AI & ADVERTISING - DAGNY LACKA

CRA: [00:00:00] Dagny Lacka, welcome to the TechBurst Talks podcast. Dagny: How exciting. Thank you so much for having me. CRA: Well, I'm excited too, because I get to learn something new today. We are going to talk about one of my favourite topics, which is AI. But we talk about it normally on the podcast, more theoretically, like what can AI do in the future? And today we're going to talk about what it is actually doing and how it's transforming an industry. And that industry is the advertising industry, which I know very little about. But more specifically, it's the digital out of home industry. And I did not even know what that term was until I Googled it last week. Why don't you give us a brief overview of what is the digital out of home industry? And what role you and your company, Flow City, play in that industry? Dagny: Sure. So digital out of home is an arm of outdoor advertising. So when you think of advertising, historically, it was anything you could see in the public space and maybe in print. Since then we've [00:01:00] seen the explosion of digital advertising, and at some point, the owners of digital billboards, which you see in train stations, in shopping centers, or on the roadside, decided it's time to connect everything and make it available to advertisers in the same way. As you would access banners online or Google ads. So this is what digital out of home stands for. It's anything is digitally displayed and is connected to internet. CRA: In the old days, it used to just be those guys going around, putting up a poster, sealing it. And then if you wanted to change it, you had to go back there, rip it down and put up a new one. Dagny: what's really interesting is when I started in this industry, even though the sites were digital, it was still booked in two weeks. Slots because this is how long it took for the poster guys to go for [00:02:00] the bill posters to go and change the artworks on bus stops, for example, so the industry few years ago decided actually, we can start trading hourly, which was a huge revolution and now we're trading a minute by minute in real time. CRA: So that's great because it gives you a lot more flexibility. You can actually buy smaller chunks of it, get some visibility at key times. And then really it is transforming it. You've taken something that was a very manual process. That was difficult to change and it's now highly dynamic. Dagny: More importantly, what we can now do is Look at the audience which changes throughout the day and it changes depending on location. So even if you take a city like London, the audiences you're gonna have in various locations or various parts of London will change throughout the day. And now looking at that insight allows us to deliver the advertising in minute by minute intervals when it actually matters. So [00:03:00] to be precise, to the audience. that is likely to respond to your messaging. CRA: Okay, so before we go too far down this, tell us a bit about yourself and what role your company plays in this dynamic industry. Dagny: I'm Dagny. I've always worked in advertising. I've started out actually in journalism and quickly moved into the commercial sides. I worked for a TV broadcaster and during that time when I worked for a TV company, We would use outdoor advertising billboards to promote the programming. And that got me thinking that actually that there is a channel that is even more important than TV advertising. At some point that industry became digitalized, and that was an opportunity to not only allow challenger brands access to this medium, but also make it more intelligent. So that's my story. I've always, I've always had passion for [00:04:00] advertising and for democratizing industry. So helping the smaller guy to have the fighting chance with the modules. . I founded Flow City seven years ago. If you remember, we met when we were just a startup, just launched. I attended the conference where Charles was giving an amazing keynote in Nice. That's how we met. CRA: Yeah, talking about smart cities, look, all those just disappeared. So maybe I talk about a topic and it just goes away. Dagny: well, usually when the term goes away, it means that it's actually now became. A fact, exactly. So what is a smart city? A smart city is where we know what's happening, where we've got connected devices that give us in depth knowledge about what's happening in that city. And part of it is what we use at FlowCity. So we use that smart city connected, Infrastructure and we monetize it because that if you remember, [00:05:00] that was the biggest question. Will this actually provide growth? Will it actually provide value for the businesses and for the local authorities? So digital out of home actually does all of that. It provides crucial services. It provides funding for the local authority and it provides. A channel for local businesses to drive growth. CRA: I want to go back to this journey real quick because you started out in advertising. So you've always looked at advertising, but when 10 years ago your startup then was called Bold Mind and you were using sensor data and analytics. and machine learning to forecast footfall. So where people are traveling at a store, so you can see what people are doing. How did you make the flip from advertising and you jumped right into machine learning? It's not an easy thing. Like, Oh, I think I can learn this in the next week or so you, how did you make that jump and transition Dagny: Oh, it wasn't me. It was the amazing team that I had around me. I was really [00:06:00] just a front person. I was really just a salesperson. , This is really what what happened. I happened to meet some amazing, talented programmers who took really complex problems. and decided if it's hard, it's worth doing. The reason why we got so deeply into smart cities is because of the accelerator program we joined, which was funded by Intel. Intel made a move into Canary Wharf and there was an opportunity for startups to not only access data, but also operate in a real life lab. So Canary Wharf, It's like a mini Singapore, but it's a smart city in its own right, where the footfall can be highly measurable. It has its own ecosystem. So any impact we would create would be highly measurable. Whilst we only looked at a [00:07:00] very small part of smart cities analyzing footfall, we were looking actively for the commercial application of it. So, advertising was the obvious one. We first went into retailers and we assume that it's so important for retailers to know who the audiences are, but there was not much retailers could do with that knowledge because. it's not like they could change their offering, change the products that they offering. What we quickly realized is the digital screens that are in the retail spaces, and now we have digital screens pretty much in every store, , although we could see that, that's what's going to happen eventually. We were able to very quickly. React to the changes or the insight from football into the content displayed on digital screens. , because everybody was interested in how we actually measure the footfall, how we draw inside, but actually It [00:08:00] has always been about commercialization of that technology. CRA: And I think it's always going to be a challenge for a lot of those industries in retail in particular. Because they don't have the teams with the expertise who know how to capture the data, know machine learning and how you can then translate that into something that you can commercialize. And also, let's face it, I mean if the advertising teams they had set up were built around pushing out content that goes out for two weeks at a time, on a billboard, on a poster. That's somebody manually sticks up on the wall and not to create dynamic content that really engages it. So I think it's a fundamental shift in the industry in the way that we try to engage with people and build up an irrational loyalty with them by that constant engagement in different types of engagement. Dagny: , I'm going to be slightly controversial here by saying that I don't believe that the guys that are doing well at the moment will ever adopt this change. They have very little motivation to do that. And then [00:09:00] when they actually need to do change, they are too big to apply any changes that are meaningful, which is why I get most excited about working with challenger brands. So We've seen a year ago one of our clients, it's been called David and Goliath campaign because they took one of the absolute leaders in the marketplace. And a year ago. Anybody would have thought that in such crowded market, there is no space for a challenger. Well, guess what? 14 months later, that Mogu is actually going into administration. So you don't know. What is going to happen? And it's what makes me get up in the morning that the opportunities to talk with challenger brands who don't need to change anything. They just looking for the new way for the [00:10:00] adoption of the technologies to give them an edge. And while most of the pilots you do at accelerator or incubators are with big brands. It's very hard to actually translate that pilot into commercial contracts. Some companies do that, but for us, our growth actually came from big changes and the challenger brands. CRA: So I think this is interesting because it goes telecoms, for instance. They tend to become quite lazy. They're comfortable in what they're doing, they're already ranked number one, so I don't really need to change it because it's working. But at this type of a solution, becomes a great differentiator for a lot of these challenger brands. So it helps them go in there, gain visibility, steal away a bit of market share, and just become more dynamic and more engaging with customers who are probably getting bored with a lot of what they typically get from the incumbent. Dagny: Absolutely. And you think that a small challenger taking [00:11:00] 1 percent or even fraction of a percent is not meaningful. But when The huge impact of democratization of the tech is that all of a sudden you have thousands of such brands fighting for that percentage of the market share or that fraction of the market share and together. They actually push for change. And that change, I believe, is always better for the consumer. Ultimately, the new brands that B Corps, so any brand that is doing anything really well at the moment, which didn't exist a few years ago, has all the things like sustainability, ESG. All of that is built in into their DNA. They're not talking about it because for them, this is Just a common sense in how the business should be done. CRA: When you're a startup, it's a tough fuse at the beginning. But then your business took off [00:12:00] during the pandemic. And this is what I find fascinating. Well, like I, my consulting business tanked during the pandemic. I had to rebuild it again. Yours actually took off. So what happened around the pandemic? Was it the industry maturing? Was it just people more ready for it? Why did you suddenly go from making a decent living with your company to suddenly where it's exploded and now you control over, I think, 1 million sites. You've run 20, 000 different campaigns already. What happened during the pandemic that caused this? Dagny: Yes. Well, it's something that no one could have predicted. Our investors and shareholders were ready to call it a day. Because naturally, how do you run an outdoor business advertising business when there is no one? outdoors I actually wanted to give up as well. This was a moment where I thought, okay, there are absolutely, we cannot survive. It was the tech team, again, my team who said, do you know what? We just want to do some [00:13:00] bits. In the tech, which we never had time for, because there was always the running of the business, the campaigns that had to be looked after, and the risk was too big. So we could we keep it running for a couple more months so we can apply some of the ideas that we had? There was no harm done, right? So we kept it going for the cost of having the servers online. We kept going and then the unthinkable happened. So one of the major operators allowed us to connect directly to their really prestigious estate. CRA: So let's define this real quick. When you talk about major operators, you're talking about a big player in digital signage. I won't ask you to name the name. So basically what you did is you suddenly then out of nowhere had access into all of these digital signage locations. Dagny: Yes. So you can imagine that those [00:14:00] premium operators run the most prestigious brands. The Chanel and similar. There was no way that anybody would allow a startup to connect and potentially create problems because the cost of that would be just too big. What had to happen is for no campaigns to be displayed for the period of time where the risk was lower. to a point where we had an opportunity to do a live test. The feeling of my test artwork, my daughter was very small, so I remember myself pushing a tram to the local train station, the feeling of seeing my brand, my test artwork on that prestigious Premium location screen is a feeling I will never forget. That was the opportunity not only, we were able to prove the connection, we [00:15:00] had the pictures to prove it we were also able to go back to brands and say, guys, don't worry about no one seeing your ads. If no one is seeing your ad, thanks to our tech, you're not paying. And that was what Peter Thiel talks about the 10 times better offer than anything near it. We were able to say to the brands actually with us you're not losing anything, but the risk for you of not advertising is that your competition may. From that moment on, everybody, including the tech team, became the sales team. We used this opportunity to sell, sell, sell. It was cold calling doing demos. Everybody was trained on doing a demo. Everybody was trained on responding to inquiries. And I remember myself for [00:16:00] three months doing cold calling from my home office. There was no, no response to start with until there was and we've just managed to create revenues. That no one had anticipated it got us into profitability and it also put us on the map with the big players because all of a sudden we were driving revenues when no one else was. CRA: Now let's go through a bit of your solution so the audience can understand this. So basically if I'm a client, say like for my consulting business, I wanted to get a presence in London and I wanted to target Tech professionals and I don't have that much of a budget. Now, normally if I did that, I could probably afford one billboard in some crappy location for two weeks in the old days when they're putting up a poster. But now, by working with Flow City, like, tell me how the process works. What could you do if I had 1, 000 or 10, 000, and how could you actually break that down and add [00:17:00] value to my campaign? Dagny: First of all. We would look at where your audience is and what's the typical behavior of your audience. So you said that tech community of London is what you are after. There is a certain pattern of behavior of how this audience moves around the city. They will take a certain transport, They work in a certain area, and there are days of the week now post pandemic also that will, that there is more chance, more probability of accessing that audience for your business. So first of all, we do the planning. We use AI to uncover where those individuals will be and what are the most impactful times. We then pair it up with sites. Based on your budget, the AI also looks at the meaningful [00:18:00] exposure. So, whilst we can run your advertising for an hour at pretty much any location for 1, 000, is that actually going to deliver the exposure that will create impact? So what is an impact? Is someone searching for CRA online? Because that's what we can measure. Someone taking an action, scanning a QR code, or actually having a preference over anybody that is your competition. Those are the kind of impacts we're looking for. And to do that, we need a certain level of exposure, repeatability. So maybe instead of doing it for two weeks, let's do it every Tuesday for three months. So that person that has a Instead of going after all of the tech community, we will actually pick a certain fraction of that community and only communicate [00:19:00] to them because you don't need millions, you need thousands so if we communicate to a thousand within your target audience with that thousand, we have a high probability of getting you one client as opposed trying to spread it into hundreds of thousands across London randomly. So what our AI does is it looks at audience and the pattern of behavior of that audience, and then picks, the locations that have the most chance of creating a value for your business. CRA: Okay, so let's go back to the artificial intelligence angle now. So initially, you're doing it to analyze footfall. So you know where people are going to be, and then you can break that down by demographics. So you'll know where people who would be interested in technology might be located and where they're going to be traveling, where they're going to be walking, all of that. And then what you also have then is artificial intelligence built in where you can help me select the best [00:20:00] locations based on that. And then what about on the pricing? How do you use artificial intelligence to help with pricing as Dagny: absolutely. So once we've done the planning, the next stage is delivery. How can we buy it at the best possible price? There are three elements here. One is time. The more time constraint you have, the more expensive it's going to be. Because we are trying to buy within the time constraint you gave us. The more flexibility we've got, the better price we can get. So that we do that by analyzing the market trends, but also the behavior of other advertisers. So there are certain areas which will skew the price up for you unnecessarily. And we can exclude that. using locations that are also within your audience, but for example, are not affected by Mother's Day. For your company, there is no benefit of [00:21:00] fighting for the same slot with the brands for whom Mother's Day is important, and therefore they will increase the price. So taking all of that into account, we'll try to deliver your art at the as close to the floor price as possible. And we use a proprietary delivery algorithm for that. Another element is what I said at the start about the exposure. So we could spread your advertising on 10 screens and make your app appear once in once an hour, but you No intuitively, but that's not going to be the correct way to create the exposure. So how do we utilize AI in real time to make sure that your app is displayed in a meaningful way to that small portion of your audience, given an impression that you are actually [00:22:00] on those screens all the time. That's the impression we are trying to get. CRA: I think that might be disturbing to people. They kept seeing my face on screens all the time, so it'd be disturbing for me as well. Like this and I can see why retail clients, particularly the ones that are in the challenger space would like it because you've de risked it for them because you basically can say if you're not getting the hits, you're not getting the visibility, you're not going to pay. So clients tend to like that where there's really no risk for them. But also it's got to be Much easier for them with their existing teams. They don't have to go out and hire Specialists who might come in and say oh, I know how to sort this out for you But it's gonna cost you fifty thousand and just for my fees and then I'll give you the right places to go You're leveraging AI to rip that whole portion out and show them. This is your audience. You're going after this is where they go And this is how we can get you the best price Dagny: absolutely. So it's. There are just not enough specialists for out of home in the market to service all of the new [00:23:00] businesses. This was an opportunity to build in that specialist, that expert knowledge into a system, solves a very niche problem. This in an essence, this is what we've done. There was not enough of that knowledge on the market. And our test of success was if someone who has never booked a billboard can use the system and feel empowered. That's when we will know we've done our job. And it took us years, much longer than I wanted. CRA: I also like it because it gives a lot of these clients time now, because they're going to be able to purchase in different ways, which means they can find different ways of engaging, which means the value they can add is focusing on that creative engagement. How do they redesign the campaigns? You're not putting up an image that's got to last for two weeks. How do you make it more dynamic and engaging with people all the time? And that's what grabs me about digital signage. I mean, I'm a big fan of digital screens. I [00:24:00] believe that, every surface should be a display. But the problem we have is that there's very few people who are not designed for it. But at least now they can focus on that and try to make some more engaging campaigns going forward. Dagny: Absolutely. So one of the tools we are launching very soon is ability. She to start with an artwork, good creative, and then use that to plan an art. So when we started out it actually started with a four from a format and artwork because without that, there is very little chance of success. We only do the boring stuff that actually gets your On the digital screen and picks the right locations at the right time and make sure your budget is spent. Well, the critical part of any campaign and what makes it successful versus not is a good artwork and a good artwork also [00:25:00] provides value. It helps you make the decision about the product. There is a lot to be said about the role of digital screens in helping us navigate. cities which are only getting busier, and we need to be able to consume that knowledge really well. We're not walking around with our screens. It's not convenient. We much rather have the knowledge at an eye level, when we walking around train stations or streets. So there is A huge service for digital screens can do for city dwellers. It starts with an artwork the creative part, and as you rightly pointed out, we want to give the teams more time to just focus on what's really important. And we do all the boring stuff. CRA: But that boring stuff is also critical stuff, but it means that they can outsource it to you and at no risk, which I absolutely love. So from the client perspective, I've got this sorted, but when we talked about a month ago, my one question that I keep getting hung up on [00:26:00] is, You're helping your clients get the best rates for this yet. You're still partnering with some of the bigger partners in that space that are the big brands that control digital signage, not just in London, because you're also, I believe in Singapore and Dagny: yes, Singapore, US, Australia, New Zealand, and all the major European cities. CRA: So there is these large companies that tend to control digital signage globally. Wouldn't they absolutely hate you because you're helping clients pay less and get more impact Whereas they just want them to pay a ton of money and then want to come back for more So, how do they react to you? Dagny: That's a very good question. And it was a bit nerve wracking to talk about our AI, how it tracks floor price and how it helps clients buy as cheaply as possible. Well, ultimately we are helping to grow the pie and that's how we position ourselves. We are making those digital [00:27:00] screens available to businesses, which without our solution would never consider it. And it's critical to help those businesses derive value. If they're not going to see value, they're not going to come back. So how do we together grow the pie? How are we servicing brands, which Previously, we're not the customers of those incumbents of those global brands, but it's a very good question. And being independent because we're not affiliated with anyone provider allows us to truly work for the demand side to truly work for the advertiser was together growing. the market. And I think bigger market is good for everybody, including the global operators. CRA: And this is what I love about it Is that there's a lot of companies out there who would be too intimidated To even try and go down the path of using the digital out of home type of digital screens because [00:28:00] they'd have to hire people who understand where to place them, how to run the campaigns. It basically opens it up to a whole new group. And I'll be honest, I might just run a campaign just for kicks, just so I can get a few pictures of myself out there. Dagny: Let's do CRA: I love the concept of this, that it's creating a whole new market that didn't exist before. So I think that's why they're really happy to work with you is because you open up the market to a whole another set of companies that were not even in the game before. Dagny: Just in the UK, we are servicing two and a half thousand agencies which have no knowledge of digital out of home. And they rely on the system to help them answer some of the questions. And then when they get stuck, they can get in touch with us. So we have a whole, really well trained customer success team. They are servicing. Tens of thousands of clients that previously would never even consider digital out of home. Those clients are running campaign in UK, [00:29:00] but also we're helping them get a visibility in New York, Los Angeles, or Berlin, all through a single account. So CRA: I'd like now to go back and talk about your startup journey because I love talking to startups because everybody has their war stories. So let's look at it like what do you understand today about the industry that you're in that you wish you knew when you started out, it would have just made everything much easier. Dagny: I'm going to quote a classic before I answer it properly. I would have done it in six months. rather than six years. There was no point for it to take that long. I don't know whether I should have raised more money or whether the really tight finances made us more focused on profitability, which now is the winning formula. It help us survive and build a business that is very sustainable. So I [00:30:00] started out with the wrong product for the wrong client. I then had the right product for the wrong client. It took us six years to build the right product for the right client. CRA: So basically just do everything quicker and it'd be much nicer if you didn't have to go through all the struggles. Dagny: If you feel ready to present your product, then you are too late. Pitch your product when it's really embarrassing. So being able to get used to that embarrassment, those hiccups, those demos that don't go really well. is actually a good thing. So I've recently joined an adult ballet team with moms from my daughter's school, just to remind myself what an embarrassment is and to immune myself. To that embarrassment of having to perform in front of other moms to the music and making absolute mess out of [00:31:00] it, because once you get to the startup that is sort of doing okay you may get a little bit too complacent. And it's important to constantly embrace the embarrassment and the imperfection. CRA: we're all perfectly imperfect, right? We just have to accept that. Dagny: Exactly. But it's so, so uncomfortable and it's so tempting to now sit down and enjoy the ride. Well, there is nothing enjoyable about running a startup. If you are enjoying it, then you're probably going too slow. CRA: That's great. So what I also would like to talk about is the startup environment. Cause you're based out of London, but you operate globally. But I want to compare this a bit. So I've spent a lot of the last 15 years in Singapore. So focusing on the Asia Pacific BC market and Silicon Valley, but in Europe, I'd like to get your perspective on how you see the London venture capital market. How well does the London venture capital industry support startups? Is there enough money or do [00:32:00] you wish you were in a market with much more easy access to funding Dagny: How do I put it without creating Enemies, you know, as a result, so I'm going to be controversial and I'm going to say that it doesn't exist. The VC scene in London does not exist. How I see venture capital, effective venture capital industry is risk hungry investors. And we've got the opposite. We've got investors that are trying to do what's comfortable. And I'm going to stay true to my statement. If it's comfortable, then it's not effective. Then we don't have a fighting chance to stand against our U.S counterparts. They embrace risk. They embrace the discomfort and they have a funding. Culture that aligns with that. Any startup that doesn't tick [00:33:00] all the boxes and make investors super comfortable that this is going to work. has a fighting chance of raising pounds in London. That's my very subjective perspective. I had some crazy angels back me up, people from the industry that were happy to back it up for the sake of it, to see whether it can be done. I've seen how they reacted to their money. Potentially disappearing during COVID, they were absolutely fine with the fact that, okay, it didn't work. It showed me that I actually have the right backers behind me. They had the appetite for this risk. That those are angels, really successful angels. But how do you produce those successful angels? CRA: and how do you find them? Dagny: But you produce them through successful exits. So [00:34:00] the exits in Europe have also slowed down. Why? Because a lot of the startups when they are doing really well, they choose to go to US or maybe Singapore. So the risk, the initial risk is in Europe, and then once the. the success is on the horizon, Singapore, Southeast Asia, or US reaps the benefits. So this is the problem we've got in Europe that there is a risk aversion, which inevitably is at the start. And then when the risk diminishes, actually the local VCs don't have access to those startups because they say, well, now we can raise it anywhere. It's only my very subjective opinion, but that's how I said, I don't think we will ever raise any VC money because we don't fit any of the [00:35:00] pigeonholes that have been created in CRA: Well, maybe you'll just have to get some corporate venture capital funding from one of the companies that are big in the industry. That might be a better fit. Cause they'll be looking at differentiated for them as well. It's a tough market. And I was, that was a leading question because , I've been back in Europe for about six months now. And one of the conversations I'm having most often, and then Europeans want to know, how do we increase the competitiveness of European companies going forward? Because everyone wants to understand what I've learned from being out in Asia for that long. Plus I had spent 13 years in Europe before that. Europe does have some incredible benefits that they get through regulation, but also it is incredibly risk averse, which means it doesn't normally create the best environments for startups. So I want to go back to Flow City again now, and let's look at the future. Let's look out five years from now, what would success look like for you? Of course, a unicorn exit would probably be preferred. Dagny: That's on the cards. We are on the mission of helping challenger brands take meaningful [00:36:00] market share from the incumbents. We are with the small guy and nothing makes us more motivated and enthusiastic than a small guy. Making life uncomfortable for the big guy. So we would like to see millions of such brands. Grow thanks to the solution that we've built. CRA: Now I want to close off with a few fun questions. Because also I want to go and talk a little bit more about digital signage because I was just down at an event in Barcelona last month called Integrated Systems Europe, which is the biggest event globally for audiovisual, which means. There was more digital signage there than I've ever seen anywhere, and I find it so fascinating, but I'd like to get your perspective What's the coolest digital out of home campaign that you've seen? Dagny: So we've got the innovation that is I think going to take off and those are the see through displays. So the retail displays that display content, but [00:37:00] are see through. I think this is one of the most exciting innovations in digital signage. In terms of. Campaigns the most exciting one I think the 3D, the visual illusion of the 3D display. It's amazing as well as any campaign that seems personalized the location. So any hyperlocal campaign from the global brands when the global brand get the hyperlocal communication really well, that is also something that really excites me. CRA: And now looking back at your industry as a whole if there was one thing that you could change about it that would fundamentally Make it much better. What would that be? What needs to change for advertising? Dagny: I'm going to be controversial again, but I think the tech we had and I know this was implemented in Singapore and it's highly controversial are the 4K [00:38:00] cameras that give us. Feedback loop as to who is in front of the screen. So when we started out, there was that technology available, allowing us to measure, for example, emotion in real time, whether someone likes the art or not, what is the reaction? Are they stopping? Are they paying attention? This was an incredible feedback loop, as you can imagine, but because of the regulation, For various reasons, some of them correct. This was blocked whilst in other locations worldwide. This technology is available. So I think in Europe, if there was anything that would match that level of feedback to close the loop of digital advertising, I think that would be a huge change. CRA: So one final question for you. Now, people can probably tell from your accent that you're not British. You're from Poland originally but moved to London a long time ago. I spent a decade there myself. So what's your favorite part [00:39:00] about living in London? Dagny: I absolutely love the aesthetic of London. While a city that is so innovative, whilst also keeping the heritage, and being able somehow to blend the two, it's incredibly difficult, but London has done it. I absolutely love London. the design of London their creative industry and everything around the British aesthetic, which is mostly visible in London. CRA: I'll tell you the one thing that I still miss from London. I think it has the best expat community in the world. As far as just the diversity of people that are living there, we had a decent amount of expats in Singapore, but it wasn't the same thing as being in London. And then the final question is, what do you miss most from home? Dagny: I think the social capital that I've built in Poland in my previous job it took me a very long time and I'm probably still not there to try to recreate it. So, [00:40:00] being an expert in London. I do tend to get limited to the expat community, which thankfully is huge in in Poland. I don't have that limitation. So the business circle is much smaller and it's just very easy to get to know everybody and working in media gave me that. That ability. I go back quite a lot. And I often think that maybe starting a business out of Warsaw may have been easier for me with the connections that I've got there. London has changed over the last few decades. It became more inclusive. But I still go to events where I'm the only foreigner. CRA: Well, Dagny, thank you so much for spending time with us today and explaining how your companies help really democratize and transform the advertising industry. It's come a long, long way from the days of Mad Men. And even the idea of just people putting up posters. So, I wish you all the best going forward. And hopefully you'll come back on sometime and tell us about how you've reached your unicorn status. Dagny: [00:41:00] I hope that will happen sooner than in five years, but let's see. CRA: Thanks again for coming on Tech Burst Talks. Dagny: Thanks Charles.