DAS Special || Dan Cockerton, App News, FreeAgent ||

[00:00:00] They've finished off five years' worth of development to get to this AGL product which allows them to automatically categorise transactions, reconcile bank accounts and deliver real time financial insights. I think it's a bit weird that they're already thinking that we can replace the professionals with AI, I mean it's not proven that way yet, I think there's still quite a way to go. The train doesn't stop rolling, it also gives us a further nudge upwards into being able to deal with larger businesses. Any more that you can give us is still a teaser.

[00:00:28] We're joined by the infamous Dan Cockerton, known for his time at zero, but mostly for the launch and rise of the Doors to a Country Show, which is pretty much tomorrow. Dan, how are you feeling about that? We can't wait for everybody to come down to the event tomorrow. It's going to be a phenomenal couple of days. I had open heart surgery, one of my valves replaced. It gives you a different perspective on things. I try to get emotional. Just want to say thank you to everyone for all your support over the last few years. It really means a lot, not just with the show and everything that's going on, but with my family, everything that's going on with Oscar as well.

[00:00:58] So just want to say a massive thank you to everyone for all your support. Hello and welcome to this week's DigiTools in a Crawl World episode brought to you by the Digital Disruptors. This week's episode has been brought to you by the series sponsor of Free Agent, which is why I'm wearing my lovely blue colored jumper. It's not got quite the right logo on it. It's a bit of retro. John's is the same. We're still waiting for our swag, so that's why.

[00:01:26] And we're also covering in this week's app news a whole host of news from the latest in the accounting tech industry from Nemo, Oak North, iPlicit, DigiT, Tugger, and a handful of other relevant pieces of news that we think that you might enjoy.

[00:01:42] And we'll also be joined by Dan Cockerton, who is talking to us about his recent decision to take, I guess, to release the value of the asset that he's created in the digital accountancy show.

[00:01:59] For those who know Dan, who's gone on a personal journey for the last few years, both in terms of family and health and also in terms of the business that he's grown, which is rapidly becoming almost like the cult-like place to be for most accountants in the UK. Before we go any further, I will throw to my lovely co-hosts, Ryan Piercy and John Toon. How are you guys?

[00:02:30] I'm good. Thanks, Cindy. Loving the blue. I am not on theme today. I should be. Message me in future. I feel left out. You might not agree with that. That's what it is. I've been excluded. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. I know I'm really looking forward to Digital Accountancy Show tomorrow because it's going to be a big one, I think. The last one before it moves to the Excel next year and to its new time in October.

[00:02:58] So, yeah, last one of spring in the Battersea venue. I'm going to miss that venue. I'm going to miss it because it's a lot of fun. And I still have flashbacks of seeing John bobbing with his inflatables in the after show, right? I'm sure there's some videos. Everyone remembers that, indeed. It's a very proud moment in my career, yeah. I have to say a lot of thanks to a lot of people that helped make that happen.

[00:03:28] But, yeah. Was that the peak? Has it all been downhill since then? That's probably, yeah. Certainly when I went skiing it was, anyway, that's for sure. Yeah, I mean, great news from Dan, right? And very exciting times to him. And, yeah, always looking forward to Das and looking forward to much more AI chatter because I think that's where they did the really big stuff from Jason Stats last year.

[00:03:56] And we've got more of the same to come this year, I'm sure. And, yeah, I think a great move from the team there to kind of move into the latter half of the year for next year and the plans. But a different kind of challenge moving to the Excel for them, I'm sure. So exciting times all around. Yeah. And so without further ado, should we kick on to our app news for the week? Okay.

[00:04:23] I'm starting off app news today with a fairly big announcement from Digits, who are a US-based artificial intelligence business. And they've formally announced the launch or the release of an AI-driven autonomous general ledger, which they're calling an AGL. So this is the next big acronym we've got to look forward to. For those of you who don't know much about Digits, there's a business that I came across probably about two, maybe three years ago,

[00:04:51] effectively offering, I guess, a chatbot that does similar things to kind of the things that Jax and Peg that Sage used to have, they used to do, which is basically plug it into your general ledger product. It's got to be a cloud one. And then you could ask questions about all sorts of things. And it would present and return the information back to you, either text or graphically and stuff. And it was a pretty neat lot of product. I always used to really like Digits, but very much US-based. But anyway, this big announcement from them, which happened just a couple of weeks ago, so early part of March,

[00:05:17] is that they finished off five years' worth of development to get to this AGL product, which allows them to automatically categorize transactions, reconcile bank accounts, and deliver real-time finance insights. And they've got some huge investment from the likes of SoftBank and others, who have piled tons of cash into them over time as they've built this out. And this announcement was tied in with the signing, if you like, of Craig Walker,

[00:05:44] who was one of the co-founders and former CTO of Xero, onto the board. So, you know, big moves from Digits and, you know, big moves from Craig himself, who sort of said, you know, this is the one to watch now. This is the next phase of how the sort of cloud general ledger is going to be grown and developed. And they've got some really interesting stats out in the press release as well. One of the big things is that they reckon their proprietary models outform GPT-40 by about 54%,

[00:06:12] and that they're trained their AI on a data set of more than $825 billion in small business transactions. So that's a pretty sizable chunk of transactions. And, yeah, and so they're now gunning for the U.S. market at the moment, which I guess is a good play for them, given the constraints and challenges that the U.S. market has in terms of people. But I did ask them when they're going to launch in the U.K., and they said hopefully soon. So I guess it'll be interesting to see how that mixes up the space with the likes of maybe Genesis and Briefcase

[00:06:42] and others who are operating in the U.K. without too much heavy competition at the moment. I like that, hopefully soon. I think that's what all roadmaps should be. There should be a hopefully soon section. That's where they've got all future developments. What I love was the quote on one of the releases, which really says so much about the U.S. market at the moment. And this is that Siebert says, nobody in Gen Z wants to be an accountant. I mean, it's literally a situation over there.

[00:07:10] They've got no people because the work-life balance for accountants in the U.S. is horrific. People moaning in the U.K. is a completely different level over in the U.S. Absolutely. And that's tied into a crappy education system and the cost of doing all that and everything else. Yeah. So they've got real problems over there, real problems which I think the AICPA have not got on top of yet to fix and fundamentally change. Yeah. So I think the fact that Digits is launched in the U.S. is probably the right market to do it in.

[00:07:40] And then, yeah, hopefully we'll see them at some point over in the U.K. Okay. Right. Pivoting from Digits into a mid-tier finance solution, I implicit have partnered with GoCardless to bring instant payments to their customers. Now, from what I can tell, I implicit have been utilizing GoCardless internally for their own finance since 2019. So, what, six years now?

[00:08:03] And they finally brought it in for them to be powering their own solution, which is, I guess, instant bank pay from the way they label it. So, this will be for the one-off payments, I guess, to replace those high-cost card transactions. And they've chosen to partner with GoCardless, mostly on customer feedback. So, their customers were using GoCardless. They wanted to integrate it into their solution. And that's what they've done.

[00:08:30] And as they've, essentially, they're doing a lot of their development around what their customers want and desire. They're focusing a lot of their most recent and upcoming developments on their customers-deemed pipeline. I guess it's moved from that some point in the future to now. Is this the next iteration of the IT roadmap? Is that where we're going? Even now doesn't mean now, Ryan, of course. You have future, past and present.

[00:09:00] That's as much as we're getting. All right. So, moving on from iPlicit, we've got some news from Mimo, who, well, launched, what, less than a year ago? I mean, it feels like they've been around forever, Mimo. But, yeah, they've been growing at a substantial rate. And they've raised now $8.5 million to help with that growth, their future development and growth and moving out into the market. That's been led by Malin at Project A.

[00:09:30] And they're going to be using that superpower, what they've been doing regarding the automation from the data capture. So, if you weren't sure who Mimo are, it stands for money in, money out. They've been doing it. They've been running their system to collect money on behalf of your customers. And the same way for making payments for your suppliers. And what they have released at the same time as raising the $8.5 million is their Fetch product.

[00:09:59] Now, other products had Fetch and they didn't go too well. And so they scrapped them. So it'll be interesting to see what the Mimo Fetch tool will work like. Because they're not really giving too much information away on this release. So they basically said, it's here. Mimo Fetch, sign up for the beta to find out. Have you heard anything on this part of the product yet, John? No, I haven't, to be honest. I haven't seen the product.

[00:10:26] I did see Henrik and the team at Fab not so long ago. But I didn't actually get a chance to really talk to them too much about the releases or the fundraise. So I'll have to do that during that, so for the next few days. Cool. They do have the best socks in the business though, don't they? I'm not sure. I've got any Mimo socks. They're something for me to hunt for at this. They're like a classic, like sort of late 80s, early 90s gym sock.

[00:10:56] Yeah, very, very, very trendy. And I guess, congratulations by the way to the Mimo team for the fundraise. I guess Henrik does have a bit of an in, given that he is a VC from a previous life. So I'm sure he knows plenty of players, but there's no mean feat to raise money nonetheless. And obviously create a product that people want to invest in. So that's, so yeah, great, great work by the team. I've got a little bit of the exciting news, which came from Oak North, which I think, maybe

[00:11:26] for me at least, is a little bit surprising. But it was announced that they are to become the parents of a US bank called CUB, C-U-B, over in the US. And this is off the back of part of their expansion work into the US market. And CUB stands for the Community Unity Bank, which is based in Michigan. So yeah, an interesting time. I mean, you know, for anyone, again, that doesn't really understand the US banking market

[00:11:55] is quite a small provincial market as far as, you know, you don't have this concept like we have really in the UK, where you've got a small number of sort of high street banks like West and Lloyds, et cetera, with a bunch of challenges coming into the market. It's a much more sort of regionalized, you know, banking sector with one or two big banks like Bank of America, for example. But there's no details in terms of like what the deal value is and things like that. So, you know, there's nothing published or available that we can figure out.

[00:12:24] There is an insider that says it's worth tens of millions of dollars. But I mean, that's about as vague as it possibly gets. And Outenorth didn't comment on the deal themselves either. But, you know, they have raised a significant amount of money in the past. And they're also backed, ironically, by the same people that have put money into digits that we just talked about. So SoftBank. And so, yeah, not too bad. But just some quick stats on Outenorth. I mean, they have lent close to 12 and a half billion pounds.

[00:12:55] And they reckon that they have an industry leading loan default ratio, which means that they're not losing as much money as other banks on their loans. And they also paid out 30 million pounds to shareholders and they've made in dividends. So not doing too badly. And their pre-tax profits in 2024 were up to 214 million pounds, which is an increase of around about 30 million pounds. So, yeah, not too shabby.

[00:13:23] But, yeah, interesting that they're moving into the U.S. And, you know, part of this expansion, like I say, is to get in with Cub. And they have made around about $700 million worth of loans in the U.S. market in the last year or so. So, yeah, continued expansion from Outenorth, which is exciting to see. Yeah, it's a very good testament to what can be done in the banking space. Should we get it right? Yeah, for sure.

[00:13:50] Yeah, I mean, Outenorth's little one is it sort of, I think in the U.K., at least for me, they feel like they blow a little bit hard and cold because they had a big presence and then they sort of pulled away and then they kind of came back into the market. Obviously doing well with all of the stats or everything else we just talked about. But, yeah, good for them. Happy days. And I guess they've got plenty of noisy neighbors, haven't they, if you like, if you want to use that analogy. Anyway, moving on then, you know, if we're going to continue our AI theme, I just thought I picked up something that I thought was really interesting from,

[00:14:20] I guess, if you're a U.K. person, ZD.net, but ZD.net, which is if you're American. And they were talking about the fact that you need to forget SaaS. The future is services as a software thanks to AI. And it was really interesting, just like quick article, just going over like how AI is changing things. There was a survey done of around about a thousand businesses, which said that 60% are already looking to procure services as a technology offering.

[00:14:47] So this is basically, I guess, where things like law, accounting, and other things have been rebadsed with technology wrapped into them almost completely. And they're quite happy to replace some or all of their professional services with some form of AI within the next three to five years. So that kind of ties in quite neatly with my sort of doomsday scenario that I've been selling on the last few talks I've done. So I'm quite happy to be justified by the news now and the research that's coming out of the market.

[00:15:14] But I think this is going to be a really interesting challenge for us as accountants in the space, you know, as a consequence is that, you know, this is the way that, you know, organizations are thinking about procuring their services. We kind of have to react to this and start to adapt. I think it's a bit weird that they're already thinking that we can replace the professionals with AI. I mean, it's not proven that way yet. I think there's still quite a way to go. Are you thinking that this is just around the corner, John?

[00:15:42] I mean, I think in some areas, yes. I think there's potentially things that you currently do with some of the technologies out there. I don't think it's particularly coherent. I don't think there's anything recognizable as a brand or a particular single service line that you'd align against. But for sure, there are things that you can do. And I mean, you know, we as a firm are exploring opportunities to look at some of the particular compliance services that we provide.

[00:16:09] And to automate more and more of that using AI to the point where we've got, you know, a couple of proof of concepts that we'll do. You know, a tax return, for example, a personal tax return, albeit very simple, you know, not a complex one. But it's just, you know, it's just a start, I guess, of where we could get to. And that's partly down to our own technical capabilities and our willingness to spend time on developing this project.

[00:16:33] But if we're going to start to see that the ability of large language models, you know, in terms of their ability to complete tasks is going to keep improving at the rate it currently is, which, like I say, doubling in capability every seven months. Then, yeah, it means like, you know, where are we now? March. So in October, we're going to be able to do twice as many things as we can now, which is just mind blowing in some respect. It is. We need to come up with a new name for the law. We can't use Moore's law, can we? Maybe it'd be Toons law. Maybe that's what we need.

[00:17:03] Toons law? Do you think that's got to bring to it? I'm not. I mean, you know, given, you know, given. It's the first time I've heard you stumble, John. I just think, you know, Toons law has far to be many sort of connotations of like, you know, Tom and Jerry and things like that. So it's like some major concerns about our lack of consistency. Hitting each other over the head with very large hammers. All right.

[00:17:32] Well, I've got something that isn't related to, I guess, endless AI, which is now John's favorite topic after open banking. I've got something from Tugger, which is the advanced reporting tool connecting to Lightless Zero, QuickBooks, and then additional systems that are not financial, such as HubSpot, SimPro, Harvest. So sucking all those, all the data from various different platforms together and presenting dashboards on them.

[00:17:59] They have released their first partner program. So if you are looking to work with an advanced reporting tool, Tugger is one that you can reach out to now and work out a way to collaboratively work together and deliver an advanced reporting suite for your client. So if you've not explored Tugger before, please do Google Tugger and see what you find.

[00:18:20] I mean, off the back of that ridiculous advice from Ryan, I mean, you know, one last thing just to round off the news and the theme that we're currently aligning ourselves with, which I thought was particularly relevant for my lovely friend and colleague and everything else that I do the podcast with, which was this incredibly disappointing news that hair transplants are not deemed to be fat exempt. Ooh. Well, I know exactly.

[00:18:50] You may do it now, Ryan, but, you know, just think, just think about this. But yeah, so the, and apologies right now for this, but this is the accounting web joke, but the bold facts of the case were that the supply of hair transplant surgery to alopecia patients was found to be principally cosmetic rather than medical. And so it was outside the exemption for VAT.

[00:19:13] So as a result, there is a advanced hair technology limited, which is the business that was trying to sort of figure out which way around the rules work on this has suffered just shy of 2.5 million pounds worth of VAT and additional penalties as a consequence of 374,000 pounds, nearly 375,000 pounds, which is quite staggering amounts of money. And this inevitably, given that it's HMRC is a case that takes all the way back to June 2018.

[00:19:42] So it's taken, what's that, like seven years almost did to go through the system. So it's taken a long old time to get there. But yeah, there you go, Ryan. I'm afraid much like private school tuition nowadays, your, yeah, your hair transplants, should you wish to go get them unless you go to Turkey, like most people seem to, is going to cost you 20% extra. Unbelievable.

[00:20:08] I mean, they went after the school fees, then they went after benefits, but I draw the line at coming off after us shiny headed folk. That is just, that's too, it's a step too far. Well, you've got to know those solar panels are still zero rated for installation. So yeah. Yeah, don't need those. Anyway, moving on. We're back with Tony Stevenson from Free Agent.

[00:20:38] My biggest thing, Free Agent related, is the releases that you've been doing around Digital County Show. So talk me a little bit about those. Yes. So I guess it is, the train doesn't stop rolling.

[00:20:52] You know, we've been quite open about our intentions to make sure that we have got as many, if not all of the, you know, the core, the core offerings within the sort of ecosystem space. So that, you know, when firms are making their decisions about, you know, which we're keeping software that they want to use, that they're not looking at it going, I'd really like to use you guys, but you don't integrate with X, Y, Z, right? We want to integrate with X, Y, Z, A, B, and C, right?

[00:21:22] And it's an ongoing project. It doesn't happen overnight. But, you know, we're really, really pleased with the progress that we've made. And, you know, over the last 18 months or so, we've really, really got some great names through the gates. It must have been a couple of months ago now, but I talked about on a post on LinkedIn how your app marketplace, app store, integration page, whatever you call it, was very selective, right?

[00:21:44] You were picking what I would say best in breed and really doing deep integrations rather than having a free for all where people just couldn't work out what they should be doing, where, which has happened on some other platforms. So talk it through, I guess, what they are and why. Data and Molino have been around for, you know, for a good while in our space and offer... Forever, basically. Yeah, pretty much since this all stuff started, right? So they were a gap in our offering from a data capture perspective.

[00:22:12] And the integration that we've, or that Data and Molino built into us is, you know, is a really good starting place in the sense that we've got coverage of, you know, most of the key types of transactions that we've got. Your bills, your invoices, that kind of stuff. It also gives us a further kind of nudge upwards into being able to deal with sort of larger businesses. So, you know, we're very much, you know, very much the micro end of the market.

[00:22:40] But as we sort of creep into the small space, you know, that's something that continues to evolve. And there's obviously always a kind of ceiling with free agent, but Data and Molino gives us that nice kind of like, well, actually, I can use your bookkeeping tool. But, you know, for the larger voluminous data capture requirements, then we can lean on that as a platform and pair those two things together and be able to carry on as if nothing had ever happened. So, yeah, we were excited about it. It's good. Yeah.

[00:23:07] And they've got a product that's been just really good in the marketplace for a long time without singing and dancing about it. So, so many other brands put a lot of, I guess, money in the brand, the marketing, the kind of channel advertisement. But they've just built a solid product. And I think that it's done really well. It's been around. I'm not sure if it was before Dex, but it's definitely around at about the same time.

[00:23:32] I remember it was Dame Molino Auto Entry and Dex that all kind of were fighting at the start before, you know, it just went into a crazy world of hundreds of them. And I think that, yeah, it does enable you to push upwards. It's got really good reliability and trust built into their product. So, no, really good integration. So, look, I know you won't stop there because this has been a big thing for the last year, building out and adding more, adding more integrations. Any more that you can give us still a teaser? We've got a couple of good ones coming.

[00:24:01] So, last year we had a roaring success launching Engager app and Zen & Connect at Countex. So, we plan to do similar. Not really launch the same apps because that would be a bit important. Well, maybe not, actually. I'm sure we'd all get plenty out of it. Yeah, we'll do the same thing again. If in doubt, just repeat. So, now we've got a couple more coming. One is in the sort of AI space and another one is in the payment space.

[00:24:30] It's both exciting and, again, new kids on the block that are looking to stretch what's capable and what's possible in our world. So, yeah, both great teams to work with. So, yeah, keep your eyes peeled at Countex. There'll be a couple more launchers coming. Cool. Well, we do love those apps that disrupt, right? I do think to play well with us. And, yeah, excited to see where this goes.

[00:24:55] But, no, thanks again, Tony, for coming on and talking through some of the more recent integrations into FreeAgent as your platform continues to expand. Indeed. Thank you, mate. Always a pleasure. So, today we're joined by the infamous Dan Cockerton, known for his time at zero, but mostly for the launch and rise of the Digital Country Show, which is pretty much tomorrow, Dan. How are you feeling about that? Yeah, cheers, Ryan. Yeah, we are all hands on deck.

[00:25:22] The team are working really hard to make sure that everything's set up, AV, stands, production, lighting, registration desks. We're there now, so we can't wait for everybody to come down to the event tomorrow. It's going to be a phenomenal couple of days. The speakers are in. Some have flown in from all around the world. And people are starting to arrive on site. So, we are absolutely buzzing. Everything is looking good. And, yeah, we've got a few surprises in store as well.

[00:25:52] So, I can't wait to welcome everyone tomorrow. And we've got some – you've had quite – I hope you've had some big news over the last few weeks. Firstly was the announcement of the fact you're going to be at the Excel next year. Big news. Much bigger space, I assume. Yeah. I think when people come down tomorrow, Ryan, you'll see – it'll be quite obvious that we are at full capacity at Evolution. Love the venue. Love the location. Love the look and feel of the place. It was the perfect next step for us.

[00:26:22] But we're at capacity. We're at capacity from a football perspective, from a staging perspective, and from a stands perspective. So, for us, you know, we're bursting at the seams. So, we wanted to move to a venue that allows us to create the same sort of magic and environment, but in a much bigger space. Yeah. I mean, you've got very much a defined theme for – or style for the way Digital Cancer Show works. Yeah. Yeah. We've just tried to create our own identity.

[00:26:49] So, when you come into the show, it just feels much different to anything else. And hopefully, that means it's more memorable. The social media goes crazy. It helps from a marketing perspective. And we just want to create spaces and environments that decision makers and accounting firm owners are happy to come down, network, listen to talks, and do business, ultimately. So, yeah, and Excel kind of ticked all the boxes for us.

[00:27:17] Yeah, and a key part of, I guess, doing the show is to provide the information for people that leave it to think, this is what I want to do in my firm. But to get them really energised, you need that atmosphere. You need people to feel like a buzz because everything just sticks more. And as soon as you go, you want to put things in action rather than just go, oh, I've learnt this. And then you just put it to the side. So, I think that whole style really helps bring that. And that's what I've always felt at Digital Cancer Show is when I leave, I'm like, okay, I'm putting these things in action.

[00:27:47] I'm surprised about it. But the big news, the main news that I guess I wanted to pick up and pick your brains about was the fact that you are no longer the owner as far as I'm where. You've sold the Digital Cancer Show, Dan. Talk us through it. Yeah, so thanks, Ryan. Yeah, so the Digital Cancer Show has been acquired. It's been acquired by an amazing company. And the more we get to know the people there and the business, the more it kind of really feels right.

[00:28:16] And we know that we're handing or I'm handing over my baby onto a company and a great home. But yeah, we've been acquired by EasyFair. So for us as a leadership team, for us, the mission has always been to impact the accounting profession on a global scale, not just the UK. Like even in the UK show this year, we've got 30 to 40 odd accountants flying in from Finland. We've got another 40 flying in from Romania. We've got people coming in from all over Europe mainly to come to the show.

[00:28:45] And for us, we really wanted a global reach. EasyFair's were at the show last year. They absolutely loved it. We started some discussions. But in terms of taking the show international, geo-cloning it in other territories around the world, Club EasyFair's, it's their bread and butter. They're a much bigger business. They've got lots of resource. They can help us grow the London show and invest into that.

[00:29:12] And then their ultimate goal is to launch the brand overseas as well. And yeah, we're really, really excited. And the culture and the people above anything else are really, really amazing. And you'll meet some of the team at the show tomorrow, over the next few days. It must have been a tough decision. I know that you've shared some information on LinkedIn about some of the, I guess, your health struggles over the last year.

[00:29:39] So talk us through kind of what led to making this decision to sell the show. Obviously, you said from the investment perspective and growth, but was there more to it than that as well? Yeah, so you're right. So the first reason was, you know, just having the resource to grow the business to new levels. And the second reason was, you know, I had quite a big heart operation last year. I had open heart surgery when my valves replaced.

[00:30:08] And anybody that's been through kind of major surgery like that and you've been through the recovery process. So it was a six-month full recovery for me. It gives you a different perspective on things. You know, you look at things differently. You know, you go through quite a brutal experience whilst you're in hospital and you go through something like that. And, you know, I mean, now I feel better than ever, fitter than ever, healthier than ever. I believe everything happens for a reason.

[00:30:37] And I look back and I feel like now is one of the best things that ever happened to me. And also, you know, I've got a four-year-old who has a syndrome called Usher's disease, which means that he was born deaf. And when he begins to hit his teenage years, he's going to begin to lose his sight as well, which is quite hard as a parent to be able to deal with.

[00:31:07] So moving forward, there's other things that I want to do to support Moorfield's Eye Hospital and that cause as well. So, yeah, there's kind of all these things in the pot and it just felt right. It felt like we were handing my baby over to a really good group of people. So, yeah, there was the health reasons and family reasons as well. But you're still going to be involved, right? You're still there kind of driving things forward? Yeah, absolutely. Yep.

[00:31:35] James and I and the team are going to be around for a number of years to drive the business forwards, maintain relationships. And, yeah, we're not going, can't get rid of us just yet. And we love it, you know. We absolutely love the impact that the show is having on the profession. Does that mean you're still opening the show? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They can't drag me away from that anytime soon, Ryan. That's my favourite part of the year.

[00:32:02] Well, the opening kind of show is kind of getting up there and speaking is a little bit more nerve wracking. But, you know, we'll still be around the show. Obviously, what's the word? You know, a lot of it is our work and our thinking and our imagination that you see up there. So, no, we're definitely around for a number of years. But coming back to your point on culture and that sort of stuff, I know every kind of company says this when they've been bought. The culture seems to be the same.

[00:32:28] You know, all I can say is having met the EasyFares leadership team a number of times now, if the business values and culture reflect anywhere near what the guys in the leadership team are like, then we've made the right decision. They're a great bunch of people. And what's also reassuring is a lot of people from the events industry, when they announced the news last week, messaged me directly saying EasyFares, great business, great people. So that's really reassuring as well. But, yeah, no need to be nervous.

[00:32:59] Just expect more of the same. We're going to continue the magic from Battersea over into Excel, even more so. The production levels are going up. The attendee and exhibitor experience is going up. We're doubling down on content. And, yeah, we just want to make sure that we keep raising the bar.

[00:33:22] We went from the Tottenham Stadium to Battersea, which was a level up, and now we're going to Battersea to Excel, which for us is a really proud moment as well, because I remember looking at Excel when we first launched the show, and I said to James, you know, one day we might be able to run an event here. It's like the Wembley Stadium of events. So I know people have kind of preconceived perceptions about Excel a little bit. I totally get that because 99.9% of the shows that you go to at Excel are very traditional expo, trade show type events.

[00:33:52] We are still maintaining this. How do we, when people walk into the venue, how do we blow them away? So, yeah, we're not going to lose any of that. And we're also, the other thing I forgot to mention was we're moving the date. So we're moving it from a very congested first half of the year in the events, accounting events world, into the second half of the year where, you know, there isn't really much going on apart from Accountex North, which is running September, I believe.

[00:34:20] And then our kind of main show will be in the 7th and 8th of October 26th. Great to hear. Finally, finally, we're getting some respite at the start of the year, Dan. Thank you for that. Just means it's a year and a half waiting for the next Digital County Show. Hopefully everyone can cope with that. But I want to close with a question that I guess is a bit personal and it's up to you whether you answer it.

[00:34:45] But whenever, I guess, people create a business, they're not necessarily thinking about what they're going to get out of it. Some people do, they're planning for the exit. But the main thing I think for everyone is that did you get out of it from a value perspective when you sold? What you felt was, what you're happy with, what you felt was right for where the show was and what kind of business was? Do you feel, from a financial perspective, that, you know, I feel I did okay on this? Yeah. Yeah, no, I think everything was fair, Ryan.

[00:35:14] You know, at the end of the day, that's all you can ask for. I feel like it's fair. I feel like everything that's gone through, not just the money side of it, but the overall deal and everything that EasyFares want to do, it just feels, everything feels right. Like, I've got no regrets or no worries. Everything feels really, really right. And that's all I can ask for. You know, I've got internal peace, which is a nice thing to have. So, yes, the answer is yes. Nice one.

[00:35:43] Thanks for coming on, Dan. And on a closed basis by saying, if you haven't downloaded the app for Digital Country Show yet and you listen to this, please download it. I know that there's going to be a lot that helps you navigate the show in the app. And I'm talking on the first day. So if you listen, please come around and listen to the Digital Disruptors talking. Brilliant. Thanks, Ryan. I just want to say thank you to you. Thank you to everyone listening for your... I'm trying to get emotional. Just want to say thank you to everyone for all your support over the last few years.

[00:36:13] It really means a lot, not just with the show and everything that's going on, but with my family and everything that's going on with Oscar as well. It all goes to good causes. So just want to say a massive thank you to everyone for all your support. Thanks, Dan. I really appreciate it. Cheers. Thanks for joining us on this week's episode. We hope you enjoyed it. And if you've got any questions, any feedback, any comments, or just would like to shout out any particular features that you thought were interesting, then you know what to do.

[00:36:43] You can get in touch with us via our community. So if you're not already in our WhatsApp group chat, then you're missing out because Mr. John Toon is making sure he's marketing the latest and greatest Digital Disruptors events for you guys to connect at the upcoming accounting tech events. That's in the calendar. And if not that community, then you are, of course, welcome to get in touch with us directly via LinkedIn or to reach us via our website.

[00:37:12] So thanks for catching us on this one. We'll see you on the next.