Vedat Mizrahi discusses Mintus' growth story, alternative assets as a way to combat inflation and building a company during a difficult economic period.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Lucas: So welcome to the building and growing podcast. Today we're going to discuss Mintus with Dr. Vedat Mizrahi. Vedat - thank you so much for joining us.
[00:00:11] Vedat: Thanks for inviting.
[00:00:12] Lucas: You're most welcome. Would you like to start off by just telling us a bit about yourself?
[00:00:17] Vedat: Yeah, sure. I'm an industrial engineer by profession but then I switched to finance and started my career as a management consultant at Deloitte. I did that for two years. Then I said, I want the thrill of the financial markets. I was hired by Deutsche bank as an equity research analyst. I worked there for eight years, then moved to another investment bank as head of equity and credit research.
[00:00:45] Vedat: In total, I've done research for 14 years, then I moved to wealth management to cover high net worth and ultra high net worth individuals. I worked at a Swiss private wealth manager in their London branch, covering mostly Turkish, Greek, the Balkans and Israeli high net worth clients.
[00:01:12] Vedat: I dId that for four years, and during those four years I've started investing in startups myself, mostly pre-stage startups. I've done, I think eight or nine investments so far and Mintus is actually my last investment. I got to know the founder and CEO of Mintus, Tamer Özmen, late last year during their funding round. I loved the idea and I decided to participate in the funding round, which was at the time a 20 million pre-money valuation and the company raised £4.5 million pounds. Then I got along, he might me over for a few brainstorming sessions and then we agreed that we can work together.
[00:02:07] Vedat: I joined Mintus as CFO and also Chief Commercial Officer, responsible from the finance and also the sales and distribution functions at Mintus and trying to grow the company together.
[00:02:19] Lucas: That's fantastic, what a journey, both in terms of your career, but also how you got to know Tamer and Mintus and eventually became involved.
[00:02:32] Lucas: It would be great to discuss Mintus today in more detail, so can you tell us what you are building?
[00:02:41] Vedat: Yeah, Mintus was established two years ago, so I was active in the past six months of those two years, but I think, I mean, they have done a lot in the past in terms of building the platform itself and also acquiring the required licenses from the FCA. Mintus is a UK based FCA regulated alternative investment manager. We have an AIFM license so we're in the business of alternative assets. We think that alternative assets should be accessible to a wider audience. So through fractionalization, we allow, mass affluent and high net worth individuals to participate in high value assets and Mintus itself started decided to focus on fine art to start with.
[00:03:40] Vedat: Our first asset class, and for a while after we dominate that asset class will be contemporary art. The founder and CEO chose this asset class because he was amazed by both the performance of this asset class, and also how it's been, I mean, it's been out there for centuries now and it hasn't been really disrupted.
[00:04:03] Vedat: Whereas the financial intermediaries that I work with, I mean, the commissions have decimated over a period of two decades, while I worked in the industry. But still, I mean, the intermediary fees in the contemporary art sector, it's incredibly high. And we're talking about on one side bips, 20 bips, 15 bips, two bips and high frequency trades, whereas on the art side, contemporary art dealers, you get 5%, 10%, auction houses get 20%, 25%, galleries take again similar percentages, so that's, that's ripe for disruption.
[00:04:45] Lucas: So how is Mintus, I suppose, breaking down those huge commissions that have been taken by intermediaries in the traditional art world?
[00:04:58] Vedat: It's a great question, we go to the source. First of all, in order to succeed on the sourcing side, we go directly to the collectors.
[00:05:12] Vedat: So it's beneficial for the collectors to sell their inventory, their property to different distribution channels at lower costs. So, first of all, we tell them, we're not gonna charge you any cost for transacting with Mintus.
[00:05:27] Vedat: So they're already in the money for, I mean, if they're not paying 20% to those intermediaries, and for us, because we are buying from the source, the collector, we can get better prices than we will pay at an auction, because in auctions, always the buyers pay the premium.
[00:05:48] Vedat: In an auction, there is the hammer price and on top of the hammer price, depending on the price level of the artwork, then there is a buyer's premium and it could go up to 25% for any artwork less than a million. So huge, huge fees. So no fees on the sourcing side, on the investment side, we put each of these artwork in a special purpose company.
[00:06:18] Vedat: Within the company we're able to issue shares to the investors, so that that's how investors can become fractional owners of an artwork. So each fund, for example, we've launched with an Andy Warhol painting, self portrait, which is worth $5 million, we created a $5 million worth closed end fund.
[00:06:41] Vedat: Anyone who invests, let's say $50,000 in that fund will own 1% of Andy Warhol. As Mintus, we are the investment managers. We make the decisions to exit from the artwork with a holding period of up to seven years. As Mintus, our value proposition here is, I mean, while we are eliminating fees and aligning interests, our expertise as a team, we have a great art team is in selecting the right pieces of artwork.
[00:07:20] Vedat: The right artists and the right piece of artwork and we do a lot of data analysis for that. So we'll look at the auction history, the private sales history, the price velocity of each artist and we choose those pieces that would generate then in, in our opinion, obviously would generate the best returns over the course of a few years.
[00:07:45] Lucas: And you know, it's a very data led strategy which is very important in this day and age. I'm going to jump back briefly to something you mentioned at the beginning around the returns of the asset class. Presently, we're in a very sort of high inflationary environment, are you able to dig deeper into how artwork has performed as an asset class in the past, relative perhaps to say stocks or bonds?
[00:08:25] Vedat: Yeah, certainly. I mean there is a lot of dat on art itself. We currently use a data source called Live Art Index, so it's not, I mean, we don't dig deep into the Live Art Index because we know that they depend on a lot of data.
[00:08:43] Vedat: They use both repeat sales, hedonic, and price series, and also machine learning to forecast that data. According to their data, over the past almost 40 years contemporary art has outperformed S&P 500 index by 240%, so it delivered almost two and a half times better returns.
[00:09:05] Vedat: Unfortunately the S&P 500 index or its constituents are accessible to all the investors, including retail investors, and there's fractionional ownership in those, stocks and shares as well. So people can buy stocks with like $1 or £1 versus on the contemporary arts it's changed hands between the super rich so far. So if you don't have $5 million or, I mean, even if you have $50 million, you wouldn't put 10% of your liquid wealth into one painting. So it wasn't accessible, I mean, to even the high net, indeed only ultra high net worth or billionaires. By making this accessible to a wider audience, we are enabling other people to benefit from this, from this amazing performance.
[00:09:55] Vedat: Apart from the performance, people always look at obviously expected return and they look at the history. History is never an actual indicator of future performance, but we have a lot of history.
[00:10:09] Vedat: We can look at different periods over time, high inflationary periods, low inflationary periods. Most importantly, when investing, we need to look at The portfolio as a whole, we never put all our eggs in the same basket. So we diversify the portfolio, and in diversification, the most important thing is the correlation between asset classes.
[00:10:32] Vedat: So let me start with correlation and then go to inflation and the performance within a portfolio. Art itself, has very low to negative correlation with most of the major asset classes, equities bonds, and it means developed market equities, emerging market equities.
[00:10:52] Lucas: So that means that it doesn't move in let's say the same direction?
[00:10:57] Vedat: If it's negative, I mean, if there is no correlation, there is no significant relationship between the direction, whether it's on the positive side or on the negative side. So if you put asset classes which have low, low to negative correlation in a portfolio, it always improves the risk adjusted returns of a portfolio.
[00:11:21] Vedat: Coming to inflation, there are certain asset classes that perform better during high inflationary periods and we are now in a high inflationary period. Usually tangible assets perform much better because in a high inflationary period. Cash loses value, there is not enough real yield in the market.
[00:11:43] Vedat: So the cash itself loses value, so tangible assets keep their value. So property and arts and other types of tangible assets usually maintain their value against inflation, or they reflect inflation in terms. In terms of valuation. So it's a great asset class to be in during times of high inflation, but tangible assets are not as liquid as the other assets.
[00:12:10] Vedat: So you wouldn't, you would never put a hundred percent of your liquid wealth into these tangible assets because you may need liquidity. You can put 30% to property, 10% to art, the rest could be, I mean, depending on your risk aversion, it could be, I mean, between bonds, equities, commodities, or other alternative asset classes.
[00:12:39] Vedat: Looking at the historical performance of art, it can really improve both the return and also the risk side of your portfolio. You always need to think about both sides of the equation.
[00:12:53] Lucas: Fantastic and, you know, I think it's a really good moment for people to be understanding what options are out there in the market in terms of how they can diversify, how they can, you know, perhaps educate themselves on how to diversify their portfolio and different sort of alternate assets that can assist with that process.
[00:13:20] Lucas: So that's, that's absolutely fantastic. So in terms of the investors, if they've decided that they'd like to add art to the portfolio, traditionally in the past, maybe they've gone to an auction, but Mintus is digital first. You've built a digital platform, so how does that user experience work?
[00:13:48] Vedat: It's quite easy to use, if you wanted to transact on a normal, I mean, physical art, you would go to a gallery. If you are not someone that used to work with that gallery for a long period of time, they wouldn't give you the best assets out there. Yes. I mean, there would be conditions, if you're buying an emerging artist, they will say that there's no resale, uh, agreement for five years.
[00:14:17] Vedat: If you try to sell it within that five years they'll ban you. I mean, they, you won't be able to purchase art from that, from that gallery. Plus obviously there is the commissions that you'll pay to the gallery.
[00:14:30] Vedat: Then if you are building a portfolio, let's say 20 or 30 pieces of artwork, then you need to store them somewhere, you need to ensure insure them. So there are lots of costs associated with maintaining that art portfolio as well. So Mintus it's a platform, it's based on physical art.
[00:14:49] Vedat: So we have this physical art, it's authentic art and it's blue chip artist and blue chip painting. So yes, you get to the best quality out there without incurring any of these costs and the hassle. You just log onto mintus.com website, you register, it's very easy to register, you need to identify yourself as a sophisticated or a high net worth investor. So there's an appropriateness test, which takes a few minutes to complete. Then as we are FCA regulated, we need to identify our investors,so there's a short KYC and AML process where you need to put in your passport or a driving driver's license and you need to prove your address with an address proof. The total process takes on average, 10 minutes, to complete. After you complete that you have full platform access, and once you have full platform access, you are able to see all the opportunities on our website, the offering prices.
[00:15:53] Vedat: We also put, for investors to understand and have a reference point, independent valuation reports. As well, condition reports. As well on each of these artwork, and you can choose the artwork - it's not like investing in an art fund. There are different options and you can invest in Andy Warhol, you can invest in a George Condo at the moment. In the future, you can invest in a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting, or a Halkney painting, or a Picasso and you can choose what arts you like. You may not be able to put that on your wall but you will be a partner, a part of a community that owns Andy Warhol and you can benefit from the value appreciation of these assets. These are scarce assets and history shows that they have outperformed inflation over time in terms of performance, so it's really, really easy.
[00:16:48] Vedat: Yeah it's a great way to offer a digital platform that allows people to access a previously quite inaccessible asset class.
[00:16:59] Vedat: Exactly, that's why our motto is on the unownable!
[00:17:04] Lucas: Yeah, which is very fitting, very fitting for that. Thank you so much for telling us about Mintus, as a sort of final question: as a CFO during quite a sort of a difficult financial and economic period, what would your key takeaways to other CFOs be who are trying to build and and grow their business like Mintus at this period of time?
[00:17:42] Vedat: Exactly, I mean, it's tough times and for startups, I mean, managing the cash flow is quite important, so that's my priority. Look at our cash burn on a weekly basis forecast the next couple of months, the existing fundings plan, the next funding in advance. Maintain relationships with existing investors and potential investors continuously, because as the business grows, it will require more and more funding until it becomes profitable or let's say cash flow, cash flow positive.
[00:18:23] Vedat: Obviously each business is quite different from a margin, from a cash generation perspective. I mean, the essence is this, you need to look at your cash firm very closely.
[00:18:36] Vedat: You need to have a capital light model. Sometimes rely on outside consultants who work in a more efficient manner, instead of paying full salaries to employees during these times. So we have a mixed model, we currently have 26 full-time employees, but we have maybe up to 10 consultants or advisors where we don't have to pay full-time but we can access their knowledge and network and expertise and the time allocated to us is more efficient actually than a full-time employee. There is urgency and deliverables within the contract, so that's how we, I mean, manage it at times.
[00:19:35] Lucas: Yeah, very good takeaways for CFOs and founders out there, focus on the capital efficiency and making sure that you've got flexibility and it's almost kind of like you're fractionalizing the labor!
[00:19:57] Lucas: Vedat, thank you so much for joining us today.
[00:20:01] Vedat: It was a pleasure.
[00:20:02] Lucas: Excellent. We really appreciate it and look forward to watching Mintus' journey continue and watching you continue to grow.
[00:20:10] Vedat: Exactly. We're also extremely excited. I mean, it'll be, it'll be amazing.
[00:20:15] Lucas: Indeed, it will be. Thank you so much for your time.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Lucas: So welcome to the building and growing podcast. Today we're going to discuss Mintus with Dr. Vedat Mizrahi. Vedat - thank you so much for joining us.
[00:00:11] Vedat: Thanks for inviting.
[00:00:12] Lucas: You're most welcome. Would you like to start off by just telling us a bit about yourself?
[00:00:17] Vedat: Yeah, sure. I'm an industrial engineer by profession but then I switched to finance and started my career as a management consultant at Deloitte. I did that for two years. Then I said, I want the thrill of the financial markets. I was hired by Deutsche bank as an equity research analyst. I worked there for eight years, then moved to another investment bank as head of equity and credit research.
[00:00:45] Vedat: In total, I've done research for 14 years, then I moved to wealth management to cover high net worth and ultra high net worth individuals. I worked at a Swiss private wealth manager in their London branch, covering mostly Turkish, Greek, the Balkans and Israeli high net worth clients.
[00:01:12] Vedat: I dId that for four years, and during those four years I've started investing in startups myself, mostly pre-stage startups. I've done, I think eight or nine investments so far and Mintus is actually my last investment. I got to know the founder and CEO of Mintus, Tamer Özmen, late last year during their funding round. I loved the idea and I decided to participate in the funding round, which was at the time a 20 million pre-money valuation and the company raised £4.5 million pounds. Then I got along, he might me over for a few brainstorming sessions and then we agreed that we can work together.
[00:02:07] Vedat: I joined Mintus as CFO and also Chief Commercial Officer, responsible from the finance and also the sales and distribution functions at Mintus and trying to grow the company together.
[00:02:19] Lucas: That's fantastic, what a journey, both in terms of your career, but also how you got to know Tamer and Mintus and eventually became involved.
[00:02:32] Lucas: It would be great to discuss Mintus today in more detail, so can you tell us what you are building?
[00:02:41] Vedat: Yeah, Mintus was established two years ago, so I was active in the past six months of those two years, but I think, I mean, they have done a lot in the past in terms of building the platform itself and also acquiring the required licenses from the FCA. Mintus is a UK based FCA regulated alternative investment manager. We have an AIFM license so we're in the business of alternative assets. We think that alternative assets should be accessible to a wider audience. So through fractionalization, we allow, mass affluent and high net worth individuals to participate in high value assets and Mintus itself started decided to focus on fine art to start with.
[00:03:40] Vedat: Our first asset class, and for a while after we dominate that asset class will be contemporary art. The founder and CEO chose this asset class because he was amazed by both the performance of this asset class, and also how it's been, I mean, it's been out there for centuries now and it hasn't been really disrupted.
[00:04:03] Vedat: Whereas the financial intermediaries that I work with, I mean, the commissions have decimated over a period of two decades, while I worked in the industry. But still, I mean, the intermediary fees in the contemporary art sector, it's incredibly high. And we're talking about on one side bips, 20 bips, 15 bips, two bips and high frequency trades, whereas on the art side, contemporary art dealers, you get 5%, 10%, auction houses get 20%, 25%, galleries take again similar percentages, so that's, that's ripe for disruption.
[00:04:45] Lucas: So how is Mintus, I suppose, breaking down those huge commissions that have been taken by intermediaries in the traditional art world?
[00:04:58] Vedat: It's a great question, we go to the source. First of all, in order to succeed on the sourcing side, we go directly to the collectors.
[00:05:12] Vedat: So it's beneficial for the collectors to sell their inventory, their property to different distribution channels at lower costs. So, first of all, we tell them, we're not gonna charge you any cost for transacting with Mintus.
[00:05:27] Vedat: So they're already in the money for, I mean, if they're not paying 20% to those intermediaries, and for us, because we are buying from the source, the collector, we can get better prices than we will pay at an auction, because in auctions, always the buyers pay the premium.
[00:05:48] Vedat: In an auction, there is the hammer price and on top of the hammer price, depending on the price level of the artwork, then there is a buyer's premium and it could go up to 25% for any artwork less than a million. So huge, huge fees. So no fees on the sourcing side, on the investment side, we put each of these artwork in a special purpose company.
[00:06:18] Vedat: Within the company we're able to issue shares to the investors, so that that's how investors can become fractional owners of an artwork. So each fund, for example, we've launched with an Andy Warhol painting, self portrait, which is worth $5 million, we created a $5 million worth closed end fund.
[00:06:41] Vedat: Anyone who invests, let's say $50,000 in that fund will own 1% of Andy Warhol. As Mintus, we are the investment managers. We make the decisions to exit from the artwork with a holding period of up to seven years. As Mintus, our value proposition here is, I mean, while we are eliminating fees and aligning interests, our expertise as a team, we have a great art team is in selecting the right pieces of artwork.
[00:07:20] Vedat: The right artists and the right piece of artwork and we do a lot of data analysis for that. So we'll look at the auction history, the private sales history, the price velocity of each artist and we choose those pieces that would generate then in, in our opinion, obviously would generate the best returns over the course of a few years.
[00:07:45] Lucas: And you know, it's a very data led strategy which is very important in this day and age. I'm going to jump back briefly to something you mentioned at the beginning around the returns of the asset class. Presently, we're in a very sort of high inflationary environment, are you able to dig deeper into how artwork has performed as an asset class in the past, relative perhaps to say stocks or bonds?
[00:08:25] Vedat: Yeah, certainly. I mean there is a lot of dat on art itself. We currently use a data source called Live Art Index, so it's not, I mean, we don't dig deep into the Live Art Index because we know that they depend on a lot of data.
[00:08:43] Vedat: They use both repeat sales, hedonic, and price series, and also machine learning to forecast that data. According to their data, over the past almost 40 years contemporary art has outperformed S&P 500 index by 240%, so it delivered almost two and a half times better returns.
[00:09:05] Vedat: Unfortunately the S&P 500 index or its constituents are accessible to all the investors, including retail investors, and there's fractionional ownership in those, stocks and shares as well. So people can buy stocks with like $1 or £1 versus on the contemporary arts it's changed hands between the super rich so far. So if you don't have $5 million or, I mean, even if you have $50 million, you wouldn't put 10% of your liquid wealth into one painting. So it wasn't accessible, I mean, to even the high net, indeed only ultra high net worth or billionaires. By making this accessible to a wider audience, we are enabling other people to benefit from this, from this amazing performance.
[00:09:55] Vedat: Apart from the performance, people always look at obviously expected return and they look at the history. History is never an actual indicator of future performance, but we have a lot of history.
[00:10:09] Vedat: We can look at different periods over time, high inflationary periods, low inflationary periods. Most importantly, when investing, we need to look at The portfolio as a whole, we never put all our eggs in the same basket. So we diversify the portfolio, and in diversification, the most important thing is the correlation between asset classes.
[00:10:32] Vedat: So let me start with correlation and then go to inflation and the performance within a portfolio. Art itself, has very low to negative correlation with most of the major asset classes, equities bonds, and it means developed market equities, emerging market equities.
[00:10:52] Lucas: So that means that it doesn't move in let's say the same direction?
[00:10:57] Vedat: If it's negative, I mean, if there is no correlation, there is no significant relationship between the direction, whether it's on the positive side or on the negative side. So if you put asset classes which have low, low to negative correlation in a portfolio, it always improves the risk adjusted returns of a portfolio.
[00:11:21] Vedat: Coming to inflation, there are certain asset classes that perform better during high inflationary periods and we are now in a high inflationary period. Usually tangible assets perform much better because in a high inflationary period. Cash loses value, there is not enough real yield in the market.
[00:11:43] Vedat: So the cash itself loses value, so tangible assets keep their value. So property and arts and other types of tangible assets usually maintain their value against inflation, or they reflect inflation in terms. In terms of valuation. So it's a great asset class to be in during times of high inflation, but tangible assets are not as liquid as the other assets.
[00:12:10] Vedat: So you wouldn't, you would never put a hundred percent of your liquid wealth into these tangible assets because you may need liquidity. You can put 30% to property, 10% to art, the rest could be, I mean, depending on your risk aversion, it could be, I mean, between bonds, equities, commodities, or other alternative asset classes.
[00:12:39] Vedat: Looking at the historical performance of art, it can really improve both the return and also the risk side of your portfolio. You always need to think about both sides of the equation.
[00:12:53] Lucas: Fantastic and, you know, I think it's a really good moment for people to be understanding what options are out there in the market in terms of how they can diversify, how they can, you know, perhaps educate themselves on how to diversify their portfolio and different sort of alternate assets that can assist with that process.
[00:13:20] Lucas: So that's, that's absolutely fantastic. So in terms of the investors, if they've decided that they'd like to add art to the portfolio, traditionally in the past, maybe they've gone to an auction, but Mintus is digital first. You've built a digital platform, so how does that user experience work?
[00:13:48] Vedat: It's quite easy to use, if you wanted to transact on a normal, I mean, physical art, you would go to a gallery. If you are not someone that used to work with that gallery for a long period of time, they wouldn't give you the best assets out there. Yes. I mean, there would be conditions, if you're buying an emerging artist, they will say that there's no resale, uh, agreement for five years.
[00:14:17] Vedat: If you try to sell it within that five years they'll ban you. I mean, they, you won't be able to purchase art from that, from that gallery. Plus obviously there is the commissions that you'll pay to the gallery.
[00:14:30] Vedat: Then if you are building a portfolio, let's say 20 or 30 pieces of artwork, then you need to store them somewhere, you need to ensure insure them. So there are lots of costs associated with maintaining that art portfolio as well. So Mintus it's a platform, it's based on physical art.
[00:14:49] Vedat: So we have this physical art, it's authentic art and it's blue chip artist and blue chip painting. So yes, you get to the best quality out there without incurring any of these costs and the hassle. You just log onto mintus.com website, you register, it's very easy to register, you need to identify yourself as a sophisticated or a high net worth investor. So there's an appropriateness test, which takes a few minutes to complete. Then as we are FCA regulated, we need to identify our investors,so there's a short KYC and AML process where you need to put in your passport or a driving driver's license and you need to prove your address with an address proof. The total process takes on average, 10 minutes, to complete. After you complete that you have full platform access, and once you have full platform access, you are able to see all the opportunities on our website, the offering prices.
[00:15:53] Vedat: We also put, for investors to understand and have a reference point, independent valuation reports. As well, condition reports. As well on each of these artwork, and you can choose the artwork - it's not like investing in an art fund. There are different options and you can invest in Andy Warhol, you can invest in a George Condo at the moment. In the future, you can invest in a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting, or a Halkney painting, or a Picasso and you can choose what arts you like. You may not be able to put that on your wall but you will be a partner, a part of a community that owns Andy Warhol and you can benefit from the value appreciation of these assets. These are scarce assets and history shows that they have outperformed inflation over time in terms of performance, so it's really, really easy.
[00:16:48] Vedat: Yeah it's a great way to offer a digital platform that allows people to access a previously quite inaccessible asset class.
[00:16:59] Vedat: Exactly, that's why our motto is on the unownable!
[00:17:04] Lucas: Yeah, which is very fitting, very fitting for that. Thank you so much for telling us about Mintus, as a sort of final question: as a CFO during quite a sort of a difficult financial and economic period, what would your key takeaways to other CFOs be who are trying to build and and grow their business like Mintus at this period of time?
[00:17:42] Vedat: Exactly, I mean, it's tough times and for startups, I mean, managing the cash flow is quite important, so that's my priority. Look at our cash burn on a weekly basis forecast the next couple of months, the existing fundings plan, the next funding in advance. Maintain relationships with existing investors and potential investors continuously, because as the business grows, it will require more and more funding until it becomes profitable or let's say cash flow, cash flow positive.
[00:18:23] Vedat: Obviously each business is quite different from a margin, from a cash generation perspective. I mean, the essence is this, you need to look at your cash firm very closely.
[00:18:36] Vedat: You need to have a capital light model. Sometimes rely on outside consultants who work in a more efficient manner, instead of paying full salaries to employees during these times. So we have a mixed model, we currently have 26 full-time employees, but we have maybe up to 10 consultants or advisors where we don't have to pay full-time but we can access their knowledge and network and expertise and the time allocated to us is more efficient actually than a full-time employee. There is urgency and deliverables within the contract, so that's how we, I mean, manage it at times.
[00:19:35] Lucas: Yeah, very good takeaways for CFOs and founders out there, focus on the capital efficiency and making sure that you've got flexibility and it's almost kind of like you're fractionalizing the labor!
[00:19:57] Lucas: Vedat, thank you so much for joining us today.
[00:20:01] Vedat: It was a pleasure.
[00:20:02] Lucas: Excellent. We really appreciate it and look forward to watching Mintus' journey continue and watching you continue to grow.
[00:20:10] Vedat: Exactly. We're also extremely excited. I mean, it'll be, it'll be amazing.
[00:20:15] Lucas: Indeed, it will be. Thank you so much for your time.