What It Takes to Build & Grow a Successful Agency

Justin Levinson (00:00)

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Agency Side Podcast. I'm your host, Justin Levinson. Today I'm joined by Mike Papowski, CEO and co-founder of Dagger. Over the past decade, Mike has helped grow Dagger from a three-person startup into a 50-person agency working with major national brands. Along the way, Dagger has become a two-time adage small agency of the year winner and was named one of Adweek's fastest growing agencies four years in a row. If you're interested in how successful founders grow an agency, build lasting client relationships,

and navigate a rapidly changing industry, this is an episode for you. Let's roll it.

Mike, thanks so much for being here and doing this today.

‍

Mike Popowski (00:46)‍

Thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it. I'm looking forward to the chat.

‍

Justin Levinson (00:49)

Yeah. Interested in how you got into this entire world. Maybe you can give us some of your your story here.

‍

Mike Popowski (00:56)

Yeah. So I mean, I think I'm like one of the few people that actually is doing what I majored in in college like twenty six years ago. I I double majored marketing and management and I feel like that's literally what I'm doing. I mean I'm d you know, running running a a marketing slash advertising agency. So so it did it did start there and then my first job out of college was working at AOL, basically selling the the ad units on the media, like the media company that was AOL and at the time

Having a job at AOL was almost like having having a job at Meta or Google. You it was it was the hot, it was the it was the access to the internet. And then quickly got into the agency world coming off that. I two twin brothers that broke off from AOL started their own company and and they were 27. I was 25. We were the leadership team, which is kind of funny in hindsight, but it was definitely like my MBA on entrepreneurship. And we ran sort of like a direct response focused agency and then

That was kind of the start. So it was sort of major college, you know, that was my interest. Got my first job, big company. And then sort of got more into the agency entrepreneurial space. But that sort of is like that's I'd say my mid-20s right there. Yeah.

‍

Justin Levinson (02:09)

Where did you study?

‍

Mike Popowski (02:11)

University of South Carolina, which is also totally random. A I'm from New England. I think now SEC school SEC schools are like big in popularity for northern kids.

‍

Justin Levinson (02:21)

Yeah. Yep.

‍

Mike Popowski (02:23)

For me.

I transferred there, they had rolling admissions, they had a great business program and and I had an uncle that was in in Columbia, so that's how I ended up there. And fortunately for me my stock the the the US C stock has increased. It's just like it it's tougher to get into. I it was a little bit a little bit easier to get into when I went at w when I was there. So yeah and

‍

Justin Levinson (02:42)

And where in New England are you originally from?

‍

Mike Popowski (02:45)

Vermont. The exact really? Sunday? I'm actually the the exact geographical center of the state. So a little small town right outside Montpelier. Wow. You ever been? Yeah.

‍

Justin Levinson (02:57)

I mean actually I I live I'm in Vermont right now. I have a house in Shelburne. Shut up. Yeah you're dead

‍

Mike Popowski (03:02)

Right now.

‍

Justin Levinson (03:04)

I'm that's exactly where my house is. Yep, right on Spear Street.

‍

Mike Popowski (03:06)

Okay, so

‍

Justin Levinson (03:07)

My whole family Yeah, my my whole family went up to we were actually I mean with way past Montpelier, but we were up at in Glover at Bread and Puppet just the other just the other day, which is pretty pretty wild. Yeah.

‍

Mike Popowski (03:19)

This is wild. Okay. So for for viewers, like we had no idea about the Vermont connection. So I have two of my very, very good friends that live in Shelburne. So maybe maybe offline we'll play the name game and see if you know them and

‍

Justin Levinson (03:30)

Yeah.

‍

Mike Popowski (03:31)

Shelburne Farms like right there.

‍

Justin Levinson (03:33)

Yeah. Yeah, that's our that's our morning walk. And so but you're you're in Atlanta now.

‍

Mike Popowski (03:37)

I am very different from where you

‍

Justin Levinson (03:39)

One of my favorite cities though, I Atlanta. I'm a big Atlanta Braves fan. I go up there several times a year. So I I love it. Curious how that ended up being the location for for Daddy.

‍

Mike Popowski (03:49)

Yeah. So I had I had joined an agency that ultimately became a publicist owned agency like twenty eleven. And so I started to form a bit of a network here. And then I was I went back to New York. I was working for a a an agency there, T BWA Shiate Day out of New York, famous creative agency. And then basically got a call about this opportunity. There was sort of a board that had formed and wanted and and had started a bit of at the time we was a the iteration of Dagger was a digital agency and and they were looking for a CEO.

And I had known one of the board members because I'd worked at this agency here in Atlanta. And so I came back from New York. And I but I also like Atlanta's interesting. And it first off, it's it's it's a boom town. It it boom town is changing quickly. I think it's a really good ecosystem for to start an agency. Like I look back and I'm like, I don't know if Dagger would have been Dagger had it not been in Atlanta, because historically it it's a lot of Fortune 500 brands are here and

talent's been moving here, like places like Austin and Atlanta post pandemic, there's just a lot of talent, you know, people who want to have kids and a dog want to leave New York City or LA or Chicago. Yeah. And so I feel like the talent's moved here, but the agency, in my opinion, the agency ecosystem hasn't fully caught up. So I just it to me it was a it was sort of like an entrepreneurial opportunity. Atlanta as a market, having the brands, having the talent and and kind of putting that together. But Atlanta's cool. well, it's not cool. It's very hot right now.

‍

Justin Levinson (05:17)

But you have so many trees there. That's what is

‍

Mike Popowski (05:20)

Yeah, but Vermont I mean Vermont you've got a lot of trees too. I mean, yeah, ver I miss New England summers. I love, love, love Vermont in the summer. I would do without the winter. I love I love the winter down here for sure. but it is, yeah, Atlanta's like I it's called like a city in the forest or something. Yeah. That's one one of the many nicknames other than Hot Lana. And it there there is a lot of a lot of a lot of trees. It's cool.

‍

Justin Levinson (05:43)

Yeah. Yeah, I l I really do love it there. Maybe for the folks who just might not be familiar with Dagger, I'd love to just have you tell us about, you know, what what you guys do over there.

‍

Mike Popowski (05:52)

Yeah. So I mean, really a modern version of an of an ad agency. you know, I think we s we we really started out more as a social agency and then evolved over about the last five years in doing above the line work. So

Probably our most famous work is is AfLAC. So for the last last six years, kind of leading up until this year. So any of the Nick Saban or Deion Sanders work that you saw out there, that was all dagger strategy and and creative. and then, yeah, so work with a lot of a lot of national brands. We're about 50 people big, which I love that size for us. We're sort of, I think we're that sweet spot of big enough where we could take a lot of, you know, enterprise national level.

projects and clients, but small enough where our leadership's still involved in work, super agile, not a lot of, you know, layers. So yeah, so so so that's us. We yeah, and fortunate to work with some really, really great brands, Boys and Girls Club of America, where their creative agency of record, one of my favorite brands that we work for for nonprofit that makes a such a big difference in in the lives of children. But working with Take Five Oil Change. So that's a a a big category right now.

You've Jiffy Lou, Valvelline. It's a very crowded and competitive category. So we're working with the number three player in that category. And just started working with ESPN as well. So spoiled any of the SEC network back to kind of being an SEC guy, any of that work that you see coming out in this fall is us as well. So, you know, I look at us as very strategic, very smart at solving, you know, brand problems, deriving insights, thinking about problems differently, and then and then being able to execute on that.

creatively and that's oftentimes T V, sometimes that's social influencer, etcetera.

‍

Justin Levinson (07:34)

And so you have fifty people now, but you started off as a much smaller team, correct?

‍

Mike Popowski (07:39)

Yeah, we were like yeah, we were about three we were three people in a room the size of what you're sitting in. Yeah. Wow.

‍

Justin Levinson (07:44)

How maybe how how did things scale? Like how did you know how did

‍

Mike Popowski (07:50)

Yeah, how I mean it's a it's I I sort of think about kind of just these different inflection points in our journey. I mean, it was something that I was always focused on. I think we had like twenty-six straight quarter over quarter growth, you know, consecutive growth quarters. And, you know, I think like it's such a hustle business, first of all. You know, I do I do a lot of differ a a lot of networking. I'm talking to a lot of different brands.

And we are talking to a lot of different brands. But I I look back at probably some of these inflection points where it was like when we started to win more nationally recognized brands and those brands started and and we were moved from project based to more retainer based where we could have predictable revenue, we could hire against that. That was probably the big inflection point. So we were three people in the room that we started in. You know, there were brands that you probably haven't heard of, especially being in New England right now. That it was like Mizuno and and then there was a

you know, a a B to B global carpet company called Interface, which is is is big and sort of architect and design space. And, you know, that was our first retained business. And so we were able to bring out a team and then that, you know, success begets success from there. And then we started to build press and you know, but that was probably three, four years, that journey of moving from really a startup to what I would say kind of like a real, you know, real agency. W which is funny because like there was never this moment where you're like, hey, you're actually like legitimate. You're like a real company. But I I remember

feeling like there was almost like a change when I would interview people where when we started it was like me convincing them to work for and

‍

Justin Levinson (09:22)

Yeah.

‍

Mike Popowski (09:23)

then at one point I remember people like I've heard of Dagger, I want to work there. That was kind of like to me, sort of the the litmus test on being a real company. Yeah. Other

‍

Justin Levinson (09:32)

That's really cool.

‍

Mike Popowski (09:33)

than being profitable and not having to skip payroll and those kind of things. For for myself. Yeah. Yeah. Not skip payroll for my employees. Yep.

‍

Justin Levinson (09:40)

And you guys are working remotely or do you are you guys doing an office stuff?

‍

Mike Popowski (09:44)

Yeah, we're mostly here. I'd say we're ninety percent here. There's couple a couple one offs, but we've got an office. I'm sitting in our office in old fourth ward in Atlanta. If you know Atlanta, there's sort of a belt line that kind of goes circumvents the city. We're we're about a hundred yards from that. And we're in Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. So post pandemic. You know, I I th I thought it was right to find I thought it was best to find like sort the right hybrid situation. It's it's hugely important, I think, for a creative agency to be in office. There's collaboration, communication.

I think just, you know, that in person energy is is really important for a creative company. But at the same time, I think, you know, the pandemic had us all realize look, we don't always need to be, you know, in our seats Monday through Friday. So it provides a little bit of flexibility for especially for talent attraction where you want to have that kind of that that flexibility. So yeah.

‍

Justin Levinson (10:33)

Yeah, how do you how do you typically find people like when when you're looking for and what kind of qualities do you appreciate in in people? Thanks for tuning in, folks. This episode is brought to you by Coming Up Creative, a relationship first boutique creative recruitment agency.

We disrupt the creative ecosystem by running sophisticated multi-channel campaigns with custom video and voice outreach that actually gets responses. We actively market the agencies and brands we represent to help them stand out to today's industry's top talent, all backed by real human connection and AI-powered targeting. If you're ready for a modern recruitment approach, visit www.cominguplc.com and get started today.

‍

Mike Popowski (11:15)

think like there's obviously the skill sets, like, right? There's there's, you know, sometimes we'll be looking for technical skills, whether it's a a writer or an editor or somebody who's like a really smart strategist or a project manager, whatever like the actual technical skills are. I think there's just like an underlying quality in this industry that it it's hectic, it's chaotic, it changes quickly. And I think those that do well in this industry are those that sort of just have more of a like a

a problem solving mindset in general. You know, it's it's kind of like like our our job at at you know, writ large is to solve clients' problems. But within that, there are just 10 problems in a certain day, you know, day that you've got to and if and if you bring the mindset that, okay, this is like exciting or the, you know, and and you approach it from from a problem solving mindset, I think, I think that is the the core sort of cultural

thing that I look for. The the opposite of that, you get into a little bit of victimization. It's like, why is this client, you know, whatever. Why, why did this request come in or why did my boss, you know, give me this assignment or whatever the thing is. So I think there's just like a mindset around problem solving that that puts people in a good, good position in this, in this business. So I try to suss that out in interviews. I'll try to ask questions about that, some of the hardest things people have challenged, like what, what some of those difficulties are.

Because I do think it's a it's a challenging business, it moves fast, and if you start to get caught up in just sort of like a negative mindset, you know, I think that changes things culturally.

‍

Justin Levinson (12:53)

It's in a d the demanding banning space for sure. Your background is like is it more from the account side of things? Is that how you've been working? And are you continuing to kind of do that role still or is you kind of worked out of it?

‍

Mike Popowski (13:06)

Sort of. No, that's a that's a good question. Like I my last of I guess title before I became co-founder and then CEO of Dagger was I was a group account director at TBWA Shaite in New York. And I was I was leading the Glaxo Smith Kleins n Nickoderm business, basically globally. And so I was yeah, I was basically a a global group account director. And I think the biggest thing I had to learn in this job.

And and so I'd say like I understood how to run run an agency business. I understood how to sort of like interface with clients and make sure that we were doing good work. And I understood how to do PL management. There was a lot of the business that I knew. I think the one learning on the job thing that I had to do for to to be to to run this business was networking. Like and that, you know, I think when you're working on a big account, you're basically

You've got one or two clients that you're dealing with, that you're serving, that you're building a relationship with. I think I've learned probably in the last, I learned it quickly in the first couple of years, but have honed that over the last few years where being out in the world, you know, networking dagger, talking to prospects, talking to press, talking having this conversation, you know, is something that you kind of have to learn that you don't get in that sort of traditional account director path.

You know, I I've definitely been an account director in a creative business. So I think I have creative sensibilities. I think I ha you know, I think the best way to say it is like I know how to go into a restaurant, taste the food, and and I know whether it's good. I I don't know exactly how to make make the food great. You know, not as a chef, yeah, but maybe a trained consumer, if you will. So but I love working in in a creative business just because it's just it's more relaxed, it's more fun, it's it vibes are high. so yeah.

‍

Justin Levinson (15:02)

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, and I I I like the vibes in this industry too. most people are cool and that I talked to in creative agencies. Everyone people are pretty, pretty chill. How I I guess what what are you know the challenges of having an agency right now? I know there's so many things shifting in technology and and world moves fast. I'm curious what yeah, what what is the hardest s hardest, you know, pain point?

‍

Mike Popowski (15:28)

I'll I mean the hardest thing that I still deal with, this is whenever I had a job in the past, like I like I think owning your own thing or running your own thing, the highs are higher and the lows are lower. Like I remember living in New York City, w leaving my job on a Friday, and I mean I cared about the work and I cared about the company, but if some if that company or agency imploded, you know, over the weekend, I would get another job.

You know, and this is just different. There's a there's an emotional kind of like aspect that I never carried before in jobs that I had. You know, this is this is sacrifice, this is, you know, risk, this is ego, this is, you know, reputation. There's so many things at stake that I think have have probably been the biggest challenge from like going to a job to running running my own thing. You know, I think.

I think there's like mat like that. I think that's my personal challenge is is almost like emotional management, right? In in a day, it's almost like a stock portfolio. There's there's great conversations, there's things that are going well, there's things that aren't going well going well. And I always think about like poker players who are sitting at these tables with hundreds of thousands of dollars in in the balance and they just stay even. You know, that that's the hardest thing for me is to kind of stay even and and stay consistent and not to attach to the highs or the lows.

So that's probably like challenge number one for me personally. I think business challenge, you know, I think it's it's everything's moving faster, everything's changing quicker. I think clients are are less looking for sort of like longer stable relationships. I think things are being bite-sized into into projects more often. You know, AI has obviously turbocharged so many different things. And, you know, some some agencies, if you're really left-brained

focused agency, like a SEO agency, you don't want to exist anymore. You know, there were SEO agencies literally four years ago. So see that disruption for us, I think it's definitely a, you know, an accelerator and and a and complementary to our business versus like a disintermediary. But but that's changed things a ton. That's changing the, I mean everybody's sort of walking around with a jetpack. I think you've got clients, you know, we've got a client who who might

not love a script and then all of a sudden they're working with Claude to build their own script. And so, you know, I th

‍

Justin Levinson (17:55)

Versus Claud.

‍

Mike Popowski (17:56)

Exactly. Yeah. So that so that's so that's a challenge, but just sort of embracing this new title wave that is AI, figuring out how to integrate the right aspects of it, but not over rotate too quickly either.

But yeah. Yeah yeah.

‍

Justin Levinson (18:13)

I but maybe wanna go back a step and I I guess I don't think I asked about this, but who so you're a co founder, so there's some other people that are involved in leadership would be curious to learn about them a little bit.

‍

Mike Popowski (18:24)

Yeah,

yeah. So so I have a co-founder who used to lead our strategy. She's now fractional. Her name is Carla. She's one of the smartest, hard hardest working people I've ever worked with. She's great. So our leadership team is myself, Carla woman Terry Brady, who came in actually from New York, who was managing director at Mother New York about a year and a half ago. She's been phenomenal. And then our head of creative, Al Patton, who also did a couple decades in New York, ten of those years at RGA, leading Nike in Samsung. So we've kind of got a

a really great leadership team. You know, myself having I always use New York just because like I feel like if you can there's just a level in you know in in some of the bigger markets is particularly New York that if you can survive in those arenas

‍

Justin Levinson (19:07)

Can survive anywhere.

‍

Mike Popowski (19:08)

Said yeah, that that's that says something about you. And so I think it's fortunate to have leaders who have that context, who ha understand that level of performance between us. So I and we do and we do really well together. So and

‍

Justin Levinson (19:22)

How did you all meet again? I mean we maybe said that already but.

‍

Mike Popowski (19:25)

Carla and I met through the company that I was working for, the one that became the Publicus Agency way back. So twenty twelve, and then and we were sort of pulled together through our board member that I mentioned. So we were kind of the original two. And that was twenty fifteen. We spent about three years really without a sophisticated creative leader. You know, we had we had different sort of creatives, but somebody who like a proper E C D or C C O

And then made the decision to to hire that and and found Al. And Al was at another agency here called 22 Square for a couple of years. So he was here and I think he was looking to exit at that time. And so serendipity connected us. And then yeah, and then Terry was about a year and a half ago. She had spent most of her career out west, Southern California, then New York, from Atlanta originally, wanted to move back.

closer to her family, et cetera. And she just took a few months and started talking to different shops in Atlanta. And, you know, as soon as I met her, th I was like, We need we need to ha add her to the team. So yeah.

‍

Justin Levinson (20:34)

Terrific. It's cool. That so all comes together. I know you're you're talking about with networking and just kind of curious what particular like you're meeting clients and stuff, but do you do you attend like like industry events? Are there specific things that you have found that you've been able to, you know, c connect with people well at?

‍

Mike Popowski (20:53)

Yeah, it's it's inter it's so it's funny. I was just literally talking to somebody else about the power of of of the network. I well, I was I met with somebody yesterday who was coming out of college and I basically told him like any job I've ever gotten was because I knew somebody. You know, it's like two percent of the time that you send in your resume and get and get a job that way. And and I think about our clients and and how each of them originated and it's all kind of a different path, but

It's fewer and farther between that it was just some RFP, they found us through our reputation and then they, you know, sub you know, sent an RFP and then we won the business. That that happens. But a lot of them are relationships that I've sort of built over time. And so it is it's nonlinear and there's a variety of ways I think that I I go about it. Some are some are events. I don't love events because I think everyone's just sort of trying to to to to kind of glom on there.

You know, I'll do things where I'll like create an annual advisory board of CMOs where I invite five or six CMOs to be part of that advisory board and then they get to know the agency and they're you know sharing advice and and you know I've had clients who were once served as advisory board members become clients. So that's kind of one one way to do it. You know, and I think at the end of the day it's like and then s I sort of have a cadence, I think, where I follow up with people in a in a way that's like

Staying on radar, staying connected without just blowing them up. Blowing them up. Exactly. Yeah. So and and those conversations are catching up personally. Sometimes it's just sharing what's going on with with work, but that's happened so often. You know, we just got an inbound last week from a woman that we we pitched her company or company that she was at probably about eight years ago. And and I just stayed in touch, you know. And

Have her bye, we'd have lunch, we'd stay connected. And then the next thing you know, she's like, Hey, I have this opportunity. So I think it's like the the bigger your network it is, the more sort of those kind of opportunities present themselves, whether it's talent, whether it's good new business opportunities,

‍

Justin Levinson (23:07)

Yeah.

‍

Mike Popowski (23:08)

or just sharpening, you know, myself as a as a human being or a leader.

‍

Justin Levinson (23:12)

Yeah. I love that. A lot of people just lead with with selling, you know, and they don't come in with like value first or try to like nurture a real relationship and a real connection with somebody. Yeah. And I you know, you wanna buy s from somebody that you that you like and that, you know, you find to not be just coming straight with with the sell. So I love that strategy.

‍

Mike Popowski (23:33)

Can I add that real quick? Yes, please do. Hard design relationship business, th th the the thing I actually told myself, I learned this the hard way, 'cause there were moments when I was starting this where I'd be like, Let me tell you about dagger, you know, and it's like

If I would get a coffee with somebody or whatever it was, dinner drink, you know, my goal was to actually not talk about dagger, was to literally connect on on anything. It was like, you know, you're once we get off this, I'd love to just talk to you about Vermont and Shelburne and and and connect. And and I always my goal for that meeting was simply to make enough of a connection that they wanted to have another meeting, you know, in like three or four months. And so you line all line that line a lot of those up together and then just good things happen.

‍

Justin Levinson (24:16)

Yeah, I really love that strategy. Interested in in butter, I was checking that out as well a little bit. would that be something you'd be open to talking to us about?

‍

Mike Popowski (24:25)

100%. Yeah, a hundred percent. So our positioning early on dagger, I sort of mentioned we started out as a social agency was was, you know, almost like an ideology. We called it the media company mentality, that brands that acted more like media companies just garnered more attention. So like you think about like bar stool sports, just for as one example. You put out culture relevant content that people want to share in a prolific manner, you're gonna build attention. And I'm and I think

And I think brands that sort of subscribe to that. You know, Red Bull's kind of the the old old oldest school example of a brand that just puts out really, really great content and builds brand that way. And so that was kind of like a an agency ideology that we had. And I you know, we started this. I was like, you know, agencies say things. You know, they'll be like, Well, we believe this, but they're but I've always I wanted to have almost a learning lab or living proof that

That our ideology is threaded into our culture and our way of working. So I said, so instead of just like, we believe that that branch act like a media company, why don't we build our own sort of like versioning media company? And so that was Butter. Butter was like created around the idea. it was really about the people places thing shaping modern Atlanta. And we did just that. We would put out sort of content daily, weekly about Atlanta.

And it was it it and it grew. It grew to you know, 150,000 followers, a lot of different illuminaries and you know, sports teams were reposting and it kind of became a a bit of a thing in Atlanta in its heyday, and I'll talk about kind of where it went. But but that was a really interesting thing for us, you know, to to to go into a pitch, for example, instead of just show a deck of our capabilities to say, Hey, you know, we have this belief.

check out what we did last week and this post's gone viral. In fact, we had a client, I can say who they are, but Buffalo Wild Wings, their head of social, came to us and said, Look, what you're doing for Butter, can you do that for us? Basically. So it became this very like effective tool in boardrooms, but it also was a talent attractor. So it was kinda it was kind of a it was a really good thing. You know, ultimately I I I couldn't build or

We didn't build sort like a financial sustainable model to it. So we ultimately rolled it off and it and it's and dagger's not associated with it anymore. It's kind of become its its own thing and gone to a place that just wasn't necessarily my original vision for it. But but yeah, it was and I but I think I think what it also did is it you know, i I think agencies that could build their own IP I think that's a pretty powerful thing to s to say to a brand or a client where

It's like, look, we're we're we live, we breed this stuff and and for us to do that with Butter, you know, we're we're constantly learning how the algorithms are changing. We're constantly having to like think about format types or whatever, you know, and so so we're doing that on our own dime, which basically sharpens our game on behalf of our clients. So so that was kind of the the idea behind Butter and kind of where it went. Yeah, super.

‍

Justin Levinson (27:40)

Cool. Outside of, you know, the the agency world, what what kind of things do you enjoy doing on your own leisure?

‍

Mike Popowski (27:48)

so it's kind of ironic that we talked about Vermont because I left one of the better hiking states in Vermont and wasn't hiking as much when I lived there growing up. And now that I'm here in a non hiking environment, is like I love hiking. So the one thing I say that I love about Atlanta, and this is not this is like not a really great way to talk about your city, but like the best part about Atlanta is leaving Atlanta because we've got Hartsfield and Delta, it's so easy to get anywhere. And

the world, quite frankly. And so I've been really taking advantage of that and just like, you know, big, big tracks like Patagonia tracks, Dolomite tracks, stuff like that. And then I'm trying to check off all the national parks. I'm trying to do all the lower lower 48 for it by the time by the time I turn 50. So I'm like I'm like twenty seven, twenty-eight national parks in. So yeah, man, I think I just think I think it's probably like searching the for the balance, the the yang to the the yin of being in a city and being like

Focused on building a company. It's just such a amazing reset for me. And I and I think I found it during the pandemic. I was dealing with a little bit of anxiety and I was like, being out in nature, exercising, exploring new places is is where it's at. So that's probably my number one thing. Yeah. I got into the World Cup too. World Cup was here. And don't know if you got into it, but

‍

Justin Levinson (29:08)

Yeah. My brother in law especially too. He was he was digging it.

‍

Mike Popowski (29:12)

It was so exciting. And there were games here. Atlanta was one of the host cities. So I saw a couple of really, really great games. But that's over with. So back to back to hiking now. Yeah.

‍

Justin Levinson (29:21)

Cool man. Yeah, I'm also a big hiker myself. I 'cause we straddle LA and Vermont a lot. So there's a lot of great hiking in both both places, as you know. There's yeah, you know, when I'm getting out of shape, Mount Philo is pretty much the best one for me. But, you know, there's Snake in Mansfield and in LA. We you know, we love doing like all the trails on the Griffith observatory are really really fun.

‍

Mike Popowski (29:41)

I've done snake Philo and Mansfield, man. Nice. Nice. Such a small world.

‍

Justin Levinson (29:47)

Cool, man. Well, I really appreciate you being on today and and, you know, talking about Dagger and offering so much value and and some of the great insights. L especially loved hearing about the networking and all that stuff. So yeah, really appreciate your time today.

‍

Mike Popowski (29:59)

This was fun, man. I appreciate it. I'd love to do it again. Awesome.

‍

Justin Levinson (30:02)

the

mic. Well look forward to talking to you after the the podcast about Vermont Connections and yeah, I appreciate everything. Have a great rest of your

‍

Mike Popowski (30:09)

All right, Justin, you too.