Hello, everybody, and welcome back to If I'm Honest with Julia Landauer. Today was such a treat because we got to speak with Kristie D'Ambrosio-Correll, who is the co-founder and CEO of Dacora, an American luxury automotive house reimagining the future of the automobile through coach-built craftsmanship and AI-native technology. Before founding Dacora, Kristie served as CTO of Mirror, helping lead the company through its $500 million acquisition by Lululemon. Kristie holds a bachelor's and master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, where she studied artificial intelligence under renowned AI pioneer Patrick Winston, whose work was deeply influenced by Marvin Minsky. Today, she is building one of America's first new luxury automotive brands in nearly a century, creating vehicles that blend timeless design, intelligent technology, and deeply personal ownership experiences. I was privileged enough to reach out to Kristie, and she responded. It was so cool. I'm telling you, you have to reach out to people that you admire and revere a little bit because we were able to meet. So I've known her for a little while, and this conversation was so cool. One, she's an incredible storyteller and is so thoughtful in how she conveys the mission of what she's doing. She's incredibly smart, and we talk about what sparked her interest in automotive and cars, her love for building things both digitally and with her hands, and we talk about what she learned from a very fast scaling company in the tech space, like Mirror, and how she's taken those learnings to her company Dacora, which she co-founded with her husband. It's really incredible to see and to hear how she approaches heritage and how she approaches breaking into such an intense and legacy-driven industry, such as automotive. What it's like to be a woman in automotive, and how they are really tailoring their vehicle to cater to individual preferences, individual needs, and to be accessible to people beyond the 95th percentile male, which is what most cars are designed for. So this was a really fun conversation. She was really generous with sharing mindsets that have really helped her succeed, her learnings, her perspectives on how she gets through challenging times, and I really hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I enjoyed recording it with Kristie. Kristie, thank you so much for joining me on If I'm Honest. Thanks, Julia. It's nice to be here. It's we met a few months ago, probably more than probably more than that. Like 10 flights. This year has been ridiculous. Probably the beginning of the year, right? Yeah, and I know I had moved back, so it was since January. But we've seen each other a few times. So, how are you doing now? End of summer, doing like just in life in general. How's everything? This is auto busy season. Okay, so you've got shows basically stacking up between this weekend through October, and then it'll get a little quieter again. But this is this is the height of our busy season. So this summer is always a time where we are full pedal to the metal. I love that. So are you looking forward to one in particular, or do you like going to all the shows and like everything that you've got on the calendar. Yeah, we've been pretty strategic this year in how we wanted to show up. So we will only be doing one public show this year. We'll be at the Las Vegas Concours at the Wynn. So that's very exciting. It'll be our first time there, and yeah, we're we're gonna pull out all the stops. So it's a it's a different strategy for us than last year, and we're pretty excited. Very cool. So when you say pull out all the stops, can you share kind of what that means for you? Yeah, y'all have to come to Vegas and see. Wait, when is it? It's actually on Halloween. But you're yeah. Okay. We'll get we'll get you a ticket. We'll get you set up to come out there. Yeah, that'd be really cool. Okay. So to take it back a little bit, your love of cars started when you were young, a kid, and working on cars with your dad. Can you like tell me what it was about cars that hooked you? Yeah, so I was I'm one of three girls, and so I was the only daughter that had any mechanical prowess in any way, and so I inevitably was the one that had to hold the wrench and help my dad. So I not only obviously loved spending time with my father, as all little girls do, but just the the act of physically building something and physically fixing something. I remember the the amazing ability for my father to need to repair something on our family car, and then the next day, we're we're driving it and it's repaired, and that that connection between my hands fixed this very complicated object to it is now serving a very functional necessary purpose to our family was something I took a lot of pride in helping with, but then that time was pretty sacred. My dad always had Ron Ananian, the car doctor on the radio. I don't know if you're. I don't know if you ever listen to that. But callers would call in and say their problems, and he would try and diagnose them or fix them on the fly. It was very engineering oriented. We would always talk about it, and occasionally it was the same problem we were working. Which was always really fun, and my dad would talk about his time, you know, in the '70s, you know, as a part of the muscle car era, you know, on Long Island, you know, racing his old cars. Like this was this was part of his childhood, and it gave me a picture into what his teenage and early years looked like that I never got any other way. So I fell in love with not only the mechanical and engineering aspect of it, but the car culture that went alongside that, and then the memory. And I think that's a huge part of automotive is is the memories it creates. 100% and whether that's like in consumer vehicles or in racing. Like usually, it's it's a family member, a friend that gets you into racing, and so I think there's a lot of parallels there. But then, do you think was it that kind of wrenching on the cars that then sparked a lot of that engineering interest from a schooling perspective, or do you think you kind of had that from like an even younger kid and that this amplified? I I did a lot of things with my hands as a kid. That was one of many. My parents continued to foster that in me. So I always had an engineering mindset. But I did not know I was going to be an engineer when I went to college. I was artistically talented, and so a lot of people were telling me I was good at math and I was good at painting and drawing. I should be an architect. I was really unsure what I was going to do, and eventually, I got I got into MIT. And my first week there, I actually ended up hearing about the new and emerging profession that was computer science and programming, and I instantly fell in love, and I was like, "This is, this is art to me. This is the combination. I can create anything I want on my little computer, and I can make it for the world. How amazing is that? And so I quickly fell in love with that art, but never lost my love of physical objects. And so many years later, that has now manifested over my career as the combination of hardware and software. So that's where it lives today. Yeah. So do you remember like what the first thing you coded that came to life the way you wanted to, like the first thing you built in that digital space? Yeah. What was? It was a school. It was so we had to take our first disciplinary course in our you know chosen vein of study at MIT in the second semester of freshman year. Okay, still very new to the college experience. I was still getting my footing, and so I had a couple of friends, and actually including my husband, who now my husband wasn't dating him at the time, who helped me through the beginning of that class. Okay, and then at the end, I was like, if I'm going to do this for a career, I have to be able to do this on my own. And so the last, The very last project in that class was to design your own computer game. Fairly simple, but I struggled with it. I struggled with it. I struggled with it, and I remember I had about three hours to go before I had to submit it because I had to be somewhere else that I was leaving for a crew race, and you know, and I was gonna be, I was gonna be gone. I, I had to submit. I had three hours, and it wasn't done. I had a bug in my code, and I couldn't find it. And I couldn't find it. And I got into, I went into office hours. It was like six in the morning. I was like, I need office hours with you. Like, I have to get on a 9o'clock bus. And I sat with my TA, and my TA couldn't find it. And I'm sitting there. I'm like, well, I guess I'll get whatever I get. You know, I've done the best I could. And in like the last half an hour, I found the bug and I fixed it. And the TA looked at me, and she was a woman, and she said, you know, you're really good at this. And it was the first time anyone had ever told me that I was good at something I'd worked so hard to be good at. Yeah. And I was like, "Well, great, but I have to get on the bus. I'm not going to let that sink in at all. But then, over time, obviously, I've looked back on that moment and been like, "I think that was the moment I started to believe that I could, I could build something. Yeah, and just, just me. Yeah. Well, especially if you were struggling through, because like once we've proven to ourselves that we are good at something, like if we're having a rough patch, like we know we'll get through it. But it sounds like maybe that was a class that you hadn't quite yet internally believed that you really have had those struggles, and I've always had those doubts of whether or not I could or would succeed. And so, my husband laughs at me because I I had this philosophy, and so in code, very often people would program, and then if it wasn't working out, they'd like go to a new area, so that like they'd keep what they had before, so that because they'd be like, oh, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to get it to do that again. And I was like, I remember telling my husband, who's a friend at the time, being like, if I did it once, I should be able to do it again. So occasionally, I would get all done with my work, and I would delete the whole file and I'd start over, just to prove to myself that I could do it again, that I could trust that my brain knew what I had done. That it wasn't a, it wasn't just a, you know, a fluke. Yeah, it was ridiculous. But why would you do that to yourself, but but I had to build that confidence so that I knew I could do it. I was competing, you know. I was in class with kids that had been studying computer science for years. They had taken AP computer science. I had never even seen a line of code until I took that first class second semester freshman year, and so I felt very behind when I started and forced myself to catch up as quick as I could. So I never thrived at computer science. I took CS 106A, which is the entry level at Stanford, and I was like, "This is awful. It's not for everyone. I loved the logic. Like conceptually, I really loved the basis of computer science, and in practice, I didn't do well. But what you were saying about deleting and proving that you could do it again, I've done a lot of that with writing, and or I should say, like I feel like the same process happens for writing for me. But I do keep all the originals. I try not to like copy and paste or like edit into. I try to just start fresh because I think that is really valuable. But to prove that you can put that full thing together is so cool. Maybe I'm gonna take your your practice of deleting stuff and just like forcing yourself to do it again properly. I think there's something about a creative craft, whether it's art or writing or engineering, is a is a creative craft in a lot of ways. There is a lot to trusting your inner voice and trusting your process and not someone else's and not what you were just taught because that's not how we create original art, and in the world that we are in today with AI, we know that human original art is going to be the most valuable currency. So valuable, I think that's really important. And do you feel like you trusted that intuition pretty regularly after college, like after you went through that process of learning and getting better. Okay, no, and even to this day, when we debuted the car 18 months ago, a little over at this point, and then publicly at the Quail [Hollow] almost a year ago, that was the first time my art had ever actually been put on display for the world to see, and I've been. Artist since I was two years old, I was an artist long before I was an engineer, and I've never actually put my art on display for the world to judge. And that was a a challenging moment because any artist will tell you that the art is never good enough. There are always things you would fix, and so the critiques that matched my own internal critique were actually validating. It was you know I I saw what I didn't love and what I want to continue to improve and the world agreed and loved the things that I loved. Yeah, and so there was a real honesty and a real vulnerability in in doing my own piece of art. Now, of course, we had the most amazing help in in the company that is Pininfarina and they're the most amazing partner. But at the end of the day, this wasn't a Pininfarina creation; it was a decora creation. And so, owning that, I think every step along the way of my career, I've had to prove to myself time and time again that I could listen a little bit deeper to who I am, and so no, it just keeps getting keeps getting harder and harder as I challenge myself more and more. Yeah, but when you when you feel internally that you really do love something or like certain elements of it, like do you feel like do you feel conviction with that, and then also still need to, I don't want to say seek external validation. That's how I've described it because that's what I am guilty of, and I wish I was better at. Like, and that's something that I've been trying to fine tune and get better at. But yeah, so you if you're if you're good with it, you know that it's great. Yeah, like we're picking new interior fabrics for the car for this show season. So as I mentioned, we're we're going to be in Vegas in October, and so we walked into you know the upholstery shop where they have all the all the materials, and I think I picked our entire color palette in about five minutes. And the the guy who owns the shop was like, you know, we have a lot more stuff to look at. I was like, it's exactly what I want. I was like, I knew exactly what I wanted, and the ability to make a decision and stick with it does not necessarily mean that I will never look back and say, you know, there are things I would improve. The ability to decide and move forward is a great gift, and I think you just have to trust that that is the right decision for right now, and know that it's not the end of the story. Yeah, right. You have to know that there is room for progress and room for a second part of that conversation, especially with clients. Clients aren't just going to look at the car once and say, "Well, I don't love the paint color, so I'm done with it. You know, they're they're not that fickle, right? People will say there are things I like, there are things I don't like. Let's talk about it. I think the the Ferrari EV is a perfect example, right? I think there are things a lot of people said I like and I don't like about it. Doesn't mean that it invalidates what it is, right? Right? Right? No, I think that's a really good point, and and and for everyone, regardless of what you're doing, especially right now, because there is so much choice. There are so many options. Like everything is accessible. That like decision paralysis that so many people get. So I like the intentionality that you've had with like making a decision and then moving forward. If it speaks to you, yeah, that's all that you need in that moment, right? Yeah, and then you can continue to refine that story. I love that. So to kind of go back a little bit in your career before Dacora. You helped take Mirror from an early product through a $500 million acquisition by Lululemon. That's quite the feat, and so cool. And I'm sure was rich with learnings. Are you able to share some of the things specifically from your time at Mirror that you're able to apply now, and there may be some things that aren't as relevant. The experience was absolutely mind changing in terms of what what it takes to scale a company, grow a company, lessons learned. You know, working relationships, acquisition. There are so many aspects of Mirror that were an amazing journey. I had it was it was my honor to have been a part of that that journey, and it was truly a a storybook. Like you couldn't have written the story better. It was the perfect journey of a startup. If you were writing a fairy tale version, it would have been it. In terms of you know, we we raised, we scaled, we sold, you know, and then of course the the product did not sustain its life. And I think that's the lesson that stayed with me the most was, you know, we spent a lot of time and energy putting putting this product out into market and thinking about it, and so why couldn't it stand the test of time? You know, and there are many products like that, fantastic products, and acquisitions are often that moment where either they'll they'll continue to live or they won't, or they may change in a very substantial format. But one of the biggest. Takeaways and one of the things that actually became a cornerstone of how we built Dacora was the idea of profitability. In 2018, no one was talking about profitability, and I remember even then thinking to myself, people have built companies for hundreds of years. The way they've done that is to maybe borrow a little, maybe get a couple of investors, build, right, make money, and then continue to reinvest that money. And Mirror and most startups at the time were doing something totally different, which was raise a lot of money, scale as fast as humanly possible, and reach what they call escape velocity, where your recurring revenue outpaces your cost to acquire new consumers, but it requires a very specific trajectory and a specific business model. And in hardware, it was particularly hard to maintain that velocity without a considerable amount of cash inflows. And so, when we set out to do Dacora, I knew instantly not only that I had a passion for ultra luxury, but that the the space, this this niche space, allowed us the benefit of not only having high margins, because as we know, you know these companies do much more so than say Ford or even Tesla, but it also allowed us to have a different cash flow model where I don't need to outlay capital in order to stock, you know, a warehouse I can make to order, and anyone in luxury space knows that that is a huge benefit. You know exactly what you're buying and who you're buying it for before you lay out your cash, so the same is true for our cars. Our cars are paid for before we commission them, and so it gives us a lot of flexibility in the business, and it gives us a lot of autonomy in the business that Mirror lost along the way. No, that makes so much sense. So, I get a lot of the benefits. Are there any, or have there? Do you think there are any unexpected challenges with that model, or things that you were ready to accept as challenges with that? And this is someone who hasn't done worse. Yeah, I mean, there's always challenges, right? When you're a small brand, your buying power is less. Yeah, your negotiating power is less. Your brand recognition is less, so press can be harder to come by, or other accolades can be harder to come by. Your growth is slower, so my exit, my you know, my journey will look very different than what Mirror had. Right? Mirror was, you know, I was there five years, but really it was it was a three to five year journey from initial inception to you know to ultimate payout, and I think a lot of founders go into go into a journey not only thinking about the product they want to build but also thinking about the exit, and it's inevitable. I talk to a lot of young founders; it is inevitable for you to think about what would like be like after I sell it. Not only the recognition, but also the capital that comes with that, and you know what that means for your life and your lifestyle. The reality is most most companies don't make it there, but even if they can, sometimes that takes a very long time, and we know from history that luxury houses, be they fashion, leather goods, jewelry, auto, can take generations to reach that. And so, you know, Enzo Ferrari, I think, was actually in his 50s the first time he ended up selling his first street car. Yeah. so it can take nearly a lifetime sometimes for people to realize that, and so there's an amount of resilience and patience that it takes to be on that journey when you're not just looking for quick growth and then an exit. Yeah, different kind of founder, different kind of journey. Yeah. So yeah, that was one of the things we knew we would be taking on is just a slower path. Yeah. From a day-to-day working capacity, do you feel a difference with the with the different trajectories of Mirror being really quick and Dacora being a little slower? Like, does it impact the day-to-day differently, or are we are we hustling and working hard every single day? You know what I'm saying. I heard a great expression from someone not that long ago, which was you you need to hustle softer, and I loved that because it was something that I was circling around for quite some time, and really became part of our 2026 journey at Dacora, which is that hustling harder doesn't necessarily mean burning yourself out, doesn't necessarily mean the number of hours you're putting in or how many events you can go to as a founder. Yeah, it can sometimes mean, you know, recognizing. A setback, waking up and thinking differently than you did yesterday, and that doesn't look harder. In some ways, that's actually it. It's it can be actually mentally harder, but it is not strenuous to sit back and think, what should I do differently, or what should I just not do? You know, what what do I have to say no to today to make this possible. This year we did say no to a lot of events and a lot of opportunities that last year we would have said yes to because that was you know the common wisdom was to be in front of as many eyeballs as possible. Right, and so I think one of the the biggest lessons for us is, it's okay to be patient. My day to day does look very different than it did at Mirror, just because I ran a team of nearly 100 people by the time I left Mirror. Yeah. So I had you know layers of individuals under me, hiring, HR. Those were all part of my my day to day and infrastructure to support a very large organization. But in the beginning, when it was you know just a few of us in a WeWork, it looks fairly similar to that. A lot of a lot of contemplating, a lot of discussion, a lot of collaboration, and of course a lot of fear of what's going to happen. You know, I remember the first time we brought a mirror into a live demo. You know, on on stage for our debut, and yeah, it was terrifying. We were all terrified. But that is, you know, that's exactly how we felt last year going to the quail. You know, the entire team was terrified. I was going to ask if that terror transferred over to that. Yeah, you know, I think I'm older and I'm wiser now, and I know that that fear will pass because at the end of the day, people are just people. They may pass judgment, and that's okay. That's not the end of your story. And so I kind of tried to instill that in the team, which is like, this is a moment in time. Everything will not be perfect. That's okay. It never is. And even if you think you're, you know, the people next to you are perfect, they're not. You know, they can they can tell you all things that are imperfect. So, you know, we're here just to to speak our authentic story to people and and have it resonate. So, yeah, you know, the fear is still there, but my mindset around that fear is very different than it was in 2018 when we debuted the Mirror, for sure. And do you think that part of that difference is also like your role at the company because this is your company, you're the boss, you're in charge. Whereas there, you were CTO, correct? So you're you're very high up, but it's not entire. You're like not the CEO, right? So like, is that does that also do you think kind of impact the mindset or make that fear a little more manageable? I don't know. It could go either way, right? I was a as the technical side, you have your lane, yeah, and ultimately it wasn't my vision for the product at Mirror, and so if the vision fell flat. I, even though I didn't want that to be the case, I kind of always had a little bit of self protection. Yeah, yeah. You know, you could always sit back and say, "Well, I was hired to do this job. You know, yes, obviously, I'm incredibly invested. I care deeply about this product this evening. I gave my life to it for five years, but it's different than when it's your art and your vision, and I have so much respect for the mirror founder, for any founder who puts their vision out, you know, into the world because it is incredibly difficult to be to be judged publicly like that. And so, is it the fear is not different? I have nowhere to hide, and so that is something that I've had to grow into in the last three years of doing this. And that is something I've had to, you know, reconcile with myself. Is is that okay? Is it okay if everyone dislikes what I'm bringing to the table? Because that that's the fear, right? The fear is you will be rejected, not the feel fear that you'll fail. In fact, it is the fear that you'll be rejected, and you know the. I always try to remind myself some of the greatest art pieces of all time have been hated while the artist has been alive. Yeah, I studied art for a long time and art history, and so I I always like to go back to that reference because what we revere is not necessarily represented in the moment that it debuts. Yeah, yeah. And I appreciate that distinction of it's not necessarily the feel of failure, but the feel of rejection. Oh yeah. And I hadn't really thought about it that way, but it is a clear line, and I think it's it's tough with anything artistic because it is subjective as well, and so it's like there's so much riding on it, and yet like all of us look through our own two eyes that are different. So it's and even kind of like more of a challenge in some ways than if we're thinking about. A product that has this real clear functionality that isn't necessarily like visually driven. I mean, everything is visually driven to a certain extent, but yeah. When it's mostly yeah esthetic, it's incredibly subjective, and the fear of failure. I mean, think about if you were to try something new on a private island where no one could see you, you would have no fear of trying something new. You might be afraid for your survival or for other things, but you would not be fearful that you'd be, you know, failing at something. You just try again. So we fear what others say of us when we don't succeed at something, and so the subjective piece is particularly hard because there are so many people in the world who want to comment, and nowadays, you know, there used to be, say, you know, a handful of of editors that would tell you whether something was good taste, and nowadays we have hundreds of 1000s of influencers, if not millions of influencers, and every individual being able to tell you their point of view for better or for worse, in some ways that can allow you to find a niche of people that maybe you couldn't find before. But in other ways, as we all know, it opens you to the the pains of social media, which is just a world of you know commentary on your creation. And so the truth is, we we don't read it, and we you know as I hope most people don't, and you continue to just put out what you think the world needs to have in it. I love that. Just kind of continuing the conversation of esthetics and also heritage, automotive has a lot of legacy companies, right? Like lots of legacy companies, and they have a ton of heritage and brand identity. And like you think of luxury, like Rolls Royce, Bentley, Ferrari, where these companies have decades upon decades of history and building and all of that to make their name. So, for you guys, what has it been like to disrupt this space? And and also specifically, like, how are you thinking about the mark that you're making when you're such a new company in this like legacy industry, yeah. I had the most amazing opportunity to go to Germany this earlier this summer for an auto conference and meet with one of these heritage families, and I won't name names. But after about 45 minutes of us having a conversation, you know, I I flat out asked you know the head of the family, and I said, "What do you think of what we're building? And he looked at me and he said, "You cannot build a luxury brand. And I said, "Why not? And he said, "Because you need 100 years of heritage. And I said, "Why is that? He said, "That's the way it's always been. And I looked at him and I said, "So you're telling me that you think the only luxury brands that will ever exist are the ones that exist today? And he said, "Yes, I do. What? And I was, and you know, a part of me wanted to laugh, and I was like, "You know, I, I see where you're coming from because this is your family, and obviously you revere, you know, the time and the moment in history when, and this was a European car family, you know, the the moment in history when it emerged. Many people feel like was a golden age of of heritage. Now there have been others, the early 1800s also with Hermes and Cartier and you know others, but they truly felt like if a car company had not emerged from that era, that it would never hold the same prestige as one from that era. And I said to him, "I cannot fabricate 100 years of heritage. That is absolutely true, and I will never pretend to do so, but I don't think that people are just looking for a badge that says we've been around for 100 years. I think what people are looking for is connection to the story behind that badge, the family, and the authentic voice that that represents. And 100 years. Can be a long time to maintain that voice with the customer. Sometimes a newer brand can, in fact, do that better. So I can't bring 100 years of heritage, but I can bring my story. This is my husband and I's brand. Yeah, we have a four and four and a half year old daughter. Yeah, and she's part of that story. I can bring my authentic family and our connection to what we build to the table, and I think that resonates with people. I want to give a standing ovation. We didn't have much to say on that, but I I think that is absolutely how we think about heritage in our brand and what it means. You know, to to be entering into a space where there are so many who've been around for so long, when in reality Rolls Royce is so divorced from where it started. Nothing against the brand, of course, but really, what was what was bought by BMW was, you know, a grill and a badge, you know, and very little about what existed before it was bought by BMW. And you know you can look at any of the brands, and you know see that even you know Ferrari to some degree you know has changed quite a lot over the years. And so, what is it that people really want to resonate with? And we also love to look outside auto for reference. And I think Brunello Cucinelli is a great example of a brand that has proven that you can feel heritage and still not have 100 years behind you, and I think he's he's fantastic and just a genius when it comes to you know creating that feeling of rich heritage. So yeah, I you know I think there's very it's a very divisive topic. I think people look at us and automatically want to discount it because we don't have 100 years of heritage. But you know, we feel that there are many consumers who are willing and and desire being part of a journey that is starting now and will develop into heritage over many years. 100% And also, I think what inevitably plays into that is the quality with which you're building and the attention to detail in terms of the product that you're building. And so I really appreciate that story because it's so it can be so intimidating to have that kind of meeting. But then also, like when you said that their answer was that's the way it's been done. To me, that's almost like liberating because you're like, okay, well, we have proven like society has proven multiple times that doing things the way they've always been done is not necessarily the right way. It might work for some, but not everyone. It might work for a time. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, can you go into and we've talked about this, you know, prior instances, but can you go into some of the specific things you've paid attention to in terms of like elements of the car? And I'm thinking particularly of like a woman's perspective because a lot of cars are designed for men. So can you just share some of the things that you think about as you've designed and built this car? Yeah, so many aspects of that. I think you know we we think about the car kind of in in three levels. So one is is tactile. I think that's probably the most obvious of how we differentiate ourselves in the market. The car doesn't have a touchscreen. It has tactile controls. It has a display that sits behind a transparent, semi-transparent wood panel that we've developed, and it's very much designed around muscle memory and the human body and how it takes in information. Our hands are not nostalgic. We need our hands to interpret things like quality, find things without looking at them. That's all human intelligence, and so we've gone back to that approach. I think others are coming that way, but when we introduced that three years ago, we were laughed out of VC meetings. Everything was a touchscreen. Everything was a touchscreen. Everything was, you know, the Chinese way of doing things, which was, you know, hyper digital. So that that's one, and that that's very differentiated in the market. Two, we focus on personalization, and personalization is a is a very deep, you know, vat for us. Essentially, a lot of what you're talking about in terms of appealing not only to men but to women, and I say that intentionally in that we are not just designing a car for women; we are designing a car for everyone. Most people don't know that cars are designed around a male's form. In most cases, that's a 95th percentile male, which is six foot in this country. So my husband is six feet tall. Very lucky for him. He fits perfectly in bucket seats in standard cars. I stand four foot nine, so I don't. And you know, everything is designed to allow me to fit, but that doesn't necessarily mean I have the same comfort, control, safety that a man who's six feet tall would have. Right. Similarly, if you are say six foot nine and you're a you know basketball player. Cars rarely fit you as well. Even some of the largest cars, oftentimes you'll see they have to pop the tops on you know the Escalades and things like that. And so we really took quite a broad look at what kind of individual would fit in a car. And so Pininfarina was our design team. They came to us with you know here are your seats, here's your layouts, etc. Very standard what they would normally do with a car company. And I said that seat looks huge. They're like, no, no, it's a standard seat size. And I said, yes, I know that. That's it's also huge. That's the point. It's huge. And they so they showed me. They're like, look, the the form fits perfectly. And I said that's a 95th percentile male form, correct? And they looked at me, and they were like, "I think so. They were like, "This is just the form that we use. And I was like, "Please find me a 50th percentile male and a 50th percentile female, and let's see what they look like in the car. That did take them a little while to find and come back with, like find people, like the model, because this is all on my computer. Yeah, and so they they're like, "Okay. So they came back and they're like, yeah, it looks a little big when you fit a 50th percentile female in there. And I was like, and I'm less than a five percentile female. Imagine how huge it will feel on me. And so we did do some pretty massive modifications not only to our seating but to positioning of other elements, petals. Yeah. even the floor system that we'll have in the car, all to ensure that it's not just about fitting an individual, but it's about ensuring that they feel very confident in the vehicle. So, lowering our belt lines, ensuring that everyone's eyes can reach the same place, so everyone can feel confident with the you know the extents of the vehicle in the same manner. So we did a lot in that respect. We have a static running board on the car, which allows you know women to get in much more comfortably and children as well. Someone that's not usually thought about when designing a car. Yeah, and so yeah, we did a lot in that respect in terms of fitting individuals, and then personalization took us one step further. So when you buy a car, and when most people buy a luxury car, there's a process to designing it. So you'll go through and you'll pick your leather colors and your stitching, and you'll you could even pick a custom pink color, and you can do all this. People love to customize their cars. Like I don't think that's even a question. Every economic you know level, everyone likes to customize their cars, but we just felt like there was a lot of pressure for one moment in time for that car to represent you forever, and so or at least for you know the foreseeable future, and so we actually designed a system by which the upholstery in the vehicle can change after purchase. So you can treat it more like a closet than you know like clothing in a closet than you would you know fixed upholstery. Even even couches in your home, you can get reupholstered. You know they're not designed to do that, but you certainly you not designed to do that all the time, but you certainly can. So what we did was we designed a system that allows you to take off the upholstery, and in about an hour and a half or so, you can put all new upholstery on if you like leather in the winter and cloth in the summer. You want you know the Gucci collaboration, or you know whichever other we're going to be doing. You know that that that's kind of our plan is to collaborate with some great brands, to have an opportunity to deliver you something after purchase, and to allow the car to be expressive and personalized for long after you know you sat and picked it in a showroom. Yeah, and then you know, finally, we talked a little bit about connection and authenticity to our story, and so that's a big part of our, you know, the final piece of what we think is different. We are the only luxury brand that will be exclusively selling direct to consumer, which is very different. And I know that raises so many questions for people of why do you hate dealerships and the dealership model is necessary and you'll never reach your your customer. But I think we saw with with Tesla and you know we're seeing with the modern EV is that a conversation between the manufacturer, the builder, the maker, and the end owner is a very sacred conversation, and in luxury, that has always been a sacred conversation. Yeah. So, as much as we can, we're preserving that to allow for the most connection to our story. Yeah. Well, and again, it goes back to building the heritage and that relationship, and like definitely can be scary because it hasn't typically been done, but to your point earlier, like that doesn't mean that's not going to work exceptionally well. And a lot of people are pushing the envelope there. You know, Scout is you know trying to push that as well. Yeah, no, definitely. So you are now a couple years. Years into, or is it? This is your second full year. This is our second. So we debuted publicly exactly a year ago. Okay, but we're about three years into the journey. Okay, so at the beginning, you know, three years ago versus now, what did your team look like back then, and what does it look like now? Honestly, quite similar. Okay, we. I run fairly lean teams. I would say, if anything, my network has grown a lot. So at these stages, it's not necessarily about you know who's who's directly working, you know, as a full time employee, but really about the network of of of individuals and and suppliers and partners that you can accumulate in order to to bolster a small company essentially, and so we've grown quite a lot in that space in terms of having great connections, getting in with the the right people, and building that network out, which which helps tremendously. But at the end of the day, it's my husband and I on the line when we lie down in bed at night. It's you know we're betting the house on it essentially. You know we've got both of us and our family tied into the success of this business. So regardless of the team structure, that will never change. And so the the stress and the the weight and the determination that goes along with that, just having both of us in the business, and of course the arguments are inevitable. That that will likely never change. Yeah, I and I know that we've talked about this a little bit, but I think it's so cool when like husband and wife or spouse and spouse teams work together and like build a company together, and it seems like from the outside looking in, like you know you're great at communicating. Like it seems like that's probably an element of that relationship. But what has been something that's gotten stronger between you two as you've worked together on this. It's funny you say communication is a strength. Am I completely off base there? You're you're not. My husband, my husband is not the most verbally communicative, but he and I have always worked well together because we think similarly. So we used to joke when we were like getting married, like it was very easy for us in our in our wedding, because everything he liked, I liked. Like we have very similar tastes, yeah. And so, in a lot of ways, we speak a similar language. And I don't know if that's just being both engineers, both getting educated at MIT. You kind of get taught to think similarly, but whatever that is, we think similarly. So, verbal communication may not be obvious to folks, and so that actually has been something we've had to work on because with a team, we need to now translate what we do quietly amongst us in you know maybe even with no words into something that everyone else can then understand and internalize and then bring forward as well because you want your employees to have the same point of view as the founders. You want them to understand what choice you would make as the vision of the company when they start making decisions. Yeah. So that is something that together we've had to work on. In terms of you know the things that I think you mentioned, things that have changed, right? That have gotten better. The things that have gotten better. The things that have gotten stronger. We we have been through a lot more risky moments at this point in our lives than any time previous. I would say over the last five years, we've been through more moments where I have questioned myself, and that's rare. Usually, usually it's my husband. He's the one that questions, and I'm the one that's always very steadfast. And we reached a couple of moments towards the end of last year, and I was shocked at how steadfast he became in our vision, in my vision that I had brought to him so many years ago, that he rose to support me in my biggest time of need. And so I think, from a partnership perspective, our ability to support one another in the hardest moments for me to see when he's struggling, for him to see when I'm struggling, and then be there, be the one, even if it's not your your nature be the one the other person needs. That's the mark of a true, hopefully a true marriage, a true really great marriage. But it also has to be the mark of a great founding team. Yeah, and I've known a lot of founding teams. Those that have broken up, those that have you know prioritized relationship over success of the business. But ultimately, in order to have both, where you have great relationship and great business, you have to reach far beyond what is comfortable to support the other and what they need. Yeah, and so yeah, I've I've seen a lot of that over the past year as we have really entered the public eye, and there's been a. More of, you know, just just conversation with the world about our brand, and that's been, yeah, that's been trying it a lot of times. But also must be so phenomenal looking back and be like, wow, we're just getting stronger and stronger as a unit, you know, romantically, professionally, like all of that. Like that's, and like you've been together a while, right? Like you said, you met in college, even though you weren't. Yeah, we we met we met when we were 18. I mean, we were babies, but we we didn't we didn't start dating until I was 22, and then but we knew each other for so long. It took us only nine months to get engaged, and then a year to get married. So we were we were quick after that. But everyone says to me, you know, you know, I got married fairly young. Even even at that time, I was I was 24, barely 24. And he said, like, you know, how did you know? And I said, you know, you date a lot of you date people, and you know what your life might look like with them. You're like, okay, I see what their family looks like. I know who they are. I know what my life will probably look like, or who I will look like as I'm part of that life. With my husband, I didn't know what our life would look like, and I said to him, "The only reason we are going to get married this young is because I don't know what I want my life to be, and so this is my story to write. Like, are you, are you, are you on the road you know with me on this ride? And he was like, absolutely. He's like, whatever story we write, we're writing it together. So it was. I'm obsessed with this. Oh my gosh, you're gonna make me cry. Yeah. But it was a moment at 24 that had a lot of wisdom in it, even then, which was, you know, to know that I didn't know that I didn't know what I wanted to be even at 24, right? I didn't know who I was going to be. I didn't know what I was going to grow into. I have a whole lifetime ahead of me, many more years than I've already lived, and to know I just wanted someone that was going to ensure I could live any style of life I might choose, but that we were going to commit to doing it together, and that is the hardest thing for a founding couple, you know, founding team, or for a married couple, is to continue to choose to do it together. Yeah, it is. There are many, many moments where it's just easier to say it'd be easier to build this. It'd be easier to raise the kids if we do this apart. It would be healthier for me to do this apart. And it's sometimes in your life, yeah, that might be true, but we made a commitment that this life was better walked together in whatever that might be. So that is so profound to know, like so that's so. I feel like that's such a gift to for you to have known and to have like both of you decided. Yes, this is how we're going to move forward with that. Like that's so. I had phenomenal family representation of what a great marriage was. Not only my parents, aunts, uncles, cousins-they just mean a family full of phenomenal married relationships that looked diverse, but made it through. And I think as we get older and like you see more and more examples of the opposite. It makes. I also have a great example. My parents are high school sweethearts. They are wonderful, and it's it's such a privilege to. Not that any other situation is. You know, everyone's dealt the hand they're dealt, but you realize that you really are lucky. I think if you have that, and it's funny you're saying that because when I kind of decided that I needed to stop pursuing racing and move on. Like I had an existential crisis. Like it was, it was really hard. But my husband and I had just gotten married, so we'd been together like four years at that point. And I remember coming out just freaked out. I was like, "What? And I said out loud, "Like, what am I? I just don't know what I'm going to do with my life. And his response was like, "Oh, you're gonna figure it out with me, and we're gonna. Or I forget exactly how he said it, but it was like, "You're gonna do it with me. Like we are in this together, and we are gonna figure that. And then I started sobbing even more than I was during my existential crisis. I'm a softie. You're like my husband. Oh, he's the softy. Oh, girl, I cry all the time, so happy cheers a lot of the time. But yeah, so that's a really cool position to be in. I think it's important when people look at partnership or looking to get into business with someone is to figure out not only does it look good now, but will it look good through all the phases of business? And that's true of a marriage. And I, you know, I firmly believe that being a co-founder with someone is a form of a marriage. Yeah. Regardless of it's romantic, it doesn't matter. Partnership is partnership, and so yeah, you have to be really mindful of who you're getting into business with, and whether or not they can be there with you through the ups and the downs, and whether or not they'll allow you to grow. Because the greatest businesses have morphed and changed many times. It is not that you come out the gate with the right answer, and so being able to discover yourself, the company together, is a huge part of having a co-founder relationship. Such a good point. Yeah, it's um, yeah, and. It's not articulate, but such a good point. I will close it with how I said it. So going back briefly to what you said about kind of the team being more about like the relationships and the industry suppliers, like all of this, you are the first woman to found and lead an American automotive company, right? And so, women listening will know that you know there are challenges that come with being the first. There are challenges that we face. What has been, what has that been like for you? Like, what it's a it's automotive is a tough industry, and you're clearly so smart and so competent and so clear in your vision. But have there been challenges that, like you and your husband as a team, have had to work through because one of you's a woman, one of you's a man? I think I have the fortune of having a husband who's not a domineering male personality. So I don't think some women will find that people in conversations will default to the man to talk to, I don't find that because he's not a domineering personality. But there are many times where you know the car industry. People want to talk car. Like there are a lot of men that want to talk car, and they don't want to talk car with me. Like I'm sure you know that as well. Yeah. And so I will bring my husband in for those conversations and be like, this guy, like he's gonna be a great partner. It's gonna be fantastic, but he wants to talk car. So like you know, he wants to tell you about you know his whatever and what he did to it and how awesome it is, and he wants to grill you on what cars you know and and it's fine. I can play that game, but I don't like to play that game. I'm not I'm not here for that game, and so I bring him in. He does his thing, and he wins over many people. That's great. And so, you know, we we've found that most people have not cared at all publicly that I am that I am a female in the industry. But of course, as any woman will tell you, no one ever comes out and says, "I don't want to do business with you because you're a woman. Right, right, right. But they they will doubt more so than than with a man. But there's no comp. There's no comp for what I'm doing. There's no man that started an ultra luxury American car company that you know could reasonably be a comparison in today's market. So I couldn't say whether or not a man would be more successful at this. Yeah, I firmly believe that luxury is a woman's game, and with a lot of wealth changing hands and a lot of taste being driven by you know the fashion industry, which is primarily driven by the female buyer. You know, I firmly believe that a woman's voice needs to be in this part of the auto industry. Hopefully, the whole auto industry, but certainly this part, and so we have we have actually had you know a good ride so far. I would say honestly the the biggest issue I've had is with venture. Venture is much more not against women, but we all know that only 2% of the venture funding. I was going to ask if it was still 2% Yeah, yeah, we've made no progress. 2% of the venture funding goes to female-founded companies, and we're you know female CEO. Yeah. You know the numbers get better if it's one female co-founder on you know on a team with a man leading it, but if the woman is the one in the room with the VC trying to raise the capital, it is incredibly hard. Now again, not many people successfully raise for a car company. So for me, I'm up against a lot of you know a lot of negatives. So I can't hold that against the industry, but would love to see that change for women in general. Yeah, 100% Yeah, because I feel like that's been like that 2% for now, many years. Many years, yeah. Yes, yeah. Kind of embarrassing. 10 years, I think. Is it that long? Yes. I have a couple more questions before we get into our closing segment, and one was: I recently read that you described Dacora as AI-native, and obviously AI is huge right now. What does that mean practically for the person who owns and drives the vehicle? Hopefully, they'll never know that there's AI using it or AI behind it, and I, I want to go back a little bit. I started my career at MIT, and at a time when Marvin Minsky and and Patrick Winston, who were both pioneers in the AI industry, were were studying, and I got an opportunity to study under them, and so. I say that in that when I when I came up in AI, which that was my my avenue of choice, my focus for my undergrad and my master's degrees at MIT, it was not cool to be doing AI. Mobile was cool. UI design, UX design was cool on web, but this was right as the iPhone was coming out and apps were being made, so that was where all the money was, and I was fascinated by AI. And at the time, we were learning about things like you know more machine learning and neural networks. And instead of thinking about kind of the modern mechanisms we have today, we were encouraged to cross study over at the Brain and Cognitive Science department to learn about how the brain works, how the brain learns, how do children learn, how do they develop from being you know newborns into say six years old where they're reading, right? What's that process look like whereby they they learn language and context and reading and Writing memory, what what does that look like? And then how do we replicate that in a machine? How do we create memory, create context, create natural language processing? And that was really the moment that I came up in AI, and so I continue to go back to those those learnings as we as obviously I've continued my education, my work in AI, and I have always kind of lived at the intersection of software and hardware and intelligence. But I believe that the human and the human brain needs to come before the technology, and so we do a lot to ensure that the human brain and how it operates is respected within the car, so a lot of study on what, in fact, the human brain needs in order to operate at its highest capacity. So the goal being lowering cortisol levels. We don't want you stressed in the car, right? Today, operating a car requires much more cognitive processing than it used to, and so how do we how do we remove some of that stress? How do we use things like light and sound and smell and scent to create an environment? I'm not building you an iPhone. I think there's a mistake in the auto industry to think that you're building a device that has to compete with the device that lives in your pocket, I'm not building that. I'm building a transportation environment, and so what comes first is the human that's sitting in that environment. And so AI native just means that we learn and we adapt. And so after six months of your car being yours and my car being mine, they'll behave differently. Yours will know you. Yeah. Most people, when they think about AI in a car, they think about self-driving. Yeah. And I like to put it in context for folks and say, okay, that's a model of the car and how it interacts with the world. Yeah. So how does the car then drive itself in in the world? I don't care about that. That's someone else's problem to solve, which is a fantastic problem to solve, but what I care about is the person inside it and how it interacts with the car. So we create a different kind of model. We create a model of the human, and then how do we create an environment to support that human? And so AI can mean so many things, but at its at its essence, it really just means intelligent learning that adapts to you over time, and so it's really all about taking that personalization one more step, and saying that your car, my car, will begin to diverge over time in terms of how it behaves with us because we're different. Now, if I get into the car, it knows I'm not you, so it will be able to do something different for me. But that's why we're building very personalized models to each human being that gets into the car. Makes perfect sense, and again ties back to what we're talking about at the beginning with the tactile, the intentionality with tactile elements, and you were talking about how it's stressful to get in a car now. And for the longest time, like until I left Charlotte at the end of last year, I drove a 2012 Volkswagen stick shift. So like I had Bluetooth, but I had a little like still had a CD player, right? And I didn't have any camera, so like I my driving experience is has been very tactile, and like renting a car where like sometimes there's just so much stuff on the screen, like I can't find the very basic information that I'm looking for, and that then causes stress. Like I get so stressed on the road, so I'm so excited to potentially test drive at one point and be calm in a in a decora. So yeah, I mean, you think about how a child learns, right? A child learns to build with blocks long before they learn how to speak, yeah, and even much longer before they learn how to read. Yeah. So the fact that we rely on our brains to operate with reading being the primary function within a car. Look at that touch screen. Find some words I'm looking for. Process them while I'm operating a vehicle. When in fact. You could be relying upon a sensory intelligence that is so much more innate and operates at a lower cognitive level. Yeah, that's kind of where we come from. So it goes back to my original teaching, my original learning. Yeah, and to your point, like people forget that when you're driving a car, like you're operating a heavy and dangerous machine. You are that can impact a lot of other lives, and I get emotional and like worked up about this because it's it shouldn't you shouldn't be distracted, you shouldn't be putting your attention elsewhere because a split second can ruin lives. So I appreciate the simplifying that is part of your focus. And last question before we get into the clothing segment. So, kind of just like big picture, you know, you've you've had you had the great career with with Mirror. You're you know onto this next project. What what were some of the reasons to go after something so Challenging, yeah. Because automotive, luxury, American, you know, brand American made, all of that just adds challenges to the core. So, yeah, I had a lot of people tell me either you're a great CTO, continue to be a CTO. Why bother doing CEO? You won't like it. You won't like fundraising. You won't like being the face of the company. You know. And then I had a lot of people get my husband and I on the phone and be like, "This will kill your marriage. Like you, this will ruin you financially. Don't do this. Car companies are terrible. And as any founder can tell you, sometimes there's just there's a story you need to tell in your life, and I knew that if I didn't tell it, I would regret it. And so, regardless of if it meant, you know, financially putting us in a difficult position, or if it meant that I would fail, I mean, it's very plausible that people would still think that you know we might not succeed at this venture. And you look at any great company history; there have been plenty of moments where it could have not gone well. I could have let all of that stop me, but there was absolutely an art I needed to create in this world. And when you have that, you know, I would sit down, and I've had offers for other positions, and you know, people trying to poach me to be a CTO somewhere, be a CEO somewhere, and and you know, the money is enticing, and the stability is enticing, and and you you know, I sit down and I think about it's like, what do I want to be doing with my life? It's not just the stability or the you know the money or you know, even what someone might say about my career trajectory or my title. What I want to do every day, and the truth is, all I want to do every day is get up and build cars. And so, you know, that's that's what I do, and I will do that until I can't do that anymore. I love that, and like you know, in talking with you, and again, we've met several times before. But the it's so clear the incredible joy and satisfaction you get from building again, whether that was like your CS in school or or physical physically on cars. So I think that's so admirable. And to your point, like you would regret not doing that, and I think that I think regret is agonizing, and I think that so many of us look back and think of things we could do differently, and so instead having the mindset of let's try it, let's be strategic, let's do the best we can. But I think that's extremely inspirational, and I'm so happy that I get to follow you along on this journey from basically the start, like it's so cool. So, I like to encourage founders to think, you know, what is the worst case, right? Like, you never want to have a regret, but you don't want to be doing this with the hope that it will come out to be something it may never become. You need to know that I might go into this and it will catastrophically fail. And if you're still okay with the journey, knowing that the outcome may not be money or you know recognition or fame or whatever it is you're looking for, then you're on the right path, right? And so I, you know, I said to my husband, even if we only ever build this one car, that will be enough success. Even if we only ever sell one car, that would be enough success. Even if we only ever, you know, and every time we keep surpassing one of those milestones, I moved the benchmark a little bit for what success looks like for me for now, and I love to listen to stories of heritage brands and their families. Now they've done it, and at every moment in every generation, they could say, "I've made it. Look how great I've done. And they each had a success, and then it just got better and better from there. And so, of course, sometimes it didn't. But many of these stories they did, and so how how you frame it for yourself as well is like every step is also a success, right? The story is not done, but you can always say I've achieved X, Y, and Z. So even though we. Tend to not be great at celebrating our own achievements. I think it's important to remember that even small successes, you should bank as you know almost success currency for yourself. That is a beautiful way to close out this segment, and I also a big believer in the little victories because it creates momentum. Like you need that, and you need that spike of chemicals in your body and enthusiasm and everything that'll keep going. So I appreciate that you said that. To close out two part closing segment, I like to ask each of my guests to complete the sentence if I'm honest, and it's just meant to be closing wisdom for the audience. It can go in any direction. So how would you complete the sentence if I'm honest? If I'm honest, the journey will always be messier than others will paint it as after the fact. So don't finish writing the story when it gets messy. Oh my gosh! Yes, 100% Oh, thank you, Kristie. I couldn't agree more. And I think, especially now, when so much is on social media and so much, and like everyone knows that it's a highlight reel, but when you're inundated with just successes, like everything's messy, and you have to be scrappy, no matter how polished and advanced and successful you are, like you got to be scrappy sometimes, and that's how you get it. Yeah, exactly. Cool. So we're gonna now official closing segment. If we're gonna end on rapid fire with that, if you're honest, what was your first car? My first car. I drove a 1993 Ford Explorer. My uncle gave it to me. It was his station car. He has since passed, and that car got stayed with me from the time I was 16 until I gave it to my cousin's kid when he turned 16. So it was a good family car, but I loved it. I loved it. It was yeah, it had steel bumpers. I could hit anything, and no one would know. My mom would never know if I hit something. It's great when you're learning how to parallel park, right? That's right. But no, it was a great car, and it yeah, it it took me to work for many many years. Super cool. Yeah. What's a country that you'd like to visit? I would love to visit Japan. I've not been there. 1010 recommend. Yeah, yeah. It's on my bucket list. Although right now I think my short bucket list is I want to go to Mexico City. It's I mean it's close, and I've been to Mexico many times. I've never been to Mexico City, and it is booming right now with like luxury hospitality, the Michelin star restaurants, like the food scene. Also, I have a four-year-old, and apparently, Mexico City is the only place in the world that axolotls are native. An axolotl is like a very cute little creature that has become-it's like a mix between, like it's almost like a salamander. Oh, but it's become like a thing for little girls with like stuffies and all. Yeah. So yeah. So Mexico City will likely be on my very short list for travel. I've I've not been to Mexico, so it's also on my list. How do you recenter when things are getting chaotic or overwhelming? If you need it quick, I organize. Okay. I'm like an extreme organizer. That or I run numbers. My background's math and numbers, so I will do the finances. Cool, effective, productive, and calming. Yeah, calms me right down. Very odd. What is your favorite neighborhood in New York City? Oh boy, why is that the hardest one? I know it's tough, right? Let's say to just like to wander through. Wow, I mean, I love the village. I used to work down there when I was first starting out in the city, so I think it holds a lot of nostalgia for me. We held a private event down there last year for the car, and I was like, it felt like home. I was very young then. I had you know my first startup days, and my husband and I used to be out till 11 o'clock at night in the city with friends, and so yeah, just a lot of lot of nostalgia. That's really cool. Yeah. Last, if you're honest, what's something you're grateful for right now? My daughter, yeah, and that she's four and not two or one. Does this does get better? Yeah, it does. It sounds terrible. No, I I did not enjoy the baby stage as much as some other women might have, but I love that at four she has the most amazing personality, and they're they're little people, and they're helpful, and they're kind, and you know she she's just an incredible person to spend time with. And kids teach you so much about yourself that you didn't know you needed to learn, but in fact you did. Yeah. So very very grateful. That journey. That's really cool. Well, Kristie, thank you so much. We will link everything in the description. But where would you like people to find you or Dacora online? Yeah, I mean dacora.com is where you can find us. Amazing. Well, Kristie, thank you so much for being honest with us and sharing your story. And I'm so excited to see how you continue to build. Thanks for having me.