Absolutely. Well, first of all, luckily I'm not the one that teaches the courses on flashclass. We have an excellent instructional design team and actually partnered with expert companies like Khan Academy and Intel to deliver the curriculum. So fortunately for all of our users and customers, they don't have to listen to me talk about things like AI or, you know, Excel and analytics, my education, because I think it's an interesting topic and something that I've never been asked about before on a podcast. So if you don't mind, we take a little bit of a detour here. So what motivated me to become an entrepreneur was I got into my dream school, which was Columbia University, when I was 17 years old, and, and at that time, that was the first time I think the financial realities of education in America hit me and I Realized it would be almost $100,000 a year to attend when you factor in room and boarding. And my dad worked in insurance, my mother was a schoolteacher, you know, but we never were wealthy by any necessary means. And there was absolutely no way that they would be able to come up with $400,000 in cash to put me through school. And so at that time I was irrational, even more so than I am now, if you can believe that. And as a 17 year old, I was like, there has to be a way to make this money and to be able to sort of put myself to go to this school. And so, you know, my parents helped me out a little bit, but in addition to kind of their contribution, I still had to make up that $85,000 a year shortfall. And so I started doing all sorts of odd jobs. I started babysitting, I worked at a tennis store, I worked outside at a recreation facility, I worked in a warehouse, all while in high school. And along the way, something really interesting happened where I noticed that there was no real platform to service. And I say platform, I guess there was no real place where parents could get rid of their kids. During COVID the business was we actually gathered. We ended up at our peak having almost 100 kids coming every day to learn how to teach tennis. I hired the entire girls varsity tennis team and I made in that sort of 12 week period of the summer, I didn't make the $100,000 I needed to go to Columbia, but I made about $65,000 in cash when I was 17, so I couldn't have a bank account yet. When I finally turned 18, I brought it all in a big trash bag like to the bank. And I had to fill out 100 forms because they're like, where did you get this money? Entrepreneurship being a lane for financial independence. And then more so when I got to college, you know, I sort of sat down in our classes and I heard received the speech, which was that, hey, you know, if you. I went to Miami University, which is a great school, but it's about 30 minutes away from where I grew up. You know, state school had a scholarship. Very fortunate to go there. But they said, you know, the top 10% of you that finish in the top of your class, you might be able to get a great job as a consultant at a company like Deloitte or, you know, McKinsey or Bain and go and provide business advice to companies. And I was like, great. And they're like, the best part is you might be able to make almost $70,000 a year right out of college. And I started doing the math and thinking, wait, I just made $65,000 in three months. You know, without a college degree, you're telling me that if I work really hard and finish at the top of my class, there's a chance I might make that an entire year after school. And that kind of set me on the entrepreneurial path. So appreciate you kind of letting me have a diversion there. But I think it's funny you mentioned the deferred education piece because when I had the opportunity to apply to schools like Stanford for my mba, it was ultimately very personally freeing to be able to say, you know what, I can write you the full check for tuition right now, you know, if you accept me and not having to worry about those financial constraints. A full circle moment for me.
