Ep 211: "Soccer, Stadiums and World Class Guest Experiences" with Christian Lau

There's a handful of clubs that we've worked with that are, you know, household names to help inform them on their technology stacks and, you know, guest experience type systems and services, and we learned stuff from them too, like they've been been at it for a minute, so I think there's a really cool collaborative relationship with the handful of clubs that we've, you know, shared our best practices with, and our partners. We are so grateful to be supported by these community champions, sales MD, Team Friday, Realist Lab, Kiana Patterson, Diego Chavez, Jerboshay, Heather Ryder, Janine Sua, Lily Roca, and Steve Kernan. Hola, hello, hi, bienvenido, and welcome back, or maybe welcome to entrepreneurial thinkers, maybe you're joining us for the first time. As you may or may not know, this is the show where I get to have weekly conversations with the best and brightest entrepreneurial thinkers, I call them across all sectors and segments of society and industry, as we come together to try and understand how we can attack this world a little bit differently, but also how to hopefully lead the world a little bit better than we found it before the conversation. Today, I'm excited to be joined by an old friend from a prior light, Christian Lau, who's the Chief Technology Officer at LAFC, which is for those that don't know or follow that's the Los Angeles Football Club in our in our great city here in Major League Soccer. I'm going to tell you a little bit about him before we welcome him to the show, and we'll drop into an awesome conversation about all things, technology, business, and soccer. I've been lucky enough to know Christian for many years now, we work together in a prior life for a bit, and he always even then, and now struck me as one of the smartest and most interesting people in the room, while also being able to discuss really complex technologies in really simple, kind of real world ways. He, to me, and this is why he's here today, is he's the prototypical entrepreneurial thinker in my mind. He's someone who uses cutting edge technology that's available to create human experiences, while thinking originally about what's possible and not necessarily about what the limitations might be. What a story his is it's not the typical story that gets you from there to the air in a career picture naval intelligence operative who transitions into private industry learns how to scale and expand companies across industries, but then synthesizes all these experiences and insights into leveraging technology and human insight to build the best in class modern day sporting fan experiences in the MLS. And he's not just a sports fan or a sports industry operator in my experiences and perspective he's really kind of a curator of fan and business experiences. He's part of the founding group there at L.A.F.C. Christian and he and his teammates are constantly constantly and all aspects really I say this from both a fan and an outsider perspective just live in here in L.A. kind of building one of the most innovative sports organizations in the world blending AI biometrics and seamless design to make the entire stadium experience feel almost invisible with over two decades of transforming complex systems into human experiences. Just building tech he's really just quietly redefining how we move and interact and feel in the spaces around us and that's a lot of what we're going to talk about today so I'm super excited about this because it's kind of like an inside little behind the scenes for you of what we all experiences sports fans at least here in Los Angeles so Christian welcome to entrepreneurial thinkers buddy. Thank you so much Rob appreciate you having me my pleasure there's a lot to unpack a lot to discuss and explore together you're going to give us some insights. And frankly just probably satisfy a lot of curiosity on things that the average fan doesn't even think about when they walk into a place like B.M.O. or maybe any stadium and so we'll extrapolate some of what you guys are doing out at L.A.F.C. into just kind of the broader world of sports in the industry right now but I want to start with something real simple because this is a very personal perspective for me as a fan I've been to I don't know maybe a dozen L.A.F.C. games over the year over the years I've been to probably that many if maybe a not a few more. Angel City games of B.M.O. over the years and I'm curious like why does the fan experience inside of B.M.O. just like deal so positive and uniquely energized compared to just about any other stadium that I would go. Well I appreciate that you know I think it was intentional you know going back many years but something that we wanted to just kind of blend into the background frankly you think about coming into the venue. You know our primary focus was always trying to eliminate friction that you saw in other venues in fact you know when I came on board at L.A.F.C. but it's you know over nine years ago and back in the day. You know we were a giant hole in the ground and we were just trying to figure out our strategy you know and I joined very early I mean we had no players no coaches anything like that that's why I said like it's like there's founders and then there's that founding team but when you're there in a professional sports franchise before there are players you're early. All very early and then really just trying to redefine what the guest experience would look like you know from a leadership perspective ownership same thing like we got together and just kind of talk strategy about you know what we wanted to do and so my. My primary focus not coming from sports I kind of thought back about the experiences I had had at venues over the years and what didn't work what I didn't like and so then I went on a. A journey in that first year to venues newer venues primarily that had opened recently just to understand what what was working what wasn't working what kind of friction they were seeing that kind of stuff yeah which is really informative frankly I think. Learned a lot of lessons there and then brought that back to our experience you know spent many months working through what would ultimately become what you have today be most stadium back in the day you know again just kind of trying to redefine what that actually realizing some of this like we didn't actually set out to. To redefine certain categories around like you know what detection think you think it like redefinition in the big sense and not every micro decision probably yeah at all but what has been you know ultimately as you you start going down a path. You know you deploy a technology and then you realize that you know it's a step in time you know there are things that just kind of occur to you a good example would be you know biometric ticketing which is a thing these days but you know back in 2017 we're thinking through. That wasn't a thing being a digital only venue for example so when we open we had no paper tickets and if you recall back then you know PDF was a normal thing like somebody would just print a ticket which is just not. A great experience and by the way like people just don't really print that much either so there was that bit and so we open the 2018 as a digital only ticketing venue which was interesting because we had no legacy so our season ticket members weren't all that concerned about it but you know we did hear feedback from the industry thought we were crazy. You did get some folks that wanted to have like you know first season ever commemorative tickets that kind of stuff but just just trash I mean people just stood that in a drawer never really looking again. Maybe somebody will frame it so we want to market with that and realize like okay so you know we have a bar code QR code you can scan but that's not a great experience either because people don't necessarily know. Which way to angle the device and then you also have situations with screen. You know density the sun can be in the way they have all of those in the macro outside of sports like all of those technologies a couple of those things you just refer to were kind of kind of new in and of themselves right like they weren't like embedded in our user experiences humans yet and yet and then here you guys are bringing them over to sport and be like hey get used to this in sport. Yeah and by the way like you know you don't have your brightness up on your device you're not going to scan a ticket but what we decided to do in that first years we knew NFC you know near field communication what you see now everybody takes advantage of it pretty much everywhere but in 2017 it wasn't really a thing yet. But you know we started to focus heavily on what the wallet experience and Android and iOS would look like and made some decisions to get into NFC ticketing and of course that took off really well and then by 2019 we were thinking well what's next. What's after the NFC ticket and then that's how biometrics came up and we started down a path to do face identity ticketing as well we actually lost it in early 2020 before the the panda. Yeah right we had to shut down that kind of like change things for us a little bit but we had a really good. there. And now, of course, like, you know, we have biometric ticketing and age verification payment, all those things are opt-in at Beamless Stadium, and people take advantage of it. And it's just a really clean experience, but the technology in itself is not cumbersome, but none of our stuff is. Like, so you ask the question about our guest experience. And so, you know, you walk in, we have a weapons detection system, you just walk through. Unless you have a clear bag or something goes off, like we obviously have to do so a little bit more, you know, scrutiny, but for the vast majority of people to just walk in, they tap their device, or their face can be in their ticket, and they're in the venue. Yeah. Literally, like, there's barely any friction there. And then, you know, when you come into the building, we've done a lot of work around autonomous retail, so you can do, like, optical self checkout, and it's on just walk out. These types of platforms allow Rob to come in by a beer. And if you want to get some food, and you're literally through that, that transaction and, you know, 14 seconds, I think, is our average scan rate at our optical self checkout units. Now, there is a variable there, like sometimes people will come in and, like, you know, we have King's Hawaiian, for example, very popular food items, and sometimes we get back up making those food items. Sure. And they might have to wait a minute, but once they check out, they're out. I mean, it's, you know, a nine second transaction and everybody's happy. So we see that in the reality of it as I think most people interface with those systems, but they don't really think about those systems. And I think when you, that's the thing for me is, like, you're not, I was harking back as I was preparing for the interview, and I thought to myself, like, of my own childhood fandom experiences, like, really feel, you know, paper score guard, all those types of things in 1975. And, and yet, like, going in and out of BMO for a football match, like, it doesn't, even though there, there's all these layers of technology between 1975 and 2026, the reality is, like, it doesn't feel cumbersome. Like, so it's fascinating to me that you guys not just thought about it originally, as you said, you've been at it for a while now. And, and you're constantly thinking about it. So you're, you're, you're almost like, well, okay, what frictions have we created now by eliminating those frictions? And, and then how can we be sensitive to the frictions we've created in 2020, 324, 25, and then how can we do better on that? And you're just, it's, it's just constantly, again, very, very, very interfaced with us as fans, but also kind of seemingly just behind the scenes, right? Like, I mean, it's the fascinating part. Is it's very, very right in front of you? No different than a loud ticket-taker guy would have been in it, regularly field in 1975. But yet, you guys have adapted that using technology. And the experience for the fan is just like, oh, this is, it's as easy as awesome. I'm at the ballpark. I'm here for the game, the match, but like, I'm not thinking about all this other interactive stuff because it's so seamless. Yeah, yeah, exactly right. And, you know, everything we've focused on over the years, it really comes down to human scale, how people interface with these systems. We don't really want them to think about the technology that they're interacting with. We just want them to get through the transaction and then move on with, with enjoying the event, you know, whether it's a football match or or a concert or, you know, we do other types of events as well. So we just, we want those things to be, you know, not top of mind. Yeah, no, and again, experientially, I just, from my point of view, there may be others that argue it or others who don't like new things who are lovedites or who just don't, who don't want new technology. There's always that in your fan base, I would imagine, right? So there's always going to, at any size of people, there's going to be groups of people that are going to be pissed off about something, right? But in general, in general, you're, you're giving that experience that if there's a seven-year-old kid going to a match now, they're, they're thinking about it being a seamless experience to get to the joy of the match, no differently than I was when I was walking in the rigley field 50 years ago. Yeah, which is exactly right. That's awesome for you. I'm curious, you alluded to something in the, in the talking about kind of the origin story moments, right? Sports is big business, right? Technology, you and I know technology from before, before your sports life, right? Technology is, is one of those things inside of businesses depending on the size, enterprises, small businesses, right? It's oftentimes thought about as like an expense and it's, oh, like the, you know, the, the, the visionary executives are like, we got to use all this technology, right? It's like a big grudging experience. It sounds like, it sounds like for you guys, when it was just a hole in the ground, so to speak, at the, the founding team was really kind of behind you and behind technology from day one, like that this was just, this was like, hey, this is going to be hard of what we do to be good at what we're trying to do. Oh, yeah, no. 100%. In fact, you know, I mean, you know, as a technologist, I'll tell you 20 years ago, any venue that any organization doesn't matter when industry there and if they're thinking of technology as an expense and this vague line item that people just have to deal with, then they're, they're not thinking correctly and I say that's probably really poor management for. They are, they're losing or inevitably going to lose. Yeah, but you do hear that, I hear that from people, but what I will say on the topic is, you know, technology in general is a business driver for us. You know, we, we don't get the revenue that we, that we get today without having technology at the forefront of everything we do. Okay, right? It just doesn't have that. I think the ownership group understood that from the get go. Yeah, a long time ago. And now I think sports and live entertainment, I think most, you know, organizations that we work with anyway, I think they all get that now. Yeah. But you're not going to have a successful business without the proper investment in infrastructure, you know, infrastructure is the key to a successful business to a stadium. And of course, not all sports, you know, organizations own their venue. We own our stadium, which is kind of a unique thing for us and in our industry in general. But you have to have the rails, man. You've got to have the connectivity for not only for the, you know, the guests to, you know, live stream or do whatever they're going to do on socials, but then also transactions, right? Transaction speed, um, getting into the building, like all these things are micro second transactions to like scan a ticket scan your person as you're coming in, um, buying merchandise and food and beverage, like all these things, um, are really important. And I think a lot of a lot of, um, businesses in general, and, you know, when you think about technology, I'm not, I'm not sure they think of it in that way, but it's, uh, you know, things like cyber security, uh, back in the day, we're just kind of a nuisance. But now, like, that is one of the most important components of business. Like you can't run a business without having these practices in place. And that, and that arguably, I, if I, if I could have, like, captured a speech you would have given 15 years ago, you would have been saying the same thing, you just would have been essentially predictively saying it then, right? And people, people would have been arguing, what, people might have been arguing with you about it, right? Skeptically, but the truth was you knew what was coming. And now you're, you're playing in a playground, so to speak, where you get to and act all that with a group of, of owners and collaborators that absolutely believe what you believe, which, uh, from a leadership standpoint, that's got to be fun for you. It's helpful. You know, you have your skeptics for sure. And I, I think back in the day, just, you know, 10 years ago, whatever. Um, yeah, people probably looked at me like, you know, man on the moon, like, yeah, okay, this guy, um, sure, whatever you say, kind of stuff. But now I think everybody kind of gets it, um, you know, you're not going to drive a business forward in 2026 without having like the proper investment, thinking about the right strategy, artificial intelligence, which of course is a really hot button topic. We've been using artificial intelligence since 2017. So it's not new to us. Um, people ask me about that, you know, because we've been using AI for a very long time for a bunch of different things. And it's not all, um, obvious to people. You're like, you're like, you're like, if you're coming, you're like, I'm old enough. I've been, we've been using AI since it was called machine learning. We've been using it for a long time. Yeah. It's, it's been around a minute. Uh, in fact, most of our, our, you know, our fans, our guests that come into the building, a lot of the systems they interact with are all AI with machine learning components too, especially around biometric identity, uh, weapons detection, all of our smart stores. So everything related to optical surf checkout and Amazon just walk out. Those are all AI based systems. Um, and we've had previous generations of those that we were testing. So this is just, we've been iterating for many years. Um, but what I tell people is because, you know, AI has kind of come to the forefront now, especially Jin AI and that kind of source. But I think the reality of it is a lot of the platforms [BLANK_AUDIO] existed before, have matured to a point where they're actually ready for business, like they're actually ready for prime time, where five years ago, six years ago, like good. Just wasn't. It was all very, yeah, it was just, you know, trying to figure stuff out. It was really good alpha or beta testing ready, but now things are truly in production, and we see. Yeah, I mean, that gives you a hell of a lot of the opportunity, yeah, I mean, that's exactly it. Like that, that technology sandbox meeting the market combined with, and like a management ethos that you're describing, that's, that's exciting time. I'm curious, a little soccer deviation here, does, does, so we're, we talked a lot about like the fan facing in stadium business operations, you know, revenue generating use of technology. Does the football technology use, does that fall under? Your purview inside of LFC personally as a leader, or is that something that gets cyphered off to other people and you don't play any part in that? It's actually a mix. I am involved. There is a work group of folks that are involved in that, frankly, player performance is a very, what's the right word? It's, let's just say players and coaches, they have their own methodology on how they want to do certain things, they're training that kind of stuff, and frankly, a lot of the systems that are out there, they're not one size fits all. Some stuff is, some stuff isn't. I get involved when I need to, but my main charter in the organization is a revenue generation and focusing on guest experience, but, yeah, there's a lot of cool stuff that we do on the player side as well, because those are the secret sauce things. Yeah, no, and we don't have to talk about, but that, because that, just the general theme of that has become quite a big deal, as a football fan, in general, maybe above, above average fan, like that kind of stuff is quite the thing nowadays, right? And it's the old, and the old money ball model of how to manage the, the business operations of soccer and the player transactions and worth and trades as we would say in the US are transfers as we would say everywhere else in the world. For sure, man. And then, yes, outside of performance, you alluded to it there was, yeah, when it comes to, you know, figuring out what players we want, scouting, those types of things, there are systems in place that we have, we have partners in place in those areas, but, you know, those are just, those are the things that we don't really, you're never going to hear about it. No, no, no. Which is funny, because, you know, you think about sports, like we're very collaborative across organizations, like front offices get along really well, like there's a lot of stuff we'll do with other teams, other leagues, and including, you know, we are so grateful to be supported by sponsors like our friends at Haney and company, you know, we all know that in today's complex financial landscape, having a trusted advisor can make all the difference. Since 1960, Haney and company has been providing a comprehensive accounting services to a diverse range of clients from small businesses to large corporations with nearly 400 professionals across 13 locations, they offer services in tax, audit, business consulting, and client advisory. In fact, their commitment to excellence has earned them recognition from accounting today and Forbes magazines. At Haney and company, though, it's not just about balancing books, it's about building lasting relationships based on trust and mutual growth. So visit Haney CPAs.com, that's Haney CPAs.com to learn how they can support your businesses financial journey. >> Clubs in MLS and, you know, when it comes to guest experience, we'll share all day long, but man, as soon as it comes to players, everybody just closes the door and just like, no, I can't. >> Yeah, exactly. Because now we're negotiating against each other, even though we're in the same league, right? That's funny. >> Definitely. >> That's a great segue. You're a fantastic podcast guest, right? You just segue into the next thing I was curious about. You talked about it in your opening, like having that time during that first year. But I know, because I follow you on socials, like I know you still do it regularly as part of your work, is like you're out there around the world, like you're out there visiting with other clubs and other teams, franchises and other sports. You're visiting with some of the best, quote unquote, like biggest name clubs in your own sport around the world. Like, I'm curious, is that as much give, as take, like is, are these, as you just said, are these, like, really collaborative conversations around the present day and the future of guest experience and revenue generation and basically everything but the player side? >> Yeah, absolutely. It's very collaborative. You know, there's a lot of things that we do as an organization to work with. Other organizations, we learned from them, they learned from us, we've got a very robust partner stack, right, companies that we work with. We will have conversations on their behalf with other organizations. If they're trying to go to market with something or, you know, we've made a decision to do a thing and then that partner will reach out to us and say, hey, will you talk to X, Y, Z? And so that comes up and so yeah, now there's a lot of, a lot of commerce on the back end of a lot of what you see me doing and you know, you probably is a little less than 1% on socials I don't post as much. >> Of course. I mean, this is me seeing and then knowing you a little bit and then extrapolating what I suspect you're doing with your job, right? >> Yeah, but there's a lot, you know, and then we were, you know, with obviously within sports and live entertainment, but we also do some things outside of sports and live entertainment where the technology we deployed has practical application and other verticals, which you see a ton of, right? Especially the stuff we're doing now, it's all at scale. It's all meant to basically, you know, provide services to thousands of people at once. In our case, 22,000 people come into the building. >> At once, right, yeah. >> Roughly. But you think about airport transportation. >> I was just going to say, like you actually. And centers. >> Yeah. >> All the things. >> Sugar. >> Putt intended when I say triggered, you triggered a thought earlier when you mentioned weapons detection stuff in the stadium. I hadn't written this question down, but now I'm just curious about it, right? Like, I know I'm a public transit user here in town, heavily so, and so I know that like the LA Metro in this last year, you're in a half was doing some pilot testing at different stations of various types of weapons detection systems and whatnot and that there's like a perfect example. Like, there's a massive public institution agency, right, that are, that arguably in this case, and it's not about being ahead or behind, but arguably in this case is like behind the curve technologically with versus you, this one private enterprise, although you have a high profile, like you're still just one private company, essentially, who's mastered the use of it at scale for your own crowd issues. And that's, that's fascinating to me, right, like that public sector organizations could come to the private sector and be like, hey, guys, like, what do you know, Christian, like, what have you learned? I'm the CTO of Metro, and I'm not saying this conversation is happening, but like hypothetically, right, like I'm the CTO of Metro, like, hey, what are you guys figuring out with your technologies that you're using? What are the best practices? Like that, that's some true to me, entrepreneurial thinking across industries. That's fascinating, but you have that kind of, those types of examples happening in your commercial relationships. Yeah, no exactly right. And then, you know, you think about weapons detection specifically. That industry is still relatively new, you know, and what I mean by that is, sure, we've had magnetometers for what, 80 years or so, and they've been around forever. The next generation is very old school, you know. But the system we use is millimetre wave radar based technology, which didn't exist until they brought it up. And it was just these guys that decided they had a better way, a better way. And so that's why we went in that direction because we needed to detect things that were obvious, but then the less obvious things too, you know, that's amazing. And so that's worked out real well, but there's a lot of application for that technology and we've been involved in that sales process with them on a few occasions. A lot of eyeballs on it. I can tell you though, like we were their first sports customer, but they are doing really well in school districts, universities, the places that you wish you didn't have to have. Of course detection, right? Yeah. But yeah. I'm curious. I'm curious. These things will scale. I'm curious something else. And this is very much a football specific comment I'm about to make, but, right, like, there are, there are for the football fans that are listening are part of my community. Like, you know, there are huge clubs. LAFC is a huge club, but they're the mega clubs, right, at the global level, right? The Barcelona's, the Madrid's, the Liverpool on the Liverpool fan, right? Like the Chelsea's, the whomever's, right, like they're those masters. We are so grateful to be supported by sponsors like our friends at Chisos Capital. Everyone knows that raising capital is hard and frankly finding the next pool of entrepreneurs to get access to as limited investors is sometimes impossible to do. Do you have a big idea, a dream you're building, but you're struggling to find early funding? Well, Chisos is changing the game. for founders, creators, athletes, and investors. Whether you're launching a startup, growing your creative brand, or training for the big leagues, cheese those backs, you. Cheese those uniquely invests up to $100,000 in people, not just products. Whether they be entrepreneurs, creators, or even athletes. 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And what I would find interesting, and please tell me if I'm totally wrong about this, but just because you've got some of these clubs that have massive long histories and big commercial operations, there could be a lot of cases where you guys kind of like the decade old upstart, who's kicking ass on the pitch and in the commercial arena and in the technology arena, like you could be more expert about technologies that could be deployed for commercial purposes, for revenue generating purposes, for business management, then they would. So even though they're massive, I would imagine, and if this is true, I'd be curious, are there sometimes these massive clubs that look at you guys? And again, you're more like the growth stage company now, not the startup anymore, but are there folks that look at you guys and kind of think like, hey shit, we could learn from Christian. Like I don't care if we've been around for 122 more seasons than they have, and we have a billion dollars of revenue blah, blah, blah, the truth is we're way behind, we just built a new stadium, we're just modernizing for the first time in 50 or 70 or 80 years or something like that, right? Like does that ever happen? - Yeah, you know, there's a handful of clubs that we've worked with that are household names to help inform them on their technology stacks on guest experience type systems and services. - And we learned stuff from them too. - Like they've been at it for a minute. So I think there's a really cool collaborative relationship with a handful of clubs that we've, you know, shared our best practices with and our partners as well. Some of the stuff that we've deployed at BMO stadium has made its way to venues around the world as well. And so those are always active conversations. - That's got to be fun for you to see too. Like a little bit of a proud dad kind of thing, right? Like, hey, this is cool, this is what we did. And now you guys are doing it over here, that's cool. - Yeah, I think, you know, you do get some of that for sure. And I think that, you know, in the end, we're all in the same business. And so we're, even though the markets might be different, everything's pretty much the same, I would say. And so we want to see everybody succeed, especially our partners too, you know, like they go through a lot to help us achieve a lot of what we've done. And so we want to make sure that we, you know, help them scale and bring that back to them as well, you know. - And even more so, maybe you alluded to this also in your opening kind of, forget the big names we just talked about, but like inside the MLS, I mean, you guys are literal partners, right? And like the franchises that are part of this league, like you have a collective endeavor that is the success of growth of the league. And so I would imagine, you know, there are franchises no disrespect to any of them. They were main nameless, but like that aren't run as well as you guys or aren't as forward thinking an ownership group as yours might have been, et cetera. And so I would imagine that there could be an opportunity for a lot of leadership help and guidance that you can provide to other clubs in different states of existence inside the MLS. - Yeah, I'm sure that's possible. You know, we have active conversations with the league on a regular basis across the whole business though, not just technology, but, you know, across marketing and legal operations, sales and service, you know, all the things. - How do you guys do what you do well? Well, how can we do that too? - That, you know, just a lot of collaboration, there's different committees and things that all the clubs are involved in, you know. There's a AI committee, we have cyber security, and there's a bunch of things that we, you know, we're all touching the same elephant in the same place, right? - At a league level, leadership is thinking about these things and the collective. - Absolutely, and so you have, you know, you have those opportunities to just really educate on why we did something versus, you know, you know, you can go multiple directions, you know, name the categories. - Cyber security is a big thing for us, obviously, very high profile club, and we want to make sure that we have, you know, any and all areas of attack, secured, and we do the best we can to make that work. And a lot of clubs, I think, you know, and not just in MLS, but just in general, I think sports organizations in general are still trying to figure out, like, what is their cyber security strategy? What does the posture gonna look like in the future that kind of stuff? And so we, we've been dealing with that for many years and, you know, frankly, I think it's an organization we're definitely an authority on that topic. - It's awesome. - And so we'll work with others to help them achieve the same level of security, right? - Yeah. - Which I think they appreciate, 'cause obviously you, you want to have that peace of mind, but then also you know, you have your cyber security insurance, premium to those kind of things. - Yeah, definitely go down if you're doing the right thing. - Exactly. - So I know that saving the money as well, which is a very practical business reason to do these things. - Huge motivator. - Yeah, to learn the lessons if you're behind the curve a little bit. Hey, I don't think I've ever asked you this question in our friendship over the last decade as you endeavored into this world. How'd you get this job initially? Like, how did this even come to pass and you're already eclectic, amazing career journey? - It was a very random friend of a friend. - That's awesome. - Conversation, yeah, the head of strategy here at the time was tight with a friend of mine and they were looking for a CTO and just asked if she knew anybody, basically. - Wow. - Which was interesting. - That's old school. - And I think they were, yeah. And you know, I think it's interesting, our leadership at the time, ownership, they were looking for people, not just in my role, but several folks that came in to the organization came from outside of sports. - Okay. - And so they were looking for people with just a different, you know, different perspective on things, which I definitely did. And so that's how that. - You delivered on that, 100% man. - Yeah, so that's how that played out. I remember my first conversation on the topic was, gosh, this has been years now, but I was in Westwood sitting in my car, waiting to go into the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie premiere, because my friend Janet, yeah, 'cause my friend Janet was a producer on it. So was there to celebrate that and watch the movie and stuff with a bunch of friends and that kind of stuff after party was great. But yeah, so that's how that started. - Awesome. - Yeah, man, so that was good. It was, you know, a process to get in, but you know, just having the conversation about, you know, what I wouldn't do. - Sure. - And what doesn't work, I think, was probably more beneficial to them than, you know, all the pie and the sky things. - Yeah, yeah, or specular stuff about like, well, this, oh, if I was doing this in the soccer world, this is what I, like, it wasn't really, they were more like, talk to us about business and technology and all the things that you love to talk about. - Yeah, exactly. And then what didn't work. 'Cause, you know, even, you know, before LAFC, I went to a lot of sporting events, lots of concerts and things around the world and, you know, you go to venues and it was just terrible. - You're like, I'm a great fan. - I am a great fan. I can tell you how we could be doing this differently. - Yeah, like, you know, you did too. I mean, you're talking about going to Ritzhux. - You know, you're talking about all your parties. - Anyways, a great ballpark, by the way. - You forget about, you forget about all that stuff. And so you, and so you later are a podcaster and you're sitting here cajeelling all your memories and your experiences and you're thinking about them in a different way. But, yeah, I mean, literally, like, it's one of the things I say and I've said it to a couple of the, well, now former owners of original Foundering people of ACFC that I've had a good fortune to get to know a little bit through some mutual friends. And I've said oftentimes to them, I'm like, I'm like, the experience in that, literally, the fan experience in that stadium during an angel city match, the combination of your underlying infrastructure of the stadium and the layers that LAFC has built in and then the unique cultural commitment that ACFC. I'm like, it's unlike anything in 50 years of fandom. Like, it's just a very uniquely positively energized, a communal collab. We are so grateful to be supported by sponsors like our friends at eSudo. You know, running any business, but especially a law firm means bouncing a lot. And technology, frankly, shouldn't be a headache. eSudo makes information technology in cybersecurity simple for law firms large or small. With over 20 years of experience, they specialize in everything from Microsoft 365 management to advanced cybersecurity solutions. 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Like you don't like you want this fan to skip past thinking about any of the technology and get to the feeling part because that's the beauty of live sports. 100% yeah, we want the concert or entertainment engagement. Yeah, we want them to enjoy the day and not have the memory be, you know, it took me 45 minutes to buy things. Yes, like I mean, it probably did take me, it probably did take me 45 minutes to buy food as a Cubs fan in Chicago in the 1970s. But I don't care because the rest of the experience was like so good that you're like, okay, right? So you just don't think about it. I'm curious, you've mentioned it a few different times and I would love to hear about the differences. Like, you know, L.A.F.C. beyond the soccer team and the professional football club that we're talking about, like you built the stadium, you owned the stadium. You guys are, you are as much as a CTO of the stadium as you are a CTO of the soccer club, even though I didn't describe you that way in the opening. Like, is there a material difference in how fans of concerts at BMO or like concerts in sports is the main comparison because you also do smaller events, you also host, you know, conferences and you know, those types of things that go on like in your meeting spaces and whatnot. And I imagine those are obviously different because the scale is so different. But like, is there, is there a fundamental material difference when you're thinking about how to use technology in a fan facing way between a music experience, a concert venue and a sports match? Yeah, I mean, we look at it, you know, through a different lens. But ultimately, you know, when it comes to specific to stadium operations, the audiences are different, you know, an LAFC audience is, you know, not crazily different, but slightly different than an angel city football club audience. And that's mainly down, you know, the types of people attending demographics, lots of families, those types of things. But when you start getting into concert, it really depends on the concert, you know, depends on the artist. You know, you have, we do a lot of K-pop in our venue, for example, and you know, you've got people under the age of 17 that, you know, heavily indexed for those types of concerts. You have things that, you know, in the past, ruthless to soul, carless antenna. We've had Iron Maiden in the past, we have Iron Maiden again in September. Older demographic, completely different, you know, likes, just likes around food and beverage and those types of things. And so we try to, you know, we have the things, obviously, that people like beer, alcohol, certain chicken tenders, like those types of things, basically, you know, there across every type of event, the technology that we use for all of our operations, it's all the same, because we know we have different audiences, but we're very intentional about how we deploy technology. That's why you see, you know, LAFC, Angel City, obviously two different organizations under the same roof. Angel City puts their, you know, magic dust, whatever you want to call it, on top of the experience, but the underpinning is still our tech and it's same with concerts, you know. It's all the same, but we know like we're going to serve as that audience, regardless of what type of audience it is, because we've made the point to like, invest in the right technology, knowing that we've got younger demographics. That's why biometrics and optical self checkout and just walk out works so well, man, because we have a very young demographic across every line of business. Okay, so there's less, less like user resistance in part just because it's a more technologically-adept, open-minded user group. Yeah, for sure, but even, you know, it's interesting, you know, you start getting into like Gen X, boomers, those types of things too. I think they get a bum rap because the reality there is they also adopt technology relatively quickly. You know, the optical self checkout conversation, something we've been doing for a few years now, like the uptick and people wanting to use that technology and why we deployed it so vastly now. We barely have a traditional billy up model anymore just about everything's, you know, self checkout. You know, we came to those decisions because we surveyed our guests, right, after every event. But when you start looking at the characteristics of these fans of ours, these customers, like you start seeing, you know, age, because we, you know, we ask all the right questions. And so we're looking at these across, you know, age ranges, demographics, socioeconomic factors, all the things. And, you know, it's basically like a nice straight line just about everybody aligns with our strategy, which is why it's our strategy in the first place. We didn't, you know, we didn't just wake up and say, hey, you know what, we're going to do this. It was actually informed over time by our customer. You know, it's part of what's fascinating to me is, is, so you collect all this information, right? So you've got all this incredible insight. And it's from these different audience segments related to different uses, use cases of the stadium, the event space, etc. But then there's, there's, when you collect it all, right, there's just shared baselines that say, oh, okay, like this is, this part is universally true. Like this is universally true, whether it's the K-pop fan or the Gen X, you know, VIP season ticket holder, like they're all bought in on this core portion of what we do. But then over here, we, it's like, it's more, to me, it feels like the way you're describing it more, like turning up a volume knob, right? Like talking about dating myself right there, turning, turning up a volume knob on, on, on how the technology interfaces with the experience or turning it down, right? Or as opposed to, as opposed to having like these siloed experiences. So I can walk into the ACFC match and other than them changing out the marketing stuff on the walls. And as you say, sprinkling their community dust on it that they do. So while like generally I'm experiencing a BMO stadium, you know, underlying a BMO stadium event, the way that it feels good when I attend an LAFC match. Exactly right. Yeah, that's pretty cool. That's really, that's got to be fast. I'm curious, this is another one I wasn't really thinking about. So you just said something like, you're still a young guy. Like, I mean, so like, unless you're going to do this for 30 years, like, there's got to be a layer of what you're learning now. I mean, you were in the Navy. We were, we met in the franchise world. Like, there's so many different things that you've experienced in our experiencing. And now you're layering sports and entertainment onto that. Like, what are you, like, not that I'm trying to rush out the door because it seems like you're having fun. But like, but like, what, where would you take all these experiences that you're, that you're learning now in sports and entertainment and stadium management? Like, what, what might you apply this to after this? Or is this it matter? You just, you go from this to retired and just be a fan. I'm definitely not thinking about retirement, any of those types of things. I haven't really given it any thought, man. Yeah, no, I honestly, I think, you know, I just enjoy the work. It's obvious that the innovation and really just kind of, you know, trying to solve for sometimes problems that people didn't even know existed. But then once you actually get it out to the forefront, you realize, oh, wow, like, that actually makes a lot of sense. How did we not have this before? So I enjoy that kind of thing and the collaboration behind it. So yeah, no, I'm in a good spot. I feel like I've got a lot to do still. And there's a lot of opportunity to do those things and-- - Well, it seems like, I mean, again, this just as an outsider fan user perspective, like, and maybe a bit of a business junkie that I am, right? So it seems like you've just happened to enter sports in that side of it, or the changing metamorphosis that is kind of the fan-live/experience, at a fascinating time in history, right? Like, a lot of what you couldn't have controlled, we talked about the pandemic, and now we're in this post-pandemic world, and then sports has become this mega thing that it never was when seven-year-old me was going to Cubs Games. Like, it seems like the opportunity to iterate and play in this sandbox, although the club has been around for now a decade or more, but, or competitors in the industry have been around for 100 years. Like, the truth is, it all seems like it's really, really exploding right now. Like, this is very much a thing in the business of sports entertainment that could keep you busy for the next 20 years. But easily, yeah, no, I think we're in a really good time. When you look at the space-time continuum, you look at where we're at now, you look at the technology that's in play, you look at the innovation, you look at the fact that, we're leapfrogging versions of different platforms. I tell people in our space, we only focus on best-to-breed technology, but you're best-to-breed 'til you're not, right? - And those windows are truly a good may ever have been. - Oh, it's wild. Yeah, no, that's a very true statement. And in a word on our second, or, you know, we've been around what nine years now, longer than that, but as actually playing, and having a functioning stadium nine years. And we're on our second third, and in a couple cases, our fourth generation of whatever that technology is, right? And so we're always iterating, always working on what's next. It's just like this natural evolution of technology. And whatever it is, I mean, it could be, you know, I said it before, you know, autonomous retail, network connectivity, 5G connectivity, like all the different things. - Stuff that literally didn't exist, right? Like, not that long ago. Yeah, that's the best part. Going back to 2017, like, you know, we had, you know, Wi-Fi, what was it? Wi-Fi 5X standards back then, you know, and then you start to look at where the market is. And like, some of the stuff that we deployed in the past, we knew it was planned obsolescence, because we're like, okay, we're going to deploy this now, but we know in 24 months, we're going to do this other thing. But the text is just not there yet. And our partner's like, we're still in alpha testing. We're still working through this, but we want to do testing in the stadium. We want to see how this is actually going to work, 'cause they're doing stuff in a lab and it's like, okay, in theory, this is going to be awesome. But then you actually get it into an audience. You get it in front of the public, which we do a lot of those types of things. - Yeah, when those chicken one likes, let's see how this works. When there's a big queue of people and those chicken fingers are late coming out of the stove, right? - Exactly. - Or those are the things. - Yeah, because that's real life. - Those are, as they would say, you know, under live fire, so to speak. - Yeah, no, 100%. - Curious, this is kind of a philosophical question, right? So I always, these are always fun. When you're designing these fan experiences, you like in your head, do you think more like an engineer? Do you think more like a fan or a storyteller? Like are you trying to curate this experience where you're like, I want this person to go through it this way? Like which part of Christian comes to the fore? Or is it just a little bit of all? - All of it. - Yeah. - It's all of it, man. - Yeah, you have to think through it. Well, 'cause you have to think through the full customer journey. - Yeah. - You have to, so that's just, you know, that's the customer facing peace. But then you also have to think through the timeline to build out the experience. Does the technology actually line up with reality? What are the economics of this? Is it scalable? Yeah, all that stuff comes into play, man. And then from there, you have to be thinking about, okay, so we're gonna do this. What does the next 36 months look like for this platform? How does this play in other venues? What is the revenue uptick for us? 'Cause like, you know, in the end, the technology we're doing, it's all really cool, but in the end, it really is about revenue and generating revenue and making things as efficient as possible. And now you're the strategist, the chief technologist, the business owner, all these other parts of your persona that layer into the three that I picked out, like that's you're thinking about it all, no wonder you're having fun, dude. My goodness. (laughing) - Well, I have more gray hair now than I do. - Well, yeah, but that was probably gonna happen anyways. But like, you're living a good life. I mean, no matter, again, no wonder you are enjoying it, and I can literally feel it, which is a joy for me today, 'cause we haven't connected live in a long time in our relationship, although we've known each other for a long time, and I've always-- - It has been a minute. - Watch the journey, but I can literally feel your, the pleasure with which you're enjoying this experience, which is, I mean, man, if that's not what we're all chasing. So good for you. - All right, last question or two before we get to our last segment, and this is almost a silly question, right? The whole, like, 10 years from now. You just spent 45 minutes extrapolating that we're thinking in 36-month windows, right? I mean, and even that's probably reinventing itself two or three times in a 36-month window. But I am curious, because you do sit in this unique chair that you get to kind of fantasize with us for a minute, right? As the consumer of these concerts, of these fans, that go to matches, go to games, what is it? What does it look like 10 years from now, right? 'Cause there's so much of what happens today that if you and I would have had this conversation in 2016, there's stuff that we wouldn't have even literally been able to put name to. And then there's stuff that you, because you're a thought leader, you probably would have been able to fantasize and been like, well, let me tell you, what this is in the lab right now, and by 2025-26, like this could be normal. What does it look like or feel like for the average fan? Let's not talk about like the Super VIP fan, but like for the average fan, what does it kind of feel like in 2030 or 2035? - Great question, you know, I would say that you're getting a lot of the underpinnings of what the future looks like now. - Okay. - And what I mean by that is, so you know, you're starting to see it across all kinds of verticals. So you fly, right? You go to the airport, you're starting to see a lot more of a biometric identity. If you're going to fly to Japan, if you're going to go to the European Union now, like since mid-April, like you were going to have a biometric profile, whether you want it or not, 'cause you can't come in the country unless you have a photo taken, they scan your fingerprints, and they have a face identity profile of you, and it's tied to your passport. There are no more stamps. You don't get to stamp in your passport anymore, all these things. So that exists coming into the United States for the last, gosh, what, three years. I've had a biometric profile. I've literally just been welcome back. You don't stop, you're just done. It's such a quick transaction. But so that convenience, you're seeing it more and more and more. And then you think about, you know, in a stadium environment, biometric identity, is your ticket, you can buy alcohol with your face, you can buy anything with your face, but you know, your age verified in the same transaction. It's like a half second. I think it's done. And so, but that, a lot of that, depending on the region you're in, there's some cities, you know, they have rules around and I think Portland, they have all kinds of stuff around biometric profiles that you can't do. Some states have legislation, you know, some don't in Europe. It's all over the place. I think England is starting to get into it more and more 'cause there's a convenience factor. And it's opt in, like we're not forcing people to do it, do it or don't. But I think a lot of people opt in because they see it. They see somebody that's literally walking like they own the place into the building. They're not stopping. And they're like, what? And the hell was that? And then I'd say, oh, we call it BMOS stadium express. And so that gives people the opportunity and real time to see what that looks like. - Yeah. - So I think, again, it's in its infancy now, but I think in the next five, 10 years, it's gonna be commonplace. And the idea that you're gonna have to pull out your wallet, you know, physical wallet is done. - I mean, that's done now, but people still do it. - My grandson, who's like 18, my grandson's 18 months, like he, by the time he's eight or nine going to his, like he won't have a wallet, right? Like it'll all just be tied to his idea or his face. - You don't even need one. - Especially in California, man. I use my Apple driver license, well, it's not Apple, but my California driver license in my Apple wallet, when I can, but some places don't take it yet, you know? - Now, 100%. That's fascinating. That's a big insight though. We're in an era where. there's not necessarily going to be like a ton of, there will always be new things agreed understood, right? But there's, we're laying like a big foundation layer is what I'm hearing you say. Like we're, we're living through like kind of a real foundation layer of this next kind of age of innovation and technology and, and commerce and whatnot. And then what we'll see is like layered pieces laid on top of that or iteratively grown. Like that's important to understand for folks. Like this is that, yeah. No, definitely. And I think you'll start to see a lot more, you know, along the same vein. You know, when it comes to interacting in general, just with, with people like you're going to start to have less of the, I call it the belly up model. You're not going to have to talk to people to place orders. You know, we struggle with, with getting enough staff in the first place. And so for us, the technology, that's been actually been a force multiplier for us, which has been helpful. So we still have the same number of people. Yeah. But now we're, we're having them do other things. So we're not, you know, technology's not replacing people. It's more like, you know, they're helping us build orders. They're able to give more one-on-one VIP treatment to our season ticket members. They're not in a hurry to like do a thing. Right. The system overall is just a better experience. And you're starting to see more that you think about, you know, some of the stuff we're working on in the digital realm, mobile app, for example. Like we're really focused, because you know, today apps are very utility-based, like you get your ticket, that kind of stuff. But we're looking at, and you know, don't want to get into too many details. But, you know, using AI, using an agent that basically is your interface and to all the things that you could possibly need from us, directions, ticket, and, yeah. And then, you know, buying stuff, whatever. Like there's just a lot of things that we're working through now. But we're just laying, laying the foundation, you know, we, a good example. You know, we have our, you know, we had Uber as a redshirt partner back in the day. Our redshirt partner, Nell's Waymo for L.A.F.C. Like that's autonomous vehicle, amazing organization, been, you know, in Waymo's for, since the beginning. So it's been a minute. Wow. That's pretty cool. But that's just like the natural progression of things. And there's some of the stuff that we're working on in the realm of, you know, the digital experience for season ticket members, ticket buyers. Yeah. Yeah. I'm being very big. But there's just stuff. No, no, that's okay. Yeah. Trust me. You'll enjoy a busy guy who's doing it time to listen to times of podcasts. But you'll enjoy actually, it's either this week or next week, I'll check and I'll message you. But I had a chance to interview some guys from Belgium, one has a funny personal relationship to me from way back in the South Orange County days, former professional basketball player in Europe. And they're, and they're working in the kind of, let's call it, just digital fan experience, kind of realm. And it was fascinating to like listen to these guys talk about why they're doing what they do and what they're doing and how the engagement has been in the early, early days their startup phase with, with some clubs in Europe and stuff like that. And, and as I was been preparing for this conversation, I was kind of like, oh, man, I could see some overlap with this stuff in the future. So you'll probably do that conversation because it'll be like, oh, yeah, this is the kind of stuff we're doing, right? Which is awesome. That's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. Last question, last question for you. And it gets you out of here. You've been so gracious with your time. I really appreciate it. Aside from honestly, just on a personal level, it's just nice to see you thriving and see you smiling and hear you excited about what you're doing because again, back in the day, like we didn't necessarily work in the most exciting industry when we worked together way back when, but, but you were always the guy that saw like the cool potential and the possibilities and, and you love technology, but you weren't like a technology nerd in the sense that you like in that sense that you didn't understand the applicability of it in the business, right? Like which is really where it becomes powerful. So it's just joyful for me to see you and hear you literally being happy in what you're doing. All right. Last question. If someone wants to, someone wants to grow up and be like you, right? So if someone listening and they want to get involved in technology in the sports or entertainment industry, like so sports or, or stadium management, like what are, what are, what are two, not who they, not who do they need to know, they need to call you. But like, but what are one or two skills that that person should be focused on today? As you say, so many things are changing so fast, but you guys are all across the industry laying this foundation layer of technology in business, like, so if I'm a, the young person in college or early in their career and they're like, man, I really would love to work for a guy like Christian or in an organization like what Christian is doing at BMO and LAFC, like what are one or two skills that that young person should be focusing on to build up their career? Wow, man, that's a good question. This is Christian. It's mentor question. Good God. I would say, well, one definitely is, and I don't know, no, I don't know if this is actually a skill, but I would say, listen more and talk less is very important. You know, trust the people that you have within your organization on your team, get their feedback, listen to everyone, even the folks that I call the flat earth people that don't really get things and they don't know what they don't know, but we try to help them along regardless. But they're definitely useful in the fact that, you know, they help you think through some of this stuff you hadn't thought about and then what is a friction point, that kind of thing. So that's really helpful. But I think anybody, you know, it's not really a skill, I think it's more just listening and understanding. I would argue in today's world where we broadcast ourselves so much, right, that that skill of listening professional, like listening and asking great questions, that's a hugely important skill. Is there a technological area that they should be focusing on more versus a less or just a lot of things? Really? No. So, you know, I have, you know, I've been building my repertoire of technology for a very long time and I try to forget a lot of things, frankly, you know, because there's just a lot, man. There's only so much bandwidth you have in your head, but, you know, there's, but it all comes back to you over time, but I wouldn't get overly nuanced on the construct of technology and learning technology, you know, you should have a really good business brain, right? So my whole education was around business, like it's, it wasn't even technology. And I think that's really important. I also think for the stuff that we do, negotiation is really important, you need to understand how to negotiate. It's not just deals, it's really working through, you know, I work a lot with engineers. I've got partners and companies that everybody's heard of and I work with their, you know, their product teams, their design teams. You know, I'm working with engineers and just egg heads, great guys, but you can't get it under their own way sometimes. And you just have to be able to, and it's not always a negotiation, but you just have to have the head for getting to where you need to get and understanding what the deliverable is going to look like, what the tangible stuff will be. At the end of it, but then you're going to have to fight the fight, right? Because you have folks that see things differently, you have to win hearts and minds. All those things, I deal with that. Even after all the stuff we've done, like every once in a while, something will come up or like, hey, we should do this and, you know, you still get a little pushback, right? Sure. Which is natural, it's fine. But I think if you can win those folks over, it just changes the dynamics, obviously, of that conversation, but then also when she delivers something, and then everybody's kind of like, oh, wow, yeah, okay, I see it now. I get it. Yeah. I love that to the guy with technologists in his title, you answered that last question exactly almost as I suspected you would have, which is you brought the humanity back to the conversation. Right? So the best advice to someone listening is hone in on your human skills, right? hone in on your human and leadership skills, and yes, like get versed in all the technologies of the era and of the time, but you know, it's a very easy trap, and some people could have been listening and thinking, oh, he's going to tell me I should super focus on AI or something right or a gentick AI versus something else. And I never would have expected you to do that. So you didn't, which is great. So like those are universal lessons you just shared that are absolutely applicable to finding a way into any spot in this industry or any industry. So thank you for sharing that. And thanks for sharing. Yes, of course. So the whole conversation, how can before we close out, we'll put all this stuff in the show notes, but like, you know, if you want folks to come and find out about LAFC or come to a match or find out about a concert at BMO, like what's the website address or where should we send them on socials? You know, LAFC.com, you can, you can Google us, you can. and use duck duck go if you want some privacy. - Did you see? - Hey there we go. - Check out BMO Stadium, you can use Gemini. It actually has a really good, well that and ChentGPT I suppose, they do us justice if you do a search for us there. And then me personally, it's just my name, right? LinkedIn and Instagram, I'm out there. So feel free, I actually probably interface with people more on Instagram than I do LinkedIn. - It's also good for everybody to know. - LinkedIn, I save for announcements and things, partners want us to say stuff sometimes. - Of course, yeah. - We'll use my channel or the LAFC channel only done for that. But yeah, we'd be great to hear from people for sure. - I appreciate that. I'll make one little personal plug as we close. One of the great things about LAFC matches at BMO or BMO as an experience for other purposes. Or in Gisetti is that you can get to it here in Los Angeles, it's super easy via public transportation. So literally like I, that is how I get to matches or events at the stadium is I come all the way up from all the way up here in Hollywood and I take the subway all the way down and I'm there and it's hassle free. And by the time you make it to downtown and you curve out towards that part of the line that you're on, the trains are filled with either ACFC fans or LAFC fans and it becomes this kind of preemptive and then post-match experience which is really great. And frankly the way that I think sports in a big city should be experience is a very communal thing. So if you're in town and you've never experienced BMO, it is also maybe the most accessible arena set up thing we have gone. So make sure to check it out. But buddy, I love it. Thank you so much. This was great. Really, really appreciate your time today, Christian. - Thank you, appreciate your time as well. (upbeat music) - And as always, we thank you so much for listening and watching. Today's show was produced by our team at the storytellers company in Mexico City and Los Angeles. And you know, you can always find like, follow, subscribe and share our show as found on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or wherever you find your favorite podcast by searching entrepreneurial thinkers with Rob Ryan. You can also follow along on our various social media platforms for clips and contents at entrepreneurial thinkers. And if you'd like to connect with me or host, you can find me just about anywhere on social under the handle I am Rob Ryan. Thanks and have a great day. (upbeat music)