Right to Win EP.3: Learning to Fly with Jordan Huibers and Alvin Wong – EP.275

(00:00:00) – Intro

(00:04:55) – The origin of Alvin and Jordan’s relationship

(00:08:16) – The Search and circling in on an industry focus

(00:23:15) – The first few months on the ground post-close

(00:30:47) – How the Search community helped Alvin and Jordan

(00:33:46) – Taking a people-oriented approach to the business

(00:36:51) – Advice for the listeners

Alex Bridgeman: Welcome to the third episode of the Right to Win series. So previously, we had Dan Calano and Kyle Baer on the podcast to talk about their rights to win and how they won and built competitive advantages for the opportunities that they got into. That’s the whole theme of Right to Win is how do you as a searcher, entrepreneur build your own personal competitive advantage? And you guys have done that in a lot of different ways, both from being super focused on industry, having unique backgrounds, and then being, I think, pretty hard-working and resilient too. So, I’m excited to dive into that. But do you both want to share, maybe Alvin, do you want to start, like backgrounds, how you got to meet each other and then forming the search and all that?

Alvin Wong: Yeah, thanks for having us. Jordan actually tells this story really well. So I’m actually going to punt it over to him. He’s got… I might add a few things here and there though.

Jordan Huibers: Alvin and I met just over 15 years ago. And since then, we worked at a few different companies together. Alvin, I was assigned to Alvin as a mentor, and I’ve been learning from him ever since. And along that journey, I had left the company we were at to do a bootstrap software startup. And we ran that for a really short amount of time. And as I was wrapping that up, I said to Alvin, wow, this has been so much fun. I think I’m going to continue down this path. And I’d like to see if maybe we could find a business that we could step into and run and build as the focus of my career. And Alvin, to his credit, said, I may be interested. Let’s talk about that. And when we kind of tried to go through the motions of trying to figure out where we were going to focus that attention, we ended up doing a Venn diagram, essentially, of our interests and where we’d want to spend our energy and focus. And one of those areas that was kind of square between us was aviation and training. Alvin’s family worked in the airline industry, six members, right, Alvin, of the family?

Alvin Wong: You got it.

Jordan Huibers: At Air Canada, and I’m a general aviation pilot. And so it was a space that we both knew, and training is one of those spaces where we both felt that you can really make an impact on safety and outcomes. And so, we ended up going down the traditional search fund path, and we’re thrilled to find a great business.

Alex Bridgeman: I love that you know the story so well. That’s amazing. I didn’t realize it was 15 years you guys had known each other and worked together in lots of different ways.

Alvin Wong: Yeah, we worked together for, I want to say, Jordan, seven years at GE and then eight years at JP Morgan. Well, you were there for a good chunk of that time before launching off on an entrepreneurial journey doing the software startup. But otherwise, yeah, we’ve known each other for a long time and gone on ski trips and know families really well. And it’s just been a blast. Being able to work with your best friend in a business is awesome, man, day in and day out.

Jordan Huibers: Funny story. Alvin was actually, when I got my pilot’s license originally, Alvin was my very first passenger. I don’t know if that was out of ignorance or support, but he got in the plane with me.

Alvin Wong: I didn’t have kids yet at that point.

Jordan Huibers: Don’t let Alvin fool you. He was a skydiver. He’s done over 100 jumps. This was nothing for him.

Alex Bridgeman: Where’d you go? Like $400 cheeseburger or something? What’d you do?

Jordan Huibers: When I got my license originally, it was at City Center Airport in Toronto. And so we were on, it’s essentially an island right off the downtown of the city.

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah, very cool airport, first of all.

Jordan Huibers: Yeah, really busy airspace, exceptionally scenic, far to get to anything that’s like a good practice area. But the flight school there was excellent. And we took off and we essentially just did some laps around the CN Tower, which is just such an exceptional and rare task that you can fly below the height of the tower, and you’re essentially flying at the observation deck height. And so, we essentially did a few of those and took it back in to land.

Alex Bridgeman: That’s so cool. And so this Venn diagram focused around travel and aviation, how did that get reflected as you started your search? You talk about being super focused, and if I was like an intern during your search watching that, what do you think I would have seen? What would I have noticed and picked up on?

Jordan Huibers: I think one of the things that, within the search fund community, folks talk a lot about an industry focused search. And what we knew looking kind of at the areas of our interests were, hey, this particular industry is big enough that we could find that purpose and enjoyment out of finding a mission that suited us. An element that we tried to really lean into for ourselves was kind of a bit of the experience focus as well. And when I say that, I mean, what are the areas where our particular unique experiences that brought both Alvin and I to the same table on this journey, we can pull on and they can help provide depth or experience, not just to be, not just when we reach out to folks, we can be empathetic and understand what they’re going through, but as a pair, we can see opportunities that exist within for that particular business or otherwise, that would allow us to be really effective when we joined. And so, I think if you were in the- if you were with us in those days of the actual search journey, I think you’d see us, we essentially ran like two separate processes. Alvin was going down one side, and I was going down another, and we’d pull together and look at things. And when we wanted to make a change, we just made a really close pivot so that we made the most of our time and energy.

Alex Bridgeman: So what did that mean turning away? Because I think a lot of focus is being confident enough to say no, because it will… knowing that it will lead to other opportunities you didn’t see before. So what did that feel like?

Alvin Wong: Humanly, when you first start a search, everything under the sun can be really exciting. And I think like just learning along the way in terms of what is the right business for us in terms of where we are a match, not only personally, but professionally, and also like do the business dynamics of that particular company fit within the search fund model. And so, with all that being said, like initially you’re looking at a lot of stuff. And eventually you hone in, in terms of what you think is special. And then also you get along with the founders and the owners. And ultimately you’re continuing someone else’s legacy. And we continue to build on that. And we build on something special. Saying no is like being focused. And being focused is you do end up turning things away. That ultimately might not be the right fit for you. But it will be the right fit for somebody. Because entrepreneurs spend a lifetime building their businesses and pour their heart and souls into it. And we’re just trying to do them justice in being able to take it, like take the baton and keep running with it.

Alex Bridgeman: And that focus led to a story I’ve heard a few times of you being on an industry panel, in an industry that you didn’t have a company in yet. That’s certainly pretty unique. How did that happen?

Alvin Wong: Yeah.

Jordan Huibers: This is classic Alvin Wong for the record. But Alvin, please, this is a marquee of your character.

Alvin Wong: We spent a lot of time, we spent our entire search pretty much in travel, aviation, hospitality, and around that world. And I think you end up talking to a lot of folks. And when I say a lot of folks, it could be entrepreneurs, it could be investors, it could be people in operations and sales, and you get to know individuals. And eventually, I don’t know if I’d consider myself an expert, but you know enough to have at least a point of view, and I’m happy to share my point of view in that. And so when we were spending time down in the travel space, I think there was an investor in the community that said, hey, we’re having a conference in Boston, similar to Techstars, and would love you to speak on travel tech and be on a panel with us. And I said, sure. So I went down there. It was, I think, over 100 folks in attendance and just was candid, super honest, and gave the two cents in terms of where it is, where we thought like my perspective was in the industry, but at the same time, knowing that there’s a ton to learn and continue doing it. I think just having that open dialogue with almost anybody being real and human. One of our company values is people serving people. And for us, it’s just that when you’re getting on a conference, you’re just serving others. How can you help me? How can I help you? And we can do that together. We both win. So I think that’s what ended up getting on a TripAdvisor panel looked like.

Jordan Huibers: I think Alvin short changes himself to go because when we talk about that, doing the journey of kind of leaning into your experience, we may have not had a business in that particular segment when Alvin did that panel, but in his prior life, he had done significant work around travel and hospitality investment. And so, it wasn’t coming to it cold. And I think that that’s just a reflection of building that data point and view, as Alvin mentioned.

Alex Bridgeman: Was your banking career focused around travel and aviation then or somewhat similar?

Alvin Wong: We’ve spent it in a number of verticals, but one of them was definitely travel and hospitality, and we’ve done some in corporate aviation. And so the business aviation space, corporate aviation, wasn’t foreign to us in that sense. So when we talk about the different aircrafts and corporate flight departments, yeah, it wasn’t foreign. And so, part of it is we did spend some of that in our banking career, reforming banking career.

Alex Bridgeman: Of course, of course. So that level of focus and following your curiosity and meeting lots of people, it led to several offers, six round offers, which is a pretty high number for a search generally. What’s the- all these things I imagine like tie together. What do you think ties these all together from the level of effort and focus, being helpful to people as you go, not just receiving but also giving? There’s a lot of through lines, I think, throughout your search that connect these all and I imagine that getting six signed offers is a component of that.

Jordan Huibers: Yeah, I mean, I would say, a big part of that journey is actually very similar to aviation, which is like a curiosity and desire to learn. If you come into the search journey with a real curiosity, you’re going to find that you love searching. I’ve used this analogy before, which there’s a great book by Jaimal Yogis called Saltwater Buddha, and in it, he describes learning to surf. I’m going to paraphrase, but it’s roughly 97% paddling, 2% drowning, 1% riding the wave. And so if you can love the hard work and accept sometimes you got to hold your breath, you’re going to love surfing. It’s definitely for you. And I think that that’s what the search journey is a lot alike. And so if you come into it with that curiosity and you have some of that discipline, for instance, our focus in travel and hospitality, it just means you don’t have to go as far to learn the next piece. And I think that that curiosity comes across as genuine and authentic. You’re interested in learning about that business and learning more. And I think that that was probably a contributing factor to those offers.

Alvin Wong: Yeah. With Jordan, he’s like a salt of the earth kind of guy. And I think ultimately, to his point, it’s just like being human. And so do you get along with the owners? Do they see you running the business? Do you see yourself running the business? And do you see… There’s just a lot of luck that comes into that and serendipity. And as we go through it, I think just as long as we continue being human, wanting to help others and connecting with each other, good things happen.

Alex Bridgeman: Well, speaking of connecting with people, how did you meet the Advanced Aircrew team?

Alvin Wong: Jordan’s got a great story on this one because he likes to be on time.

Jordan Huibers: In aviation, it is important to be on time. So we were focusing on one of our themes, we talked about training. And for us, training is really an opportunity to make impact. It’s also something that is really important to remain current on. And so a lot of the characteristics that you look for in a business are really exhibited there. And so we had reached out to a number of folks and made a connection with our founders. And they were based, the business is remote. So, our team is based in multiple states and countries. And so it just so happened to be that the owners were going to be together in Colorado. And so, I said, excellent, let me fly out there and we’ll meet you for lunch. What I didn’t expect is to have like the most egregious headwinds of all time. And I didn’t have Wi-Fi connectivity, and our flight was an hour overdue by the time we landed in Colorado. And I showed up to the lunch an hour and a half late, and the guys were still waiting for me. And I’ll tell you, that is a humble beginning to a conversation. But it ended up being a really great dialogue. And out of that conversation, I met two owners who were just incredible, had stood up a business over 17 years, had seen essentially the writing on the wall for what the market could be, led that opportunity by building a product, finding great subject matter experts who helped them on that journey. And I left thinking, hey, I really can’t wait for Alvin to meet these guys because I think that there’s really something special about this business. And these guys really have something fantastic.

Alex Bridgeman: So keep going, like what happened after that?

Jordan Huibers: So, we got to know them over the course of a couple months. And as we learned more about the business and kind of where they saw opportunity for it, we subsequently made an offer to purchase Advanced Aircrew Academy. And for us, it was really a perfect fit. Alvin and I were partners; there were two partners in their business as well. One of the partners was looking to step back and take more time personally. And the other owner was looking to stay with the business. And it just happened to be that the expertise of each of those individuals like really fit well with Alvin and I. And so we ended up making an offer to purchase the business. And over the next several months, really got deep into understanding it and made really good progress along that journey. After we kind of spent time getting to know the business in more detail, what we learned was we were kind of coming to the business shortly after the pandemic, and the dynamic in our market was really new. And what we were trying to understand was with any great like founders led business, there are elements of that business that as Alvin and I were stepping into the room with our limited experience set, we just were not able to wrap our heads around something that someone knows so intimately that’s been with that business every day for 17 years. And so what that subsequently meant was, as we continued the conversation, we just needed some more information, and it was going to take a bit of time. So we actually ended up agreeing with the sellers to take a pause and see if we could learn a bit more over the coming months. And I’ll tell you, when that happened for Alvin and I, it was probably one of the most difficult and heartbreaking things that we had gone through, because I think we met sellers that we really loved. We met a business that was really phenomenal. And for us on our personal journey, we had never seen a business that we really felt more aligned with personally and that had the opportunity. And so, to step away from it, really, I would say was humbling to say the least.

Alvin Wong: Yeah, that’s probably the right word to use, to say humbling to say the least. Because look, like they’ve built a wonderful business and they can feel the currents in where it is. They also have an incredible team that continues to work alongside them. Just where we were in the period of time, it was humbling to understand that. Come to think of it, it’s like later on, and we can pause this piece, but later on what maybe we can weave into the narrative, Jordan, is just coming back to it, understanding the business later on. Like right now, it was incredibly humbling to be like, hey, we’re going to take a pause for the time being.

Jordan Huibers: After we took a pause, Alvin and I looked at kind of the other opportunities that we had explored but knew somehow deep down that this was the one we really wanted to figure out. And about a month or so later, there was a large industry conference, and we were set to attend that as a part of the team. And we showed up and saw the company and the team anyways, just because we so enjoyed the business and the folks that work there. And everyone was super welcoming. And we had a great conversation and we hung out in their booth. We actually went out for dinner with some of them. And that to us, I think, was really encouraging that we had left the conversation, everyone saying like, we all agree on where we want this outcome to go. We just all are not on the same sheet of music for the information. And so, what that meant for us subsequently was as we continued down the path of trying to find somewhere where we could focus our energy, we knew that we wanted to lean into this business. And the practical reality was, I was living in Charlotte, North Carolina, at the time, and one of the owners was living in Charleston. And for those who aren’t maybe necessarily familiar with the search fund model, this is a point where we were less capital on the runway. And so, for us to continue to invest in that relationship, it meant that I would drive down to Charleston, about four hours one way, have lunch with the owner, and then drive home in the same day. So, a nice eight-hour round trip because we couldn’t afford a hotel to stay in. And I think that what was really nice is we ended up doing this a couple times. And at one point in the journey, it really gave us the opportunity to kind of learn more firsthand and watch the business evolve over a couple more months. And what happened eventually was the owner turned to me and he said, like, hey, are we going to be friends, or do you want to buy this business? And I got in the car and called Alvin. I said, we’re going to buy this business. And so, a week later, we were under LOI again, and then we closed on the business in July of ’24.

Alex Bridgeman: And so, what’s been the first, I guess… it’s been like 14, 14-ish months. But what was the first couple months like once you closed and were like, all right, we’re here, now we got to figure this out, grow it, focus? What did that feel like?

Alvin Wong: There’s a lot going on. And part of it is being first-time CEOs. And it’s humbling. And so we’re in a business now where there’s collectively 17 years of knowledge. And we are learning 17 years of knowledge in a very short period of time. And I think you’ve got to be candid about it. You’re just learning a lot. But I think Dan and William in the business were incredibly supportive and just wanted us to learn the ropes with it. So having their support was super awesome. And everything coming out of the business in the first 60 days was what we expected. And that’s amazing. It is amazing to be having that feeling and having a ton of fun and learning and growing as an individual, but also leading the business into the next stage.

Jordan Huibers: I think one of the things, to add to Alvin’s comment, one of the things that is often difficult to appreciate is the dynamics of a business that is remote, and this business has been remote since it was founded, versus a business that’s in person. So, when we announced to the team that we were purchasing the business, our founders essentially flew everyone in and made the announcement. And then we spent, we had a dinner. We did a day or so of like work together. And then everyone went back to their homes. And I think that it is, one of the things that I was really humbled by is trying to integrate into the business and culture and learn when everyone is in their own places. It’s not as though, I have a bit of envy for business owners who have their team in one location and can step in and sense the energy and ask quick questions and learn really iteratively. In a remote business, you need to be extremely intentional. And I think one of the things that I learned as a takeaway when I joined the business was, oh, geez, if this is how I feel, and I feel like I have a lot more information on the business than most, it must be really difficult to onboard and hire new team members in a remote business. And how are we going to set that up so that we can set up others for success in the business? And that’s definitely been, I think, a focus point for Alvin and I as we have grown and hired and expanded the team over the first year or so.

Alex Bridgeman: So, you guys were both there for that day and dinner and everything?

Alvin Wong: Yeah, Jordan, you should tell the story about the speeches. I will say before he even gets there, the sellers had a, I wonder if I can dig it out, a bottle of wine. Hold on a sec… Here we go. The owners had bought a case of 1997 Cab Sauv Clos du Val. They cracked open a bottle when they started the business, and they basically kept a case. Up until that day when we were in Atlanta and making the announcement, they gifted us a bottle of Clos du Val and celebrated over it, which was like super symbolic and thoughtful around it. And we got to hear a lot of stories and we had our speeches. Jordan also had a really funny one though. So whether we share this one on the podcast is a whole nother story.

Jordan Huibers: So I’ll tell you. So one of the things we did at this dinner was, I think a lot of people talk about this opportunity when you join a new team, it doesn’t have to be buying a business, you can just be joining a team. And it’s the first time you’re going to speak to your team. At this dinner was a number of the team, the founders. They each said some really kind words. And it was really interesting to sit there and take in that environment, as they go through their own personal journey on this chapter. So, as it would be, Alvin and I knew this moment was coming, and we wrote our own little things to say. Alvin stood up, delivered a lights-out commentary, really emotional, really well-felt and genuine. I stood up. Someone had given me the guidance, hey, make sure that you let people know to be calm, and things are going to be excellent. So what I had written down was essentially to let people know, someone had mentioned to me, hey, let people know paychecks will continue to arrive as they expect, and everything is good in the business. And I had that note, but I didn’t read it. And then instead, what I said is I stood up and said, like, hey, we’re so happy to be here. Just know, don’t expect any change in your paychecks. And then standing at this table with everyone sitting, a little piece of me died inside. And I thought that was not what I meant to say at all.

Alvin Wong: You recovered. You recovered.

Jordan Huibers: But I’ll tell you what, that was a cold sweat. I was like, that’s not the foot I meant to lead on. But… the team was incredibly forgiving and got the sentiment.

Alex Bridgeman: But you recovered. That’s good. It sounds like there’s a recovery, perhaps, right?

Jordan Huibers: There was a small correction and then nothing, just like kind of moving forward to direct that.

Alex Bridgeman: Gotcha. I mean, the danger is you could go too far into the kind of corporate press release speak of announcing the change to the team without the emotional piece behind it. So there’s a fine line, for sure.

Jordan Huibers: That’s funny. Actually, the same trip in Atlanta, we talked about how we had the opportunity to look at the business and then went pause. And what had happened is we were getting ready to purchase the business the first time before we took a pause, was we had referred to the business as Artemis, which was a reference to the NASA moon missions going back to the moon. And our team color is purple. It’s our brand color. And I had found NASA Artemis purple T-shirts, and I had ordered them for a large constituent of folks. And then as soon as they arrived, like two weeks later, we went pause on the deal, and I had this huge box of NASA T-shirts in my closet. So, fast forward five or six months, we close on the deal and I come down for breakfast the morning after that speech. And I see one of our founders sitting at the table. And before I can say anything to him, he reaches into his bag and pulls out a blue NASA Artemis T-shirt. And he said, I found these T-shirts and I thought that they would, they were good recommendation. And I turned around and I pulled out a purple one. And we both kind of just looked at each other and laughed and thought, how funny. So, we now, I have both of those T-shirts, and we wear them frequently.

Alex Bridgeman: Amazing, amazing. Good code name, too. You have to have a really good name for your project. I think that’s really important.

Jordan Huibers: For sure, more energy wasted trying to think of a great code name for that than was due, but still like it to this day.

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah, I’ve burned a lot of good code names to this point. One day I’ll probably get a good one, hopefully. But yeah, there’s value in having energy and a greater sense of mission behind what you call something and just how you talk about it. And it all comes together. I think it’s important. I think it’s more important than maybe others might think, but there’s value to it.

Jordan Huibers: Oh, we always… I think from our prior lives, like we were always proponents of like the name of the company has to be the name of the deal, like they have to be aligned. So it instantly limits you in where you’re going.

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah, I agree. So, through these emotional ups and downs of the search, how did your search community members, how did they kind of help you along? I’m personally curious, too, because I’ve had my own ups and downs through the search. So, any things that were helpful for you are probably going to be helpful for me too.

Jordan Huibers: There’s probably a few layers. And that’s one of the things that we’ve enjoyed most about our journey is, in fact, the community of great folks, whether that’s other people who are on the same journey or those that are the partners that have backed and supported us on this channel. I think that one of the things that is really helpful as a table setting is to be direct with folks. Everyone kind of knows the journey that you’re on. And when things are good, share things are good. When things are rough, it’s okay to say, hey, this didn’t go as expected. And I think the hardest one of all is when things are uncertain, to be direct about the uncertain. Like, hey, this is what we don’t know, or this is something we’ve learned that we didn’t expect. And so it’s going to take a bit more work for us to get to the bottom of this. And I think that, A, that’s a great way to build credibility around your brand, being able to say, I don’t know, or I am uncertain. In our experience, Alvin, I’m curious to hear your take, but when you put that out there, people lean in even more. People are thrilled to help and people will help share their perspective or ways to look at things. And that’s really what we always found is the unlock to move forward is that willingness to put it out there.

Alvin Wong: Yeah, 100%. And we’ve had the opportunity to be in town halls with Jamie Dimon, and something he said that resonates with us all the time is people are just human. When you realize that you’re all alike, you can really start having open conversations with people. Just having that understanding and humility that it’s okay to be vulnerable. It’s okay to open up and share what’s difficult. It’s also okay to celebrate success. And something you’ll hear us saying all the time is like, when we work together, we win together. We’re going to lose some times and study our losses, but let’s have some fun doing it. And just with that particular attitude with our partners, like it was great and super refreshing when you were just having a conversation on what is great, what’s not great, what’s top of mind. And having folks that have been down that journey a lot, not only with other searchers, maybe they’ve been in that seat, and sharing their experiences with you is incredibly comforting. And when you can do it together, it’s just so much more fun.

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah, much more fun to do it with the community behind you. And so, as I think about the rights to win and competitive advantage you developed before the search, during the search, and now we can talk about running the company and how those advantages carried over. But the summary to this point in my head is, there’s an intense curiosity, you’re very people oriented, relationship oriented, and then this last point, you’re honest with yourself and those around you and direct about it. How do those carry over into running Advanced Aircrew? What does that look like and feel like?

Jordan Huibers: I think that that is the essence of kind of stepping across that threshold and joining any new adventure, whether it happens to be a business that you purchase or a new role you step into in an unknown business, anything of that nature, or a personal challenge. It’s that curiosity and then the patience. I think people talk about the patience a long time. I think that patience is one of the hardest things on the journey. And I think if you talk to the partners that we work with, there is a real desire to make sure that you understand the underlying fundamentals of kind of your product and your customer base before you think about doing anything heroic to change what is honestly a great business. Otherwise, none of us would be here talking about these businesses. So that I think is one of the things that I have had to work on, is there’s a lot of things that we would love to do with the business, but having the focus to slow down and do them sometimes in sequence instead of in parallel, I think is still a learning point for me. And I wouldn’t represent to my team that I’m excellent at it yet, but I’m working on it.

Alex Bridgeman: I know there’s a Jony Ive quote you like about focus. What was that one?

Jordan Huibers: Yeah, I mean, I think our team is probably pretty sick of me playing this video, which I give credit to Dave Dodson. I caught this from him. He shared this. There’s an interview of Jony Ive, who was the lead designer at Apple and worked directly with Steve Jobs. And he essentially said that one of the superpowers of Steve was the ability to have kind of maniacal focus. And focus isn’t, just to paraphrase it, isn’t just about saying, this is what we’re going to do today. It’s waking up and knowing with every fiber of your body, you have a great idea that you should 100% do, and then putting it aside and saying no. And I think that what that also manifests in is we see it in day to day, we wake up and there’s things that are, you want to do with the business or things that need to be addressed. But there’s probably only a handful of things that absolutely need to happen for the team to have a great outcome, for our customers to have a great outcome. And I think that’s the nature of any entrepreneur is there are lots of ideas about what you may want to do. But the thing that separates entrepreneurs from operators is the discipline to stay focused. And so, again, I’m not- I would say that’s something that we continue to work on.

Alex Bridgeman: Based on your search, and you’ve talked to lots of other searchers during the last couple of years, like what does an effective searcher do in 2025, 2026 that can pull some lessons from things you’ve done and apply them really well? What piece of advice would you give to people?

Alvin Wong: I think what worked for us was just talking to people. I think today, it’s really easy to send a thousand emails. It’s really easy to hire a firm to do like a thousand phone calls. But there’s very few things that replace just talking to people one-on-one and learning and having an open mind learning. And this is like a kudos to Tom and Roland at Morningside. You have a conversation with an industry expert. And you have that one first conversation, you might be bumbling a little bit. But in the… you’ve learned. You learned a lot and you give back. The second conversation with someone who’s been in the industry, you have a more intelligent conversation. And then by the third, you have a really intelligent conversation. And not only can you have a phone call, you’re at a dinner party. And next thing you know, you’re at a cocktail party. And next thing you know, maybe you’re speaking on an industry conference panel. But once you snowball talking to folks, there’s just so much more you can learn that you can’t learn just sending emails and reading reports. And when you get to know an industry and feel the industry, you really have to talk to a lot of people within there. And you kind of know like what’s great. What are customers using? What do they love to use? What are their pain points? And understanding not only just like, hey, the macros of the industry, but maybe even some of the pain points of the industry from the customer’s perspective and understanding that really well. And so, for searchers today, at least that’s what we did and that we think we did okay at and think that will continue in the future of just, hey, just talk to people, man. Learn from each other.

Jordan Huibers: Yeah, I think that like in search, one of those things is if you come into the prospect of really any venture thinking the risk has to equal the reward, you may be setting yourself up for a disappointment. Because it is all too common that the path that you go down is not as linear as we all expect. And I think that having a mindset that the risk is the reward, the privilege of being able to take the risk is unto itself a reward. I think you’ll find that the journey is much more joyful if you can kind of learn to love that along the way. And then to add to what Alvin said on effective things… to add to what Alvin said, effective behaviors in search, early in our journey, one of our partners drew a graph with two axes, and Alvin knows where I’m going. There’s an efficient on one and effective on the other. And he asked us, where on this arc between efficient and effective do you think you want to be? And in the room, there were lots of postulating about where the optimal point was. And his guidance was ultimately on the journey of going from an entrepreneur and the opportunity to work in a business, you really need to define one. Maybe in private equity or other models where you’re going to be doing multiple acquisitions, maybe you need to balance that a bit more finally. But if you’re looking for one business that you can join and make an impact, effective. And my dad put it this way, which is efficient is doing things right. Effective is doing the right things. And I heard that a lot, and it took me a long time to really appreciate that. And I often find that I spin my wheels in the first bucket, trying to be efficient, and perhaps I’m not putting enough energy on me doing the right things.

Alex Bridgeman: I love that. That’s a good place to end. Jordan, Alvin, thank you for coming on the podcast. This has been a ton of fun. And I’ve personally enjoyed hanging out with you guys over time at also different conferences in aviation and many more. So thank you for sharing your time as always.

Jordan Huibers: Yeah, man, thanks for having us. We’d like to go on the record as we’re big fans of the pod and really appreciate everything you do for the community.

Alvin Wong: Thanks, Alex. Really appreciate it.