Thought waves on seed venture

Data is a valuable business asset. It can be used to analyse performance, monitor customer satisfaction, make design decisions and more. When strong patterns emerge, it tells a story, so why not use those stories to predict the future? That’s what Campbell Brown, co-founder of PredictHQ asked back in 2016, not long before he met Tidal’s Grant McCarthy.

Both Grant and Campbell were at similar stages as company founders when they met, and the way Campbell tells it, it was a match made more from design than fate. Grant immediately saw PredictHQs enormous potential and set about cultivating a relationship, while Campbell related strongly with Grant’s product and market know-how, and was on the hunt for an Australian investor. “Grant's a product guy, I'm a product guy. We're always talking about it.”

PredictHQ was also aiming at a US market, from an Auckland base. Campbell explains how they were attracted to Tidal because they were Australian, but with global experience. “They had already taken a business from Australia to the US. That's why I went with them.” Tidal had the specific expertise needed.

A strong business starts with a strong product

Events impact demand. Founded with this insight in mind, PredictHQ makes businesses smarter by helping them anticipate how external conditions will influence sales, profits, product demand, etc. Their customers access comprehensive datasets related to conditions like major sports events, severe weather, scheduled holidays, etc., so they can capitalise on their understanding of demand, plan labour and resourcing, adjust pricing, and adapt for better efficiency. It is a winning idea and rapidly gaining traction in the US and Europe markets that are digital-first and ready to optimise. Uber was one of their first big enterprise customers.

But even with the solid product, Campbell realised early that they “needed to start going from just building a product to building a business.” That meant having a strong and clear sales pipeline and tangible financial goals. So the PredictHQ team, Grant, and another independent investor, got in front of the whiteboard and spent time working out a plan.

Campbell remembers discussing questions like “what do we expect to get from our customers? What if we only get 10% of these customers? Working backwards from a $1million target, what do we need and how are we going to do it?” He goes on to say “that meeting in particular was a very critical leap. Because a million dollars seems really achievable, but actually when you step back from it, without salespeople, your pipeline is actually pretty small. And if conversion is low, you have to increase the pipeline.”

So in the end, Campbell said, they “sat there for a couple of days and worked through a plan and it came true. I look back on those times fondly because Tidal gave up their time and energy to help us get to our first goal. Which ultimately led to us to raise a Series A and then Series B and here we are.”

Connecting to the right knowledge and people

Even though they are in the business of insights, Campbell says they sometimes need a bit of help themselves in that area and Tidal’s analyst Max Kausman provided it. Max has a successful track record in corporate advisory roles and shared his experience and knowledge with Campbell to help with customer acquisition strategy. The information enabled Campbell to formulate an enterprise pitch that integrated familiar corporate language. “It helped the customer have a lightbulb moment about us. They could relate.” This same strategy was effective in moving a number of big deals forward.

At the other end of the sales pipeline is product creation, which is equally important to PredictHQ business success. Luckily, finding a great fit for senior product roles is something Tidal’s Wendell Keuneman is great at, and he did not disappoint when PredictHQ started looking for a VP of engineering. “It was a critical hire,” Campbell noted and Wendell, Tidal’s product-led growth expert, “met with the candidate before we hired him and then helped us to understand how we wanted to structure the team.” Anticipating rapid expansion of the business, they needed more than just a new senior hire, they needed to to get the team mix right in order to handle scaling. “We ended up splitting development and data teams. Which will ultimately let us scale faster.”

You’re never alone, but it can get lonely

I’ve spoken to a number of founders for Wavemakers pieces and they usually travel in pairs. Speaking to Campbell alone (co-founder Robert Kern was not available) provided a different insight, which came out toward the end of our conversation.

“It's such a lonely, lonely job, you know, and a lot of CEOs talk about it as so bloody lonely. But Grant's got empathy, and he knows that I’m going to feel that and need support, which is great.” Campbell talked a fair bit about Grant and their relationship. “He’s always there on the other end of the phone. So whether it's me sending a text message or me calling him when he's at his kid's football game… he's always been my point person.” And the respect and trust is mutual.

Campbell is not alone, with nine people in his senior leadership team, but sometimes a different kind of feedback is needed. For example, when Campbell disagreed with an idea put forward by the board, he called Grant to check that his resistance was logical and warranted. There have been other times where Campbell needed to pause in a decision and seek a bit of feedback, and Grant was there to bounce ideas and talk through things.

“The rose-tinted view of startups is that it's all sunshine and lollipops, but it's only sunshine and lollipops maybe 5% of the time. 95% of the time there’s something wrong that you're trying to solve. You need someone who's going to be there, who can listen to you and who is going to partner with you.”

Why people come first

When you’re choosing an investor, Campbell advises founders to “focus on the partner, not the fund. It's so critical because you're going to go through some hard times...and there's only so many people you can turn to that are actually going to say ‘mate, it's okay. Let's try to figure a way through’.”

It’s this kind of personalisation of data and genuine care that has become a foundation of PredictHQ’s values. Caring for their people, with a “ family and friends first” policy that means things like paying for flights home to care for sick parents or to attend important celebrations. “In the past year and a half, because we've had such an amazing culture, we have leaned on it and we've helped people through it. And I think if we didn't have that culture, that would have been really tough.”

Reflecting back, Campbell says he didn’t always value teams in this way. “I tried to build everything myself and I ended up getting three hours sleep a night. Not really getting anywhere fast.” But his focus is quite different these days, “my job now is the culture in the team and making sure we're going the right way. Being there to jump in on sales calls and being that support mechanism in the business.”

Campbell has definitely drunk the PredictHQ data Koolade (of his own making), “I am data-driven in my day-to-day life. I'm always optimising my life with data. I'm just always looking to squeeze out a bit more.”

When I asked Campbell about the impact of Tidal’s support, he said “I know there's a lot of analogies that you probably hear all the time, but Tidal gets in the trenches with you. And it's what founders crave, because if you don't see that people are going to get their hands dirty with you, they're probably never going to be fully supportive.”

Get to know Tidal's Georgie Turner

What gets you excited about Seed phase?

It's the most challenging part and therefore the most rewarding. When a founder has experienced a problem and describes a clear vision of how technology can solve that problem, that optimistic feeling is infectious. Being involved at Seed means I get to experience the beginning of a serendipitous journey.

But the Seed phase is also the most difficult part to crack. Founders need to reach product market fit, find a scalable path to market and convince early team members and investors to take a chance on their vision. It can be tough and tiring, but it's never boring.

You also bring an operator lens to the team, how has that experience shaped you as an investor today?

In 2012 I was part of the early team at Rackspace Australia, selling the early version of cloud computing infrastructure into Australian corporates and startups. This was around the time that AWS launched in Australia, so I had direct experience selling in a fast growing market with some tight competition on every deal.

During that time I was deep in the weeds of our local go-to-market strategy, including digital and brand marketing, product localisation, partner and channel selling, direct enterprise and SMB selling and what we called 'fanatical customer support'. Through that time I gained a great appreciation for the challenges around unlocking rapid growth and how to accelerate in a new market. Rackspace had a strong sales and support culture and took its values extremely seriously, a quality that I actively look for in a founder when I invest.

What's something you wish you could go back to tell your less experienced self?

Figure out what makes you happy and then just optimise for that. Don't compare yourself to other people. When you tell the stories of your accomplishments, the things that you will remember the most will be (1) the way you felt and (2) the people you were with. Surround yourself with people that are smarter than you.

Is there a type of technology that you don't use?

I have never really been a user of social media, it's not a tool that appeals to me at all. Despite being a technology investor I actually don't use a lot of technology outside of the standard tech for work. I still use my iPhone for making traditional phone calls more so than anything else.

What is your niche, your passion outside of work?

I am an avid reader and I devour fictional stories like other people binge-watch netflix. Pre-covid I would go to the library and take out 5 books every 4 weeks. Post-covid I use a Kindle but I still miss the real thing. The last book I read was Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. It is centred around an "artificial friend" to a lonely child and is narrated by the machine - Klara. I have always been more interested in fiction as a commentary on human nature than autobiographies or business books.

How do you think the world would change in 10 years?

When my baby was born last year on Christmas Eve, it occurred to me that 'Gen Alpha' may be one of the last to be conceived and born with no optional genetic editing offered to the parents as standard medical practice. The field of genetics has great implications for innovation in the preventative health market, which I believe will come to dominate the healthcare space in the next 10 years.

If you're a visionary founder who is ready to make waves, please reach out via our website.

Somya Kapoor and Ravi Bulusu are co-founders of Loops. Both veteran product people and serial entrepreneurs, they saw the challenges faced by customer service and support agents struggling to work through mountains of tickets with little context, and they decided to fix it.

TheLoops is all about collecting data from software interactions, including logs, alerts and errors, to make customer support mechanisms smarter and faster. Insights can then be fed into product development cycles to enhance the customer experience.

It’s not the first time Somya and Ravi have been founders, but it’s the first time they’ve done it together and they make an unstoppable team. We interviewed them about their journey, and if you're a startup greenthumb, they have some excellent advice.

Finding investors can be a gruesome grind

Finding and pitching to VC funders is a “gruesome process” and a “necessary grind” according to Somya. But there’s an upside. It helps you refine your story and more strongly formulate your vision, which is critical to finding the right VC fit. Because not all VCs are the same and many will not be right for you.

Her advice is take as many interviews and meetings as you can to learn about what you need and weed out the VCs who are unsuitable. “It's not about getting the money, it's about finding a partner in your journey of where you want to get to.”

Ravi says he’s seen startups with the wrong VC match and “it's not just the founders that get really messed up in the process, it’s employees too.” You need to have someone aligned to your long-term perspective, is how he puts it, the way Tidal is for TheLoops.

“It's not about getting the money, it's about finding a partner in your journey of where you want to get to.”

- Somya Kapoor, Loops

How Tidal got looped in

Tidal came along as TheLoops were looking to raise their second round of funding, which coincided with the beginning of the global COVID outbreak in March 2020. Despite the circumstances, TheLoops had plenty of VC investors knocking on the door. But it was through conversations with investment expert Andrea Kowalski and product leader Wendell Keunemann at Tidal that prompted TheLoops to sign a deal.  

“They were super helpful in getting us to think from a founder's angle on why we need the money.” says Somya, “They wanted us to look at it from a place where it would help us grow the company and be beneficial for the customers.” Where other investors look primarily for the potential return, Tidal was looking to how (not just if) TheLoops could succeed. “When you’re building products that customers like, a lot of VCs want to get involved. But Wendell and Andrea were really different.” They offered an insider perspective.

Win the crowd to win investors

The best way to prove a point is to not have to make it yourself. But how do you do that? Somya says you should talk to your customers (lots and lots of them) and get them on side, and Ravi says get your team in a room and “whiteboard the #$&* out of it!” By which he means build a great product based on what customers say. When you do both, you end up with mountains of evidence for why VCs should throw money at you.

“Nothing speaks louder [to a VC] than customers validating your product,” says Somya, even louder than “knowing your cap tables”. Ravi advises to look for synchronicity with VCs, to make sure they understand what you do, the market, the ecosystem. To succeed, “you’ll need their network, so be sure they have a good one and the right one for you.” Tidal fills this role, acting as “advisors and mentors, helping us think through the pros and cons of decisions.”

It’s all about perspective with Tidal, says Ravi, and being “product futuristic”. They bring “the right approach and a really different product perspective. Not just about how to build features, but also how to go to market and put them in front of customers.”

The best relationships come with hard truths

The reason Somya and Ravi make an amazing team is their complementary perspectives. Not just complementary skills (Somya is more go to market and Ravi is more product builder), but the way they see things and make decisions from different experiences.

When asked what Tidal brought to the table, they talked about compatibility at first, admiring the product-led growth mindset and understanding of the B2B tech market. What emerged as most important, though, was that Tidal “understood” them and felt trustworthy, showing an openness and friendliness beyond what Somya and Ravi expected. “We thought it was because they’re Australian,” Somya says with a laugh.

Ravi welcomes Tidal’s product perspective and advice, because “they love products” and are a “founder-led VC firm who live their values.”

Somya advises less experienced founders to seek this kind of trust, but also seek the truth. You want to be able to get bad news and constructive criticism too. “You don’t want to think of your founders as bosses,” she says, you need to be able to approach them with problems “without fear it will have a negative impact.”

Her parting advice is this: “Don't wait to build a perfect slide deck or perfect product. Just get out there and start raising.

If amazing and life changing ideas are the heart of every startup, then technical know-how and persistence must be the brains. This is particularly true for Hamish Ogilvy and David Howden, the two brilliant science and mathematical minds behind AI search engine Search.io (formerly Sajari).

Frustrated by poor search capability on websites and hearing that frustration echoed among colleagues, Hamish and David decided to fix it by building a more intelligent search engine, and they have succeeded. Not only that, they have found a powerful niche in e-commerce that enables the conversion of search queries into transactions.

The DIY roots

As a startup, their story is not unusual. They did most things themselves as they gained some momentum: built a website, developed beta prototypes, learned to code, looked for customers, paid the payroll, insurance and themselves (sometimes).

Their early learning curves were steep: What do we charge? How do we make that recurring? How do we scale? What are the best use cases for our idea? Who do we target?

And the biggest question of all: How do we get to the next step?

Tidal becomes Search.io's first VC investor

Having had angel investors to help with some early hires, Search.io started looking to the next horizon. “Tidal was really the first decent size investment that actually allowed us to think about scale.” according to Hamish. “Angel funding doesn’t quite provide enough for the next proof point, but Tidal has been really good at working with us on this.”

He goes on to say how this was “more of a factor for us than money and valuation”, as they were seeking “alignment in terms of where we saw the business going and the product-led attitude of Tidal was the right fit.”

Location was not an issue with Hamish in San Francisco and David in Australia, matching with Tidal’s product expert Wendell in Sydney and investment leader Andrea in New York. “Having someone who understands Australia and the world is handy because Australian and US markets work differently.”

Hamish adds, “when you find people that you click with and you have common opinions on what's important, then decisions become easier.”

Putting the pieces together to scale

Deeply technical products like Search.io take time and are complex to build, then once you get there technically, there’s still the business part to think about. “Scale is very much about process,” says Hamish. Starting a business is “like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces on the floor and you’re trying to find bits that fit so you can start moving in the right direction. But scaling a business is more about putting structures of repeatability in place.” This is where Tidal offered expertise, they helped with the scaling strategy, providing advice on structure and   “understanding some of the gaps that we needed to fill.”

Having reliable sales models was one of those gaps. Scaling isn’t just about spending money to get more inbound sales, Hamish points out, “you have to work out where you can spend it to get repeatable impact to the business. And that brings in a different way of thinking that's not necessarily where we had been. We needed help to build out the structures to make that actually work.”

Scaling a business is not something that you’re born knowing, says Hamish “the more advice and assistance that you get from people who know parallel businesses, the better. I can ping or talk to the Tidal team anytime and that has been really helpful.”

Hiring isn’t just bums on seats

Working with Tidal, they had to determine the best way to recruit and then “hand off efficiently while keeping the vision and the quality in terms of what you want to do.” It requires thought and planning to get “people in a position to get up to speed and execute on things.”

Through meetings and conversations, Search.io and Tidal developed a hiring plan that included the identification of key positions, numbers and mixes of roles, that would set them on a path to “transition from being resource-efficient to growth efficient.” The plan eventually went to the board with Tidal support.

There’s a power of numbers in hiring, as Hamish explains, “you don't hire one person in sales. You hire two. Even if you only need one, you hire two.” This avoids a single point of failure where if one person does not work out, you've lost a hundred percent capacity. Building teams in cross-functional sales pods was exactly the kind of shift in thinking that Tidal steered Search.io through.

“Future hiring is a key part of the ongoing planning and thought process.” Producing more and selling more can only be supported with carefully managed recruitment, not just more people.

In hindsight, Hamish says they “we’re probably a little bit conservative, which slowed us down.” But in their defence, it is difficult to know how aggressively to hire at the beginning of a pandemic.

Sales isn’t just selling more

Like in hiring, it’s not a matter of more, it’s a matter of being repeatable. Tidal was there to advise on how to restructure billing for scale. “Overcoming those challenges were really important growth factors for our business, and Tidal gave us great advice on that.”

His heavy but true parting advice for new founders is to remember that “you're building a revenue machine. At the end of the day, that's the only thing that allows you to grow and do what you want to do. So put that into your strategy and priorities from day one, being able to understand all the numbers. And if you don't find that interesting, or don’t want to do it, then don't start a business.”

When they say that necessity is the mother of invention, it also means that when you want something invented, you have to invent it yourself. That’s how Bonjoro came about, according to Matt Barnett and Grant Dewar. 

Noticing the diminishing effectiveness of email campaigns to engage new customers and secure sales, they decided to hack something together from duct tape and blu-tac, and record personalised videos instead. 

“Hey [potential customer’s name], as you can see we’re here in sunny Sydney at the moment [shows Opera House backdrop], but we’re heading to London soon for [insert reason]. We’d love to meet up and chat about [the thing we can help with] as we have also done [that thing] for [other high profile customers] too. Give us a call. Byeeee. [Waves into camera from Manly ferry.]

- Dramatic reenactment of an early Bonjoro customer video

Then someone saw the idea and wanted to make videos for their customers too. Then another person wanted to integrate it with their CMS and their campaign software. Google became customers and so did Firefox. That’s how the product was born and since then there's been no looking back for Bonjoro.

Tidal meets Bonjoro

Tidal’s Grant McCarthy met Matt and was interested in Bonjoro early, when they were initially seeking Angel investors. By the time Bonjoro was ready for seed funding, the conversations between Grant and Matt had developed into a relationship, and Tidal came on board as an investor.

Matt says he “likes investors with a lot of energy and who can contribute to what we’re doing.” That’s why Tidal was a natural fit, because they had the right mindset, and it was “a relationship as well.” 

Tidal “understood our space” is how Matt puts it. “They understood our customer success space, the SaaS space, and the US market.” An alignment, he said, that was critical to their next stage of growth. Where other Australian VCs focus on the local market, Bonjoro was confident that Tidal had the experience and reach to support their US market growth from day one.

Wearing the founder hat and the Tidal hat

Matt points out how unusual this is among investors, saying “funds tend to approach things as a fund, but Wendell is able to approach things from different angles” due to his background and experience. He adds that “Tidal is willing to get their hands dirty and directly contribute to the success of each of their companies, more so than most funds I’ve seen.”

This has been Grant’s experience too, noting that Tidal has “got us through some strategy and ideation points where their product experience and expertise has been really invaluable, which is something I wasn't quite expecting.”

“Tidal is willing to get their hands dirty and directly contribute to the success of each of their companies, more so than most funds I’ve seen.”
- Matt Barnett, Bonjoro

How the engagement goes deep

Like many startups, Bonjoro faced the common founder challenge of juggling product growth with capital raising and business scaling. Matt describes this as “like climbing a hill and then you get to the top, but it's not the actual top, it's just the first peak. And you've got to put your pack on and start climbing again.” When asked how Tidal has helped climb some of those hills, both Matt and Grant had a ton of examples.

There’s support from tidal on multiple levels, according to Matt. On the business and management side, Tidal has helped with C-Suite, R&D recruitment and mentoring, developed and defined skill sets for senior positions, and supported the founders to prepare for and get the most from interactions with the board. 

On the product side, Wendell has dived into Bonjoro product activities, by chairing workshops with global teams, running product challenges and positioning pieces, and helping with strategy and roadmaps. 

Bonjoro says it’s unusual to receive such in-depth, tangible support from VC investors. But the benefits seem immeasurable.

Choosing between a safe plateau or rapid growth 

When it comes to choosing VC investors, Matt says “it's about being pushed as well.” This became vitally important as Bonjoro looked to their next big growth stage. They had just reached break even (congrats!) and it seemed like a good time to assess.

That’s when Tidal challenged them with a few big questions that would shift their thinking into a higher gear: How much do you need to raise next? How many hires do you need to make? In other words, how do you want to grow?

Through lengthy conversations, in-depth workshops and meetings, Tidal and the Bonjoro founders discussed whether Bonjoro should grow fast or steady, to hire across the year or all at once, spend a lot now or spread it out. It was a matter of staying on the break-even plateau or taking a risk and going for it! Matt observed that being able to have “this level of transparency builds great trust and understanding.” Ultimately, Bonjoro decided on the riskier move, but noted that “looking back we should have gone even faster!” 

Having decided on the speedy path, Tidal was right there to help shape Bonjoro’s challenging transition from product to platform, which would be a pivotal part of maturing their offering. “Workshops with the management team and Tidal helped crystallise the strategy into an actionable plan. The best attack plan.” Part of this included commercially aligning the planned value-adds going into the product, by revising the pricing and packaging model. This is always a risky area and can result in customer churn. By providing “feedback and education on the importance of packaging alongside actual pricing,” Tidal helped Bonjoro better target by segment and make revenue-improving changes. 

Never slack on advice

Bonjoro has noticed “a lot of other investors tend to be more hands-off.” They respond when you call on them, but they’re not part of the team. Tidal is different. They are “proactive and that’s what we look for, someone who can actively bring value.”

This is supposed to be a blog about the company Shippit, one of the first investments by Tidal (or the company that was to become Tidal) back in 2017. The two companies sort of grew up together.

I could have written at length about how they are revolutionizing the way shipping works in Australia and overseas and raising capital left and right, but when I interviewed the Shippit founders, I decided to focus on their magic partnership and the relationships that have helped them succeed. 

It’s hard not to reach for words like ‘bromance’ and ‘misterhood’ to describe the easy rapport and sentence-finishing communication that long-time friends and business partners Rob Hango-Zada and William On enjoy. And it doesn’t take a startup genius to realise that their relationship is a key ingredient of their success.

Relationshippit first

Great relationships seem to be at the centre of all Shippit’s growth success, from building rapport with customers, finding the right investors and employees, and realistically assessing the gaps and making the right call on how to scale up. 

Will says their approach to most things is “we don't know all the answers and our focus is to get the right people around us.” When applied to investors, Rob explains that “any investor coming in is a long term relationship; and we want to partner with people who are really invested in our company.” 

If the three most important things in an investor are “getting along on a personal level, having a solid understanding of the domain and people, being able to push us in terms of our thinking,” then Tidal is an ideal fit.

Grant McCarthy and Murray Bleach were Shippit’s first Tidal contacts. “Grant and Murray took a more US VC style of approach that added value beyond the checkbook.” This was important, according to Will, because having input about product, finance and deal flow meant that Tidal became part of the team. 

Co-investing in Series A with Aura Ventures, Grant was keen to participate. He has “a lot of knowledge around the last mile logistic space, understanding of where the market was going. He also really understood the macro themes of an open network two-sided marketplace with logistics and e-commerce.” which Rob says made them a great match.

“90% of the battle is having the right people around you.”

- William On

All work and no playbook

Getting to Series A from angel and seed stage takes a lot of work and a lot of grit, getting to Series B, even more. Fortunately, the Tidal team were able to help in the form of a go-to-market expert called Georgie Turner.

According to Rob, Georgie literally “implanted herself at Shippit for about six months” to help set up an operational manual that became their Series B Playbook. This was rich enough guidance on how to set Shippit up for success to a [future Series B raise]. Being there in person made a huge difference to the founders.

The playbook for Shippit contained all the “key metrics that needed to be landed” in order to drive the business forward. Will and Rob nod at each other, “we ran our whole business off that.” It prepared Shippit for the next capital raising round, laying the groundwork for success they enjoy now. 

When reflecting on what Tidal is like compared to other investors, Rob observes that “we've got more investment [dollars] from other partners who don't give us anywhere near as much counsel and guidance, or encouragement.” In business speak, he jokes “they definitely over-index on their investment versus their involvement.” What a compliment!

Think big and then think bigger 

A pivotal moment for Rob and Will was during a conversation with Grant, who said “you don't realise this yet, but this is a billion dollar company. You need to be thinking in terms of a billion dollar business, how you are going to change the world and what you're going to do.” It’s this kind of Tidal truth bomb that has helped Shippit to realise they are “no longer building a product, but building a company.”

Will explains that “the conversations that we're having now are around organisational design, having the right people on the bus, checking they are sitting in the right seat.” This is where Tidal has steered them, in part, toward being that billion dollar business and thinking like one too. 

When I asked if this meant they no longer felt so green, they concluded there’s always something to be green about. And despite onboarding many investors since the start, Tidal is often the go-to for advice and guidance. This can mean hands-on help or a late night phone call with Wendell or Grant to “have a glass of wine and talk about the business.”

Regardless of what you're going through, they're there for the good and the bad, thick, and thin to get you through what you need to get through.”

- Rob Hango-Zada

Foundational friends and future relationships

Rob and Will have been friends for 17 years, and in some ways it’s hard to believe they are first time founders. They are wise and self-aware. Perhaps this comes from knowing each other really well or maybe they’ve just learned to be confident and believe in their team. 

Will reveals his secret to staying calm through everything, “whatever happens you and I will figure it out and that's my secret.” Rob says their biggest strength is being able to “take outside information and apply the concepts that we've got to come up with the best answer.” Either way, they work as an inseparable team. 

When it comes to Tidal’s place in things, the founders say they “take more of a partnership based approach, which is empathy, understanding and pushing us, or encouraging us to think bigger about the problem, which is why they have been so important to us over the last couple of years.”

“Having Wendell on the board from a product perspective, Georgie on board from a finance perspective, then capital raising and how we think about our future state from Grant. All of these different people from Tidal make up a really good front for us. They’re fully part of our team.”

As Rob concludes, “regardless of what you're going through, they're there for the good and the bad, thick, and thin to get you through what you need to get through.”