film it's a very traditional career path, meaning in order to become a cinematographer or a director or a producer, you have to pay your dues.

Like there is very strict rules about what certain people could do on a set and what they can't do. Like I've been told in my position as a production assistant was like, you are not allowed to move that equipment.

You're not allowed to move that chair because the union you don't belong to that union. So it's actually like a safety regulation or it was a very traditional kind of career path.

And I realized that like, I was not going to reach my dream of becoming a cinematographer or a director well into my 40s, probably 50s and it was going to take a long time where in tech, it was actually the complete opposite.

The younger you were, the more respect you got and almost the more opportunities you received. So, my goal was always like I really enjoyed tech and it seems like doors are just really opening, people are just much more supportive.

If you have big ambitions, you don't have to like wait in line and wait your turn. You could just act on those ambitions. Uh, so it just felt like a much friendlier community and just more embracing.

So, um went towards tech and I I always planned like at some point in my career, I'll make it in tech and then I'll come back at an older age into film and I'll be a producer and I'll fund my own films or uh documentaries or whatever whatever that might be.

Host: So, you decided you want to be in tech then how did uh your uh company start ShareGrid?

Guest: Yeah, so ShareGrid started um, actually the idea was kind of originated while I was was working at Groupon both my co-founder and I Rash, he was he was he went to film, well he went to photography school I I believe.

It was more like a media communication uh background but he ended up in tech as well. He was a designer and front end developer.

And um, he was a long time photographer and we would take walks all the time and kind of he he sold his previous company to Groupon.

So, he's been very entrepreneurial himself and we were always kicking around ideas of potential startups that we could start. And one of the ideas was uh it derived from him trying to sell some of his equipment.

He was like I really want this new lens, but I already have so many lenses. How do I justify kind of investing more money into more equipment when I'm not even using the equipment I already have.

So that was kind of the thread that we started to talk about the idea and essentially the idea was a lot of filmmakers photographers invest quite a bit of capital into uh equipment into into different uh cameras, lenses, audio equipment, lighting equipment and it's very, very expensive.

I mean, we're talking thousands of dollars for a camera or lens. Sometimes for filming equipment you're looking at 40, 50,000 for a cinema camera and that doesn't count all the additional accessories and and everything else you need.

So, I knew about this from my prior film years and I had a lot of friends who after school, their their thinking was if I invest a bit of money into equipment, the chances of me being hired uh will increase because the film world is actually a very much a gig economy freelance type of world.

So they were thinking if we invest in this equipment uh I will stand amongst the rest and like be hired more frequently. That doesn't always happen.

So, you invest all this money, your monthly payments are coming in every day, every every month, but you're not always getting hired that equipment's not always being used. So Rash and I saw the opportunity of like there's all this idle equipment.

What if you were to rent that equipment out similar to other peer to peer economies like uh like you know, like Airbnb. Um, so we had that idea and we essentially wanted to validate if this is something that other people would be interested in.

First I spoke to a lot of my friends from film school and everybody said, it's a great idea but what about if somebody steals my equipment while they're renting it and they don't come back with the equipment.

So that was always kind of the big challenge that we had to face. But but that's how the idea just to answer your question. That's how the idea kind of derived is just from a personal need and also just a brainstorm of ideas.

Host: So it was essentially a marketplace for renting uh camera and other high end equipment for production.

Guest: Exactly exactly. So uh you know, renting equipment in the film industry is an existing behavior.

But traditionally the way you would rent equipment, if you're doing a film show, a TV show, a commercial, an interview for a corporate client, whatever that might be, most likely uh a filmmaker would never own all of the equipment just because there's just too much stuff that's needed.

You would typically own maybe the camera and like a few lenses but and just essentials you would never own everything because the size of the job constantly varies depending on the client.

So, renting is very, very common within the industry, but traditionally you would rent from a warehouse like a we call them a rental house, a traditional brick and mortar rental house.

And just to give you all some context of what this world looks like is that you you would typically you could go on their website, but almost every single website of a rental house would have equipment listed of whatever they they their inventory, but next to the price where the price should be, it said call for price.

Call for price, call for price. You'd pick up the phone and you would call and say hey, I need this camera, this lens, this audio equipment, this lighting equipment and uh you would ask how much is that going to cost?

And the first question they would ask you is who are you, who are you working for, what's your budget and based on those questions, the price would just magically change. It was that's the type of world that we kind of entered.

And they'll give you the price and then at the end they'll say, okay, the entire replacement value of all this equipment is $300,000. Therefore, we will need a uh certificate of insurance for $300,000 in our rental house name.

So then you would have to go out and talk to brokers to get this equipment insured. and speaking to brokers again, it would be a lot of phone calls back and forth quotes. Um, they would ask you a bunch of questions.

How are you going to use the equipment? Are you traveling with it? What's the production and based on that you would get a quote, you might want to shop that around.

It would literally take about a week of time to like find the equipment from a rental house, find their insurance, go to the rental house and book it.

We saw the opportunity especially working at Groupon where our mission was to make everything a one click checkout type seamless experience, we said great.

We want to do that for this industry as well where you could add items to your cart, you should be able to choose insurance and click check out and just and be on your way.

It was not as simple as we thought it was going to be, you know, having being naive probably helped us get started. uh, but eventually we had to figure out all of those challenges and there were certainly challenges there.

Host: So, what was the business model? the whoever is renting out uh is paying some percentage of the gross uh I mean gross merchandise uh to you or were there some other avenues to make uh revenue?

Guest: Yeah, so the business model was people would list equipment on our website. It was completely free to list your equipment. Uh, you did not have to like physically give it to us. It was completely decentralized, right?

You would list your equipment and we would take a a transaction fee. So it was 15% on the equipment owner side and then 5% on the renter side. And that's actually not a fee structure that we first started with.

We actually started with 30% on the equipment owner side and quickly found out that that was not a price point they were comfortable with.

Uh, and we went it we went in with the assumption that was going to be very much higher than the market would tolerate. However, we thought it was much easier to come down than to have to go up.

So we started higher, we landed on 15% on the owner side, 5% on the renter side.

Additionally, later on, we figured out that we could actually sell our own damage waiver coverage as well. and that eventually became uh nearly 50 50% of our entire revenue was through selling damage waiver.

Similar to what uh rental car companies do when you rent the car, right? In addition to your insurance, you could also get this damage river. We had a similar uh set up.

Host: So how did the business grow like in terms of numbers um and you talked about uh I don't know if this is related but uh you know losing the business almost when the pandemic started right? Uh talk talk me a little bit about that.

Guest: Yeah, there was uh there was yeah the pandemic was really challenging not just for us but the entire film industry. you know, mid March in 2020, everybody you know, didn't really know what was going to happen but uh the moment the film permit office closed, you know, most productions have to get a film permit and if you can't get a film permit, you can't really film on various like locations.

But furthermore, we were not allowed to leave our houses. Nobody was allowed to leave houses. So, 90 something percent of our business essentially just went away overnight over the course of a week. Um, so that was that was really, really tough.

Um, we had to make adjustments, we had to lay people off unfortunately and these were people that were with us for four four or something years uh and it was a really really tough as an entrepreneur that has never had to go through that.

It was incredibly tough time. You know, we went on to do the PPE PPP loan application that certainly helped to make sure that we we had enough runway. We were profitable at the time.

So, um, we were in a good situation prior to that, but still like we we still did the PPP.

Something interesting happened to us though because our audience, the people that were renting from us were typically not necessarily the really large film productions.

It was much more the commercial event uh student filmmakers uh up and coming kind of filmmakers. because that was our audience. Those people tended to by the summer, they were back at filming.

They were back out filming because they were smaller crews. where large film productions actually didn't get going again until like late 2020.

So we saw our business come back much faster and actually that cascaded into us uh into us seeing a whole new opportunity that that we never thought it was available to us.

So traditionally our supply side was individuals renting out their equipment to us. Uh, or individuals or small production companies putting up their equipment on our website.

The large brick and mortar rental houses with thousands and thousands of items never really liked us because they saw us as like us driving the price down, they didn't like the transparency of our pricing.

They didn't they just hated us for the most part. And um, the moment where they saw that renters were coming to us, they were like, oh let's give ShareGrid a try. So all of a sudden our supply side just increased tremendously that summer.

So we got an influx of supply and typically on a two-sided marketplace what happens, certainly for us, when you have a lot of supply what tends to happen is there tends to be a lot of competition between suppliers which tends to make, you know, it drives some of the pricing down and then the renters, it reinforces the value for the renters because now renters are like, whoa, I have a lot more selection.

I can choose from all this equipment and the pricing is amazing. So having that influx of supply all of a sudden increased our renter base like by a lot.

And by the end of 2020, we were yet profitable again and we were able to hire back uh our essentially our entire team. Um, so you know, it it was a roller coaster that entire year.

Host: And finally, you know, you got through the pandemic and then you were able to sell your company to backstage, right? Uh, talk me a little bit of like how that uh process sort of panned out and like did you guys were looking to sell or did they come to you and what was like the acquisition you know, process like as a founder.

Guest: Yeah, it was um we were certainly not looking to sell at the moment because again, we were just coming off a low and then a high in 2020 and then uh we were introduced to them um through like actually, we had a slack group where a bunch of founders from like adjacent companies would hang out.

So, I certainly recommend like if you're a founder find other founders and adjacent markets, opportunities like this will pop up. So, we were introduced through a mutual contact to backstage and backstage in 2021. This was early 2021.

They were on a they were acquiring uh over the course of 2021 they acquired seven companies I believe. Uh, so they were looking for different verticals. So a little bit on backstage. So backstage has been around since 1960.

They started off as a uh magazine uh for the for for actors on Broadway. and then they developed that into a SAS platform, a hiring platform for actors and then later on started acquiring different verticals, voice voice actors and they started acquiring uh script uh script building software and one of the areas they wanted to get into is uh equipment and production uh equipment.

So that's the reason they kind of approached us. Again, we were not super interested. So we kind of we had the conversation.

We're having a dialogue, but not until that summer did we really start to like think about it and and have a a real conversation and then by that fall is when we really started to negotiate and um December at like December 28th because we really wanted to do it before the end of the year uh we we ended up uh actually selling the company.

Host: And what was that experience like negotiating uh like how great things like were you uh you know good at negotiating were there some learnings in terms of you know you should and you shouldn't do in terms of uh you know being a founder who has not sold this company before um or I mean I usually founders tell me that it's super nervous because you don't know like what the other company is looking like and how much leverage you have.

Yeah. Uh, so there's always little anxiety between whether you can ask or negotiate versus you can't, right? So what was your mindset and sort of like uh some of the learnings there.

Guest: It's incredibly stressful and it's actually one of the most you know, we've gone through various phases of the company where we we raise VC capital, you know, but that process is really well documented.

There's so many blogs, so much resources on fundraising and how to set all that up. and then, you know, we went through a phase of hiring a team and growing the company and all of those phases are also very well documented online, right?

The phase that's actually not very well documented is the acquisition side of things is selling your company. That's that hasn't necessarily been very.

So like we did feel a little bit like you know, in a forest figuring out which direction to go into. Thankfully, and this is you know, thankfully we had really good advisors.

So, we had uh an advisor Roshan who used to do business development for Groupon. he used to buy companies at Groupon. So he was very, very familiar with the acquisition process and he kind of walked us through the whole thing.

Um, so that was incredibly helpful.

Uh, but we certainly, you know, once we realized that there was real interest, we talked to our uh our investors and we wanted to kind of pursue the conversation, uh we actually had interest from another company and then we reached out to to another company and had almost we had two other companies that were in talks.

So, that certainly helps, right? When you're negotiating having other options.

But our real option that we kind of played off to make sure that we got what everything we wanted out of the deal is that we actually didn't want to sell. like they we had to be convinced to sell because the company was very profitable especially after 2020 and we were in a really good place.

So that was kind of the biggest decision decision that we had to make is like, do we want to keep this business that's doing really well or do we think the business could do potentially even better under the backstage brand.

And that was a lot of internal conversation on my co-founder and our investors and our mentors. And it was a lot of just soul searching and figuring out if this is the right thing to do.

Um, and yeah, it was not a decision that was made overnight at all.

We went back and forth multiple times where we're like, nope, we're not selling. and we'd sit on it for a few days and then come back and then we were like, okay, no we're going to sell and then sit on that and then switch our mind again.

It was it was tough. Host: So then you sold the company and returned to Texstar Seattle.

Uh, so what was that uh I mean like how did you end up at Texstar Seattle and were you actively need looking for your next gig or what is sort of like the thought process there now you sold your company, you have an exit. um, I'm assuming you're not immediately looking for what's next to do.

So, how did uh how did you end up at Texstar Seattle.

Guest: Yeah, so we sold the company at the end of 2021. The entire company went over uh under backstage. You know, backstage was an amazing acquirer they essentially like left us alone. The brand still stands, the website still stands on its own.

The entire team is still there. Nothing's changed at all even until this day. Uh, they've had they've just been an amazing partner. Um, so like the company was in really good hands and I stayed on to make sure that the transition was really smooth.

Uh, and the founders of backstage have been just amazing. So, nothing uh nothing really changed on on ShareGrid side.

I knew they were in really good hands and at that point I was looking to start angel investing and that's actually why I went to the event where we met is that I was looking to get into the uh Seattle ecosystem to try to understand how what angel investing is all about because I've never done it before.

But I was in a position where I could start doing that.

I was starting to dabble and becoming I became an LP in a few like real estate funds but I really wanted to go to an area that I understood more which was was startups and I started looking in the area for angel investing opportunities and then um Milkana one of our advisors actually to the company uh introduced me to Isaac Ado, which was the current the previous MD uh for Texstars.

And um, they just made me aware that this was an opportunity coming up and it was, you know, to become the new managing director of Texstars Seattle and there's only one job in town and only comes around like you know.

Host: Every 10 years 15 years.

Guest: Every 10 years or something.

So I was like, you know, I wasn't really ready to jump back in, but it was such a amazing opportunity and the Seattle program especially out of you know, many Texstar programs is one of the gems of of Texstars. like Seattle has a really good track record under Isaac, under Chrisvor, Aviel, like you know, it's it's an amazing program with some really great success behind it.

So I was just uh you know, I I was uh very happy to even be considered for the position and I took it very serious and um that's when the conversation started and then I joined October 31st uh on the same day that the cohort started.

So, the same day the founders showed up here at startup Hall was my first day on the job as well.

Host: Nice. Um, so let's talk a little bit more about uh you know Texstar Seattle and what is sort of the process right now and what type of companies and founders, you know, are best position to join Texstar Seattle.

Guest: Yeah, for sure. So we just finished our demo day uh mid February. Uh, so we just had a graduating class, which was which was great and now we're looking for our next class uh which will start in uh October.

So we have a bit of time to look for for other founders. And what we're looking for uh we don't necessarily have a topic focus or focus uh for for any particular sort of uh industry.

We just don't do like hard sciences or uh any hardware companies most of the time, you know, with maybe a few exceptions, but we typically focus on software.

Uh, and we also have kind of a soft focus like we really like B2B companies mostly because Seattle is kind of a B2B town.

Host: Yeah.

Guest: Uh there's a lot of mentors and investors here that also focus in that area. So we tend to attract quite a bit of startups in that in that area as well.

But we're looking for founders who, you know, are actively doing their startups so they're full-time founders.

They have some traction uh on on their idea on their startup. you know, a good amount of the companies in the past cohort already raised some family and friends or pre-seed before joining the program.

That's not a requirement by any means, but you have to be like fully dedicated to running your startup uh and full time. and then yeah, we're looking for for someone that has a growth mindset.

I would say is probably number one kind of characteristic of uh of a founder that we're looking for.

Host: So, Texstars is in, you know, traditionally what we call is an accelerator, right? Uh, so what are the founders really getting out of uh joining Texstars?

Guest: Yeah, for sure. So, um, the Texstars program essentially uh falls into almost three phases. So it's a 13 week program and it's kind of uh set up in three phases. The first phase is customer discovery.

So, we work with you to ensure that like you truly understand who your customer is and what are they buying from you? Like you know, you would be surprised how many people have an idea of who their customer is, but it's not clearly defined.

They don't really understand why that customer is interested in their product. So, even companies that are far long, we find that it's always good to like really reflect on who your customer is. So the first phase is customer discovery.

Second phase is go to market and execution, which is more important nowadays especially given the market situation, more important than ever to actually gain real traction in your business and prove out that your business has some product market fit. and product market fit can mean different things at different stages, but at least in your initial MVP, there needs to be some product market fit.

And then the third phase is we're preparing you to go out in front of investors.

So we're working on your pitch deck, we're working on your delivery, we're working on all of your documents, getting you ready to ensure that you're ready for uh investors and putting you in front of investors. you know, we've put uh the past cohort met each of them met with at least 30, 40 investors during program and then after demo day, there was like well over a hundred investors at demo day.

So, that's kind of getting them ready for fundraising towards the end. Um, but that's the three phases of programming but uh on top of that each company meets with 40 to 50 mentors throughout the program.

They get like two to three mentors throughout the program uh and then, you know, the whole network of Texstars being able to uh raise money, getting you ready for fundraising.

So that's that's some of the benefits and the most important probably is the relationship you build with the other uh founders.

It's very it's very uh, I guess like it's not every day that you get to sit next to 12 or 24 other individuals that are that have chosen to start a company.

You know, you think of your friends and family, like not all of them are trying to start a company and or at the same stage as you.

So it's really nice to have that community of other founders doing the same thing you're doing, being able to share that you really do build like lifelong uh friendships.

Host: Yeah, I guess uh I mean uh if you're just starting by yourself it's a lonely journey and some of the founders are just doing it without any co-founders.

Uh, but uh if I'm not wrong I think YC used to invest 150k for in return of 7% and I think they changed uh last couple of batches drop to 500k like uh does Texstars also invest uh capital into the startups or uh is it more of a time uh investment?

Guest: Yeah, so we invest up to 120k uh in into each company that that gets selected. Uh, and then in some cases um, once you start fundraising, Texstars will also do a follow on as well and uh we'll we'll follow on on that your initial kind of fund raise later on.

Host: Um, we we're almost at the end of our conversation but uh, I I wanted to ask you, you know, what is the best rate for you know future founders to reach out to you? where is the best uh you know place for them to follow you or reach out to you or apply for Texstars.

Guest: Yeah, for sure. You could just email me directly. Uh, I'm going to spell out my email here and I don't know if you could put it in the show notes because a pretty long name. So it's Marius. Ceurlin C I O C I R L A N @texstars.com.

So we're looking certainly for founders that are early in their journey of starting their company. Anyone interested in uh applying happy to talk to you, my team is happy to talk to you as well.

Um, yeah, just reach out directly to me and uh we we hope to to get in touch with you.

Host: Uh thanks Marius thanks for coming on to the show, sharing your journey and always happy to talk to you. You have this calm pleasant way of talking which is always like nice. Uh so thanks for coming on to the show.