Teemu Korpela

How to onboard a team member in the worst way possible I’ve worked in many companies in my short career as a software engineer, and one stood out as the worst onboarding experience. On the first day, you’re expected to watch a video of the CEO ‘welcoming’ you and talking about their culture, I was then given a windows laptop that barely worked and I had to submit tickets already to the IT team to fix it. So there I was in the first day just sitting at my desk waiting for IT to respond and with only a single interaction with my supervisor. One of the things I noticed with great companies, is that if there’s an individual joining a team, they get their entire team to interact with the new guy, as early as possible. It could be through team building activities, a clear induction, team lunch, anything that would get them to establish themselves as ‘friends’. Because believe it or not, the more your team likes and cares about each other, the more productive and enjoyable it becomes for them to work together.

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So lately, I’ve been working on an idea that’s been on my mind for a while: developing my own Operating System. Yeah, I know—it might sound ambitious, or even a bit crazy, but I’m giving it a shot. After all, what better way to learn about OS development than by actually making one? While our friends at OpenAI tell me this could take over a year (😅), I’ve already taken my first step by diving into Assembly language. Learning assembly has been both challenging and rewarding. Initially, it felt like stepping into a completely new world where every instruction had to be meticulously crafted, and there was no room for error. But understanding how processors execute code at such a granular level has increased my appreciation for how software interacts with hardware. From debugging cryptic errors to optimizing memory usage, every experience is teaching me patience and problem-solving. Though it’s complex, the sense of achievement after writing efficient, low-level code is unmatched. How has your journey with low-level programming been? Let’s connect and share insights! 🙌 #AssemblyLanguage #LowLevelProgramming #TechLearning #CodingJourney #ProblemSolving #OperatingSystem #DrGViswanathan 

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Check out our latest Sauna blog post! 😎 💡

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I’ve launched a Substack newsletter called Perhetoimisto, which means ‘family office’ in Finnish. In it, I share my personal insights on finance and investing. Q: Why start a newsletter in Finnish? A: I want to practice writing in my mother tongue, and a few investors in Finland share their learnings. Q: I don't understand Finnish. How can I read this? A: Right-click on the web page and select "Translate to English." Q: What will happen to Elite Game Developers? A: Nothing will change. I have so many plans and things cooking up for EGD 😊 Link in the comments.

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It's been an amazing 7 years as the CTO of Supermetrics. But as with all things, it's time to learn new things and impact our wonderful company in different, almost Impossible ways. Looking back now, it seems so long ago that I moved to Finland to be CTO on July 4, 2017 for ten brilliant people working for Mikael Thuneberg.  We've come a long way, and we've gone from 6 developers to over 120 in our Product Development. Late last year, we hired a fantastic Chief Product Officer in Matt Simmonds, not only has Matt set a clear direction for our product teams, he is technically savvy and a great steward of our engineering teams. With Product Engineering reporting to Niklas Lampén, our VP of Engineering, Matt will now oversee a combined Product, Design, Product Marketing and Product Engineering inside a single function, something I've always wanted. I am so very confident that all our customers are going to be delighted with some of the new features, integrations and applications we are about to release. Every monthly product session is a joy to attend. What now for me? Being CTO at Supermetrics has been a career highlight. I don't know if I could have asked for a better person to work for and help grow Supermetrics with than Mikael Thuneberg, from coding together late into the night, to partying after a great win. Heck, I never thought I would receive CTO of the Year for Finland in 2021 on behalf of our amazing team. So it's kind of weird, but fitting, to also say that we will divide “CTO” duties across multiple people for the time being. Anssi Rusi and I created a new position for me that allows me to have a wider impact in the organization. Scaling an organization can fail simply because internal processes fail us, or things get lost between the business silos. We want to improve our systems integrations, reduce time to impact for employees with automations, cleaner processes, cutting through to what matters, and not doing things simply because “that’s how we’ve always done things”. Ultimately, everything we do to improve our employees' lives and happiness means we have time to do what really matters: helping our customers to be successful and drive growth. I will still continue to oversee security and infrastructure as well. We first thought of making it a traditional Chief Information Officer (CIO), but the role is wider and more complex and what I describe can sometimes feel like an impossible task to tackle. So with that in mind, my new role will be the Chief “Impossible” Officer for Supermetrics :) We will keep the "I" part ambiguous a bit (Information/Innovation/Impact), and yes, maybe we poke a bit of fun at titles which try to silo you. So, Thank You Supermetrics for allowing me to be your CTO for seven years, it’s been a heck of a ride! Thank You Anssi Rusi for having the faith in me to let me grow.

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"Starting today is much harder than it was before. There are more opportunities, but everything seems much more expensive." This was one of the things Miljan and Branko talked about in front of the startup community, and as someone who works with startups, I agree that scaling growth requires both skills and large budgets. What I say now might sound controversial, but I firmly believe that NOW we need those skills more than the funding 🙀 These two segments should grow together, in parallel. And Serbia's funding situation is much better now. In just three years, we went from: - 2 to 4 VC Funds - A business angels network that invested in 10+ startups - The grants available to startups also improved significantly with larger budgets of existing programs, and new ones created All this while the global startup investment marked a 38% YoY decline. So, getting international investors has become more competitive, which means that our startups need to show relevant growth to be even considered for an investment. At the same time, this growth could keep them afloat even without the funding. And this is the hardest thing to achieve. Everyone is talking about it — we need to teach our startups sales and marketing, which drives revenue growth. Only with it will the funding drive results.

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My last post was two months ago, so it's time for an update. As a founding developer or a developing founder, you always run out of time—either for development or all the other stuff. After two months in coding mode, it’s time to share an update. The articles by Stefan Grasmann, covering his interview with Jón Egilsson from Monerium, the commentary by Dr. Sven Hildebrandt on recent developments at Deutsche Bundesbank, and Jakob Bosshard's post about Janus Henderson Investors exploring on-chain asset management have led me to the conclusion that I should speak up again. Why? Monerium has always been a pioneer in bringing EURO e-money to the blockchain. Monerium was the first to achieve compliance with EU regulations, and they did it well—especially for us developers who need a way to bring cash on-chain. They’ve delivered excellently. If you want to leverage the possibilities of a Turing-complete money execution machine, there is no better way. For non-developers: this is HUGE! Dr. Sven Hildebrandt spoke about Deutsche Bundesbank because the bank is explicitly searching for someone to operate its platform in a private, hybrid public environment. The latter is important. While there are arguments for private blockchains, I believe in public ones. The reason is simple—there were arguments for intranets as well, and while they still exist, it was the internet that made the difference. I believe it will be the same with private vs. public blockchains. We now have a protocol for value transfer. Do we really want to limit it to in-house transactions or just for a set of institutions in Germany? Sure, we can imagine exporting our private tech to the whole world, but let’s be honest—the probability is tiny. Do we really want to be a gated financial community while everyone else plays without us? (Hint: BlackRock deployed their BUIDL fund on the public Ethereum blockchain!) Jakob Bosshard mentioned Janus Henderson Investors, a $360B asset manager, taking its first steps into blockchain by partnering on a tokenized treasury fund, joining industry giants like BlackRock. This is amazing. Every asset manager will move on-chain in the next ten years. That’s my prediction. Why? The technologies mentioned above will streamline the process of setting up funds, monitoring investments, and investing in funds in an unprecedented way. Our proof of concept shows how you can set up a fund infrastructure, including a payment channel and product pipeline, in minutes—obviously without BaFin approval (that takes a bit more time 😉). All transactions are transparent, secure, and verifiable because we use public blockchains. We use Enzyme for the fund infrastructure, Cashlink for issuing eWpG-compliant fund shares, and Monerium for achieving settlement times of 30 seconds. Check out our One-Pager if you want to learn more: https://shorturl.at/uJct6 What is your take on this?

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In a world nothing is easy or a bed of roses, this is a great start & a plan! Villads Leth I loved the part where he says the pays were for #livelife well, if not today, then when? Who's serious in my network to do this? give a start? At #srilanka we could do these costs like in a 1/4 for a month with few more engineers i'm sure of that. (A person who've done can give realistic insights pls, 'cos i've not done it yet) A investment, and a great idea! shall do. I'm sure SL has TOP IT talent, and #remote can save you office costs in a world of #flex DM me at once, will you? I could invest in as well.

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Today I want to give a big shoutout to Itay Dror, our first Product Manager at Sequence. Honestly we wouldn’t be where we are today without him. 3 things I value about Itay: 1) His calm and thoughtful energy - a game-changer in this fast pace office 2) How systematic he is with analyzing and prioritizing. While I tend to chase every shiny object (and there are a LOT of shiny objects), Itay knows exactly what matters and what doesn’t 3) His reverse engineering - Itay is exceptional in identifying our goals 1-2 years out and mapping out how to get there step-by-step. Sounds simple in theory. Very hard in practice Itay has been a huge asset to Sequence, and we are all very excited to keep building with him. Thank you, Itay.

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A big misconception I see in pitch decks and with first time founders: Money will speed things up immediately! Wrong, it will first slow things down, and in case you are a great operator it might help to get more things done in the future. But if you only hire lots of people it will certainly slow things down for a couple of months. So please don't anticipate a massive growth rate starting the day after closing a round. The more you raise, the more money your organization needs to "digest" before it might be more productive.

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Have you tried MVW pattern in your apps? Model - View - Whatever? Jonas Uekötter was recently featured on Sean Allen's Swift news for the month of April. In his twitter thread he points out that when choosing a pattern, the real issues often stem from overcomplicating things. This is a refreshing reminder for us all: - Keep it simple - Understand your goals - Use tools that suit your team Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the many ways to structure app development? What's your approach to choosing development frameworks and patterns? #MobileApp #Architecture #iOS #Swift #Apple #Google #MobileAppDevelopment #Flutter

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🚀 Mitigating Risks in Software Product Development: Our 8 P's Framework 👍🏽 Why do 80% of software projects fail? After 25+ years in developing software products, we have seen firsthand the challenges tech product leaders face. Drawing from our experiences at ISHIR building software products for BOLD startups and enterprises, we’ve developed a practical framework to mitigate these software development risks and drive success. 🤜🏽Introducing the 8 P's — key principles within our Innovation Accelerator that can help you navigate the complexities of software development, from understanding your users to crafting a robust product vision. These insights are designed to guide your team toward success, ensuring you deliver real value to your users. Here is what we have experienced after following this framework in our client engagements: ✅ Upfront clarity, expectations alignment ✅ Professional delivery ✅ Innovative product development ✅ Richer sprint planning ✅ Fewer failed sprints ✅ More productive sprint retrospectives ✅ Increased team productivity ✅ Reduced rework ✅ Improved team morale ✅ Improvement in product quality ✅ Drive continuous improvement ✅ Improved visibility and management of projects risks ✅ Lower CAC ✅ End-user delight Ready to transform your approach to software development? 🔗 Check out my latest blog post (link in comments) where I break down each of the 8 P's and share actionable strategies to boost innovation and unlock your product's success. —- 👋🏽 I help founders, funded startups, and enterprises with Innovation, AI and Product-Market Fit (PMF). If this is you, pls follow me. ISHIR’s Innovation Acceleration is a powerful approach to uncover customer pain, learn what users love, delight them and make them raving fans of your product. This helps our startup founders to get their product right from the start. #SoftwareThatMatters #CustomerFirst #InnovationAcceleration #NoShortCuts #FailureisNotAnOption #ProductDevelopment #CustomerFocus #LeanStartup #Innovation #BeBOLD #DSW24

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How to Fail Fast with a Startup Idea -> Calculate the market from the bottom up. The familiar TAM, SAM, and SOM don't really mean anything. For example, I had an idea yesterday to make an AI supervisor for psychologists. The problem: 1. Every psychologist has to undergo supervision (external evaluation from their colleagues). 2. It's expensive. A supervision session costs around $150, and you need at least one session per week. Solution: An AI supervisor that listens to the sessions in the background (with client approval) and provides feedback to the psychologist. Secret sauce: Instead of replacing psychologists, this approach strengthens them, making it ethical to psychologists. Sounds good, now do the math: $150 x 1.5 x 4 = $900 per month that a therapist spends. $900 x 12 = $10,800 per year from one therapist. We need 9,259 therapists to make $100M ARR. This is 30% of the US market, which is a significant market share. Ideally, aiming for 5% is somewhat realistic. -> Most likely it won't work, so let's scrap it and bury the idea. ⚰️ Services we use for calculations: 1. Napkin and pen or notes on my phone. 2. Perplexity to search for statistics and numbers. 3. (Optionally) ChatGPT to challenge the calculations.

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📍 This week in Mobile Gaming/ App Industry 💎 4/23 ~4/29, 2024 💎 💰 Investments💰 - Play Ventures raised at least $78M for a third gaming venture fund. Congrats Henric Suuronen - Data layer platform Carv has raised $10 million in a Series A round led by Tribe Capital and IOSG Ventures - Sanlo has raised $13.5 million to date for its platform. Investors include Konvoy Ventures, Lvp, Index Ventures, GFR Fund, XYZ Venture Capital and Fin Capital. Congrats CEO Olya Caliujnaia - Investment firm GEM Capital has unveiled Mundfish CEO Robert Bargratuni, Gameram CEO Philipp Gladkov and AppMagic CEO Max Samorukov as new advisors Funding to gaming companies has seen a boost this year with $265 million invested globally in early-stage rounds in Q1, 2024.  - Tencent has increased its shareholding investment in Remedy Entertainment Plc to 14%. 💸 M&A 💸 - Paramount hires bank to sell Vidcon 🗞 Game/ Mobile/ App News - Roblox partners with Walmart to discover new ways of commerce. Buy real-world items with virtual twins exclusively in Walmart Discovered: https://lnkd.in/ezF3gbRS - According to the latest reports by Sportskeeda, Sony Interactive Entertainment(Publisher) , SHIFTUP (Developer) Stellar Blades sold more than 1 million copies within 24 hours - Embracer Group splits into three companies. The three entities - Asmodee Group, Coffee Stain & Friends, and Middle-Earth Enterprises & Friends. - Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen joins LEGO's board of directors - President Biden Signs Bill to Ban TikTok Unless Divested by ByteDance - FCC Restores Net Neutrality Rules and Implements Security measure amid TikTok Concerns - Supercell's Squad Busters to Launch Worldwide on May 29 After Successful Soft Launch - Long Tale Games is relaunching Life is Feudal: MMO on Steam - BlizzCon 2024 is canceled!  - Astrum Ent. Ent announced its new CEO, Tony Watkins! reference by Michael Vorhaus 🌟 Game/ Mobile/ Tech Events & Conference - PocketGamer.biz's Dubai Game Expo Summit 2024 - May 1-2 in Dubai World Trade Centre - The App Growth Summit Berlin, 2024 - LA Games Conference 2024 - May 6 in UCLA - Comic Con Revolution Ontario 2024 - May 18-19 in Ontario - GamesBeat Summit 2024 - May 20-21 in Los Angeles - Nordic game spring 2024 - May 21-24 in Slagthuset, Malmo, Sweden 😀 Hiring - CCP Games is hiring Development Director for a new project within the Eve Universe. - Blizzard Entertainment is hiring Directors to work on an unannounced game  - Game7 is hiring a Senior Product Designer! -  People Can Fly Studio is hiring a Lead Online Programmer in Canada. Contact Alexander Rehm - Rockstar Games San Diego is hiring a Physics Programmer. Contact Bailey Wilson 🎮 New Games  - MADFINGER Games, a.s. Gray Zone Warfare, a tactical first-person shooter game for PC, is launching tomorrow on Steam Early Access. 🔥 Follow Experts in Mobile Game Industry/ Group - Neil Long: mobilegamer.biz founder + editor #business, #gaming, #technology, #mobile

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“Yo!” – This is how I usually say “Hi!” to people around me, at least to the one's that I have a tiny bit closer relationship than a formal one. However, that had to be “adjusted” for the task I've put myself to. Last time I posted about my new position at Captomatic. Which might sound like “big news”, but in this post, I want to talk about something different. While having a glance at the post itself, to see how it was doing, I've noticed the something in the attached .gif image. There was a white plastic piece attached to my shirt. While everything was calculated and accounted for, noticing it for the N-th time inspired me to write this post, which is going to be about me stepping in front of a camera for the first time. There are 2 parts to this short story. Got a little too carried away while writing and the full story is too long to post at once, so it is a good thing it's split. Will start with the personal one, something tells me that this is what people here might be more interested in :) As mentioned before, this was first time for me stepping in front of a camera. It's not like I have never been filmed before. Let me specify – this was the first time for me stepping in front of a camera to deliberately deliver information to the audience. From the countless meetings and calls with clients, potential clients and “leads”, I've got an idea that it is much more efficient to show how one of our systems work in a video, rather than spending time at each meeting or drawing 1001 sales materials and diagrams, that each individual will interpret in a different way. This just seemed like a more appropriate way to deliver the information. I came up with a plan to film a video that I can easily send my colleagues at sales and my potential clients, where I showcase the new system. The concept is simple – me standing next to a screen and showing the viewer how simple it is to use our new app. On paper – simple, in practice – a little bit less that simple. Can't say that the filming process and video itself was perfect, nor can I say it was bad. All of it turned out the way I expected it to. I am more than satisfied of how the equipment worked, maybe except the color-grading between the iPhone main camera and the “3x zoom” one. The video editing process took a lot more time than expected, learned a lot during the process. The most challenging part was the “act”. I had prepared a script for the video. To be fair, mostly (underline this), the video follows the script, but boy was it hard to keep up. Note to self – read the script a couple of more times beforehand, while You can have takes during filming – the more You take – the more You will regret it during editing. I even thought of sending my colleagues a blooper, where I say "..with all of that.." 18(!) times. Great experience, lots of small know-hows learned. The next part for sure will be better. The video itself is available here: https://lnkd.in/d2kjT_cX

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Over the years of managing talented developers at COXIT, I’ve seen firsthand how the proper workspace setup can significantly boost productivity and job satisfaction. Based on my personal experience and that of our developers, here are a few suggestions: My personal productivity boosters: - Quality keyboard and mouse: I use the Numphy Air V2 keyboard and Logitech MX Anywhere 3s mouse, and I couldn’t be more satisfied with them. - The right music choice: For me, it was Dubstep between 2011 and 2015, and since then, it has been a few Drum and Bass playlists. - Physical routine every few hours: Doing 20 push-ups and 20 squats makes the heart beat faster, stimulating the brain. - A 1-hour power nap: I try to split my day into two, so my productivity is revived after the first half-day sprint. Here are some more practices I try to maintain: - Keep physical and digital workspaces tidy (especially challenging when working from home). - Wear protective glasses and take regular breaks to look away from the screen every few hours. - Add greenery to both the office and personal workspaces. (This is something we've embraced at COXIT.) - Plan tasks ahead of time using sticky notes or handwritten reminders, a method I prefer. The goal is to create an environment that supports deep work, which is challenging considering the short attention spans many of us have these days. Explore other elements that might work for you—meditation, aromatherapy, power naps, or a standing desk—and incorporate them into your routine. Now, I’m curious about you. What’s your favorite working music or work equipment? How have you customized your environment to boost productivity?

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50% towards giving myself a completely separate sales stack totally decoupled (yup not just for developers) from my CEO inbox, something I should have done years ago to aid with focus and getting away from the constant hamster wheel of ‘priorities.’ So far: * Google Chrome for its multi-profile browser functionality  * Google Workspace for email * Pipedrive for scheduling calendar, CRM, proposals and sales reporting * Google Meet integrated with Pipedrive for meeting scheduling  * Loom for video messaging, explainer videos  * Canva for proposal design (then using Pipedrive’s Google Drive integration for proposals) * Zapier for moving data around (would entertain alternatives that are easier to configure, their AI setups stuff is duff) * Drift for webchats Chuck your ideas or recommendations at me before I’m too deep in to get back out! What would you use in your sales stack if you could start again? Next week: automations…

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💥Martin Rusnak - Interim CTO joined The $500k CTO Podcast as a VIP guest on Friday. He's worked as an interim or fractional CTO for 15 (!) SaaS companies and shared lots of interesting insights about: 1. The Difference Between Interim and Fractional CTOs: Martin explained how these roles differ in terms of time commitment and responsibilities.💡 2. Importance of Building Trust Quickly: As an interim CTO, gaining trust fast is key. Martin shared how he builds strong relationships within the first few weeks to ensure success. 📝 3. Balancing Technical and Soft Skills: Communication, emotional intelligence, and empathy in leading tech teams is more important than deep technical skills. 4. Continuous Learning: Staying updated with the latest tech trends is vital. Martin talked about how he keeps his knowledge fresh and relevant, even with a packed schedule. 🤓 5. Networking and Getting Clients: If you are looking to enter this field, Martin's tips on networking and finding clients can be useful. Let me know in the comments if you'd like to get notified when it's LIVE. #TechLeadership #CTO #Podcast #TechInsights #Leadership #FractionalCTO #InterimCTO #ContinuousLearning #Networking

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Finnish #gameindustry is at its worst economical point, and we need to have a reality check on the causes that has driven us here - this is important if we would want to achieve the vision Ilkka Paananen called out along with Suomen startup-yhteisö. 1. Lack of commercial sentiment & #leadership - after 2016-2018, the industry were left behind vs. how foreign businesses evolved: - Studios have been too creative-driven & relaxed. - IP & brand syndromes, e.g., many haven't created new hits since their 1st nor been able to create new IPs / brands. - Missed completely #hypercasual wave & its learnings; and, because of this, came late to #hybridcasual. - Many don't know how to publish & distribute games. Many early stage studios leaned on publishers, whilst after #IDFA there's a clear gap between how foreign studios distribute games vs. our studios approach it. - Finland had #F2P is 'bad' sentiment within devs., showcasing immaturity, which was a thing during the golden era of F2P. - Not evolving when it was necessary or following shifts on best practices on e.g., #monetization on scale (if you look at e.g., Scopely, they really were heavy-lifting to became great on where they are today, whilst our biggest f2p player had to catch up years after on this). - #AAA, #PC & #Console releases with misses lately; with additional layers of having budgets getting out of control, QA done poorly, etc. 2. Not knowing how to own companies + issues with buyers after exits: - We have had #founders who knew how to build companies, whilst they exited early. Unfortunately, on many cases, the buyers have shut down the studios they bought. - Additionally, buyers & foreign studios who are still operating tend to let studios optimize comfort over #commercialization (correlating with 1). - #Games #millionaires not starting new companies. 3. Funding landscape: - #VCs shifting to invest abroad, resulting to gates for cash inflow to #Finland. - Games millionaires not participating on circulating cash back to the industry (e.g. security wins over games). If they have stakes on #funds, the problem stays same as long as above is valid. - Evergreen Finnish funds have shifted away from games. This includes successful funds who made it, but don't believe they will see new Supercell; thus they have shifted away as well. - Government #financing entities investing in wrong trends and shifts, on top of moving slowly around them. 4. #Politics, #education and #economical issues: - Highest taxation in the world, resulting also game millionaires moving out (correlates with 3). - Some education programs have been shut down. Some don't teach commercial side the right way. Some produce talent to wrong positions, resulting unemployment. - Work-based immigration regulation. - Etc. While I love working here, I'm calling out a reality check that everyone needs to do to uplift our industry. I'm doing my best to improve the industry & sentiment here, but we need everyone on this cause.

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