The Business News
June 17, 2014

For Jay and Kelly Barnes, their restaurant is more than a business. It’s a commitment to community.

The Kaukauna couple own and operate Kangaroostaurant Cookery on Wheels and Kangaroost, a restaurant at 313 Dodge St., Kaukauna. They look for the best ingredients for their ever-changing menu, buy from local growers and businesses and believe in paying their employees a little more than the going rate. “Our profit may be a little less,” Jay said, but they feel it is worth it.

They also believe in giving young people a chance. Many of their cooks come from Fox Valley Technical College’s culinary program.

Both Jay and Kelly left corporate jobs to move into this new line of work. “Neither of us were really happy in our jobs,” Jay said. “Kelly wanted to do a restaurant and one day she googled ‘low-cost restaurant.’ Food trucks came up.”

They did their research and went through the E-Seed program at Fox Valley Technical College, a program that helps people start their own businesses. At the end of the program, they had a business plan.

Using their savings, they funded a truck, which became Kangaroostaurant, and travel around the Fox Valley, serving lunches and sometimes dinner at various spots. They began in July 2011.

“We ran the truck through the winter,” Jay said. “We only closed two days during the winter because it was a mild winter.” This past winter was more of a challenge. “One Sunday night, we had a discussion about knocking off the truck and getting jobs,” he said.

They continued a catering business through all of this and that’s how they me Dave Klister, who owns the building that houses their restaurant. He was closing his Plum Hill Restaurant in Kaukauna. This enabled the Barnes to open Kangaroost on Feb. 19, 2013. They made some adjustments to the kitchen, hired more people and hung some picture before opening.

Both eateries are committed to serving freshly prepared items from burger and sandwiches to pastas. Their menus change frequently to make the best use of local resources. They buy locally-grown or produced ingredients. Most of them come from within 40 miles of Kaukauna, Jay said.

There are gluten-free and vegetarian options, as well. They even make their own veggie burgers. The gluten-free products come from Rustic Kitchens. The Barnes work with Great Harvest for their breads, and they partner with Riverview Gardens for greens and other garden products. (Riverview Gardens is a non-profit venture in Appleton, dedicated to fighting the root causes of poverty, homelessness and unemployment.)

Other suppliers include Olden Produce CSA, Good Grief Market Gardens, Sun Brothers Naturals, Trust Local Foods, Venneford Farm Country Meats, Golden Bear Farms, Red Barn Family Farms.

Their menu won a Golden Fork award for the best hamburger last year.

Naming the restaurant was an adventure in itself, according to the story on their Website (kangaroostaurant.com).  They wanted something unique and memorable. “An important aspect of food trucking is social media,” they wrote, and social media marketing. As we threw around different possibilities, we kept running into copyright and domain name issues.”

After weeks of discussion, Jay “walked past a picture (his daughter Emma) painted in 7th grade art class and aid ‘we should call it the Kangaroostaurant.”

Since nothing came to them, they researched kangaroos on the Internet to see if it would fit their business model. They decide that kangaroos move around a lot and are flexible herbivores. “They will eat most any plant they can find. Much like us, they eat what’s available.”

So, Kangaroostaurant was born. Even though the truck-food business is self-contained and everything is cooked on the truck, they needed a base kitchen. They have a contract with Riverview Gardens until the end of June, when they will transfer it to their own restaurant.

The truck moves daily, so the easiest way to find it is I to follow it on Facebook or Twitter. They also post a weekly schedule on Mondays on the website. The truck is primarily at Fox Valley or Oshkosh sites. They have gone as far as Delavan and Wauwatosa, and their goal is to get up to Green Bay more often. Businesses can invite them to come to their parking lots, or the truck finds a spot in an Appleton park or College Avenue.

“Appleton is our most common spot right now,” Jay said. They have a license to park on College Avenue or Franklin Street. “We follow all the parking rules. We need two parking spots to accommodate the truck. We park at least 50 feet from any restaurant. We don’t want to promote any bad blood.”

Kangaroost, the stationary restaurant, is a CSR (community-share restaurant). Kelly invited people to buy shares in the restaurant as a way to get new capital for their move into the Kaukauna building.

The Barnes have 23 employees in the two businesses. Five are full-time. They also are helped by their children, Emma and Loudon.

The restaurant includes an outside eating area, surrounded by planters with edible flowers and herbs that are used in some of their menu items.

Both Jay and Kelly are excited about their new venture and the possibilities the future may hold.

“My favorite part is the interaction with the customers,” said Jay, who has a background in retail and insurance. His strength is customer service; Kelly handles the menu and food preparations. “I like working with people, he said.

Kelly likes “the chance to be creating new stuff and working with young people, who are always teaching me new things. And, our customers are nice.”

Fox Cities Magazine
June/July 2013

In his home studio, between walls adorned with wicked winged monkeys and incredibly detailed natural wonders, Scott Alberts, owner of Alberts Illustration and Design, pens life into a sketched frog. “I like to start with the eye,” Alberts says. “Once you have the eye, boom! It’s alive. Once there is life, it just goes because you know what it’s going to become.”

As a self-employed illustrator, Alberts has been livening up local businesses and events with his drawings for six years. Working on commission to create custom icons, logos and characters, Alberts constantly delivers a wide range of unique and imaginative images not found in a clip art folder. “I draw things that don’t exist, that’s what an illustrator does,” Alberts says. Working with simple pen and paper is always his first step in creating something distinctive, preferring the freedom of a blank page to the confines of a computer screen. “The computer has no soul,” Alberts says. “It only does what you tell it to and less.”

In a diverse portfolio that includes everything from wildlife to abstraction, the common theme is attention to detail. Texture and pattern are elements that both challenge and entice Alberts. “Looking good is quality, more so than message. I’m fascinated by detail, close-ups of bark and moss for instance,” Alberts says. Creatively portraying the veins on a leaf or the glitter on a gown provides a new dimension of interest and value to each new project.

In addition to his commissioned work, Alberts illustrates children’s books. His current project is a book titled “A Different Little Doggy,” the story of a pup overcoming injury and blindness. Shaping the emotion and message of the narrative through his illustrations has been a project two years in the making, yet there remains joy and meaning in the work that’s impossible to conceal.

Hearing that whole classrooms of children have been artistically inspired by his drawings, Alberts modestly responds, “Other people are taking what I’ve done and making something more of it.” The real value is in doing what he was made to do, the effect of his calling is a bonus. 

—By Matt De Stasio 

Click here to view article

New North B2B
June 2012

In this book, “Why Have Americans Stopped Inventing?” author and patent attorney Darin Gibby says Americans are coming up with less than half the inventions our ancestors did 150 years ago. He blames the U.S. patent system and the huge costs associated with getting a patent, which pretty much boot the average garage-bred inventor out of the running. From the sounds of the media drumbeat, homegrown innovation is inert as a rodent in the proverbial mouse trap. Which means maybe we don’t need to build a better one after all.

But in northeast Wisconsin, imply that innovation is extinct and you’re likely to get yourself decked with a Friendly Bed, a Parti-Bowl or a vanishing television screen.

“Our philosophy is to be good at what you do, stay ahead of the curve, and develop a network of people that allows you to trust them,” said Gretchen Gilbertson, who with her husband Tim founded the now 9-year-old Suera (pronounced seera) in Green Bay, a company that makes televisions that transform into mirrors, luxury waterproof TVs for showers and yards, and backlit mirrors. “Sales are a testament for doing things very well,” Gilbertson said.

Last year, Wisconsin inventors contributed, 1,784 patents to the nation’s 108,626. It’s a lot higher than Alaska, with only 27 patents, but eons behind California, with 28,148/

We are behind our neighbors Illinois and Minnesota, which each more than doubled our number, producing more than 3,800 patents last year. But the good news is our numbers have increased over the last decade or so: in 2011, Wisconsin put out 217 more patents than 1998.

Art is in the eye of the beholder

Less than a decade ago, the Gilbertsons’ lives looked completely different. Both worked in product development and consumer research for large companies, Gretchen for the Huggies line of diapers at Kimberly-Clark Corp. and Time with developing custom refrigeration products for the hospitality industry. Then the magic light bulb of inventor went on.

They had seen a showcase home in Madison that had a bathroom with bulky combination mirror/television that sat in a 5-foot home in the bathroom wall. “Visitors were crowded in the bathroom marveling at this thing,” Gretchen Gilbertson said.

The Gilbertsons brainstormed how to make a better one and planned the company they’d form soon thereafter.

“We were like, ‘We love the concept; there’s nothing at all like it on the market that most people have heard or. Is there any opportunity for us to expand it and create a product that can be sold to the mass market?’” Gilbertson said. “On the way home we were already starting to draw up plans, and we were beginning to establish relationships with people in the electronic field.’

What’s out there?

One of the first things a prospective inventor needs to do is market research. Gilbertson and her husband were researching and finding focus groups to bounce their ideas off within a month of the showcase of homes that sealed their fate.

“Find out who is selling it, how much is it selling for, who is buying it and what are they paying for,” said Mark Payne, mechanical engineering associate with Fox Valley Technical College’s Fab Lab, an inventor resource center for the region. That will give you A – an idea on whether to proceed and B – it’s important to have if you are entering into licensing negotiations.”

Fab Lab is short for ‘fabrication laboratory,’ and it offers help to inventors with design, prototyping and general direction of their idea. It’s located at FVTC in Appleton and is a collaborative effort with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They can help take an idea all the way through the concept development process to commercialization, which is ultimately the goal of any invention.

“No product is worth anything unless it goes somewhere, which means if you have an idea, you owe it to yourself to go network and see what resources are out there to help you.” Said Joe Vosters, president of Bill-Ray Home Mobility in Appleton and the inventor of Friendly Beds, a heavy-duty system of components that fits over any size bed to improve independence for the elderly and those with physical challenges.

“You can’t be shy about going to different groups to make the connections and meet people, because sometimes when you are networking, it make take five layers of connections before you get to the person with the answers you need,” Vosters said

Bringing inventors together

Inventor Jeff Hitzler of Green Bay founded the Inventors Network in Wisconsin in 1999 to provide support and savvy to those bitten by the invention bug. It meets six times yearly at the DJ Bordini Business & Industry Center in Appleton. Past speaker topics have included marketing, product liability, focus groups, web development and other business-oriented topics.

“We try to steer people in the right direction,” Hitzler said. “We’re an education-based group – we don’t push products or inventors, we push inventors to have as much knowledge about the process as we can.”

Many people with good ideas don’t know where to start. “They immediately think they have to knock on the door of one of those ‘invention help’ places, Hitzler said. “There are a lot of steps an inventor has to do in order to do it right. You need to determine if there is a sizable market out there – just because your mom and you like it doesn’t mean it’s going to sell.”

The inventor’s journey

Regardless of whether an idea is for a gizmo, foodstuff or widget, it generally will take a similar path from conception to construction. It needs to be evaluated from a market perspective, business and investment-opportunity angles, intellectual property issues, and cost and logistics of manufacturing.

That’s where a project profile comes in handy. It’s a way of clarifying goals, expectations, areas where help is needed, and progress already made, Payne said.

Ideas also usually need a prototype. Fab Lab helps with the designing and creating physical or virtual prototypes of potential products. A prototype can be taken to investors to show how it would work and to parts manufacturers show what it should look like once made and get a ball part estimate of production costs.

Cost to develop an idea through Fab Lab are far less than what and “invention help” company would charge, said Herb Goetz, inventor services program manager at Fab Lab.

Fremont inventor Louis Woods, who came up with the idea for a fishing –rod called Enjoy the Fight for those with grip or hand problems such as arthritis, made a homemade prototype that he brought to Fab Lab, according to Payne.

“We were able to leverage our abilities to address all those features that make it a successful product versus just an idea,” Payne said.

Some products can be taken to market relatively inexpensively if your able to position yourself to be in a licensing negotiation early on, according to Goetz. “That’s the way most inventors want to go – license the idea to a company that manufactures and markets the products, and split the royalties from sales. If you want to take the product to market yourself, it gets expensive.”

A patent can take three to five years to obtain, and cost can run up to $30,000, according to Gibby’s book.

With licensing, it’s like a company rets your idea from you. Say you have an idea for a new McDonald’s burger package. “You can go into business yourself and make (the package) but it will be a huge investment for machinery and materials and a huge commitment of time, or you can go to McDonald’s and say ‘Here, this is patented so it’s protected; here is the idea and I will sell it to you and I want one center for every one sold,” said Payne.

Hitzler has licensed two of his inventions’ an adjustable-angle paintbrush and the Parti-Bowl, a snack bowl with an adjustable divider that enables Cheetos, Chex Mix and chip dip to coexist in peace, unlike Packers and Vikings fans.

Necessity: The mother of invention

Four years ago, Vosters the Friendly Bed guy, lived a different life than the one he’s living now as the president of Bill-Ray Home Mobility in Appleton.

He was designing and selling equipment for the paper industry, with nearly 30 years of experience behinds him. He knew his industry by rote. But he knew zero, silch, nada about the health care.

Then his 50-year-old brother-in-law, Bill had a stroke, and Vosters quickly learned the marketplace for bed-area assistance had some serious holes. He was appalled at some of the home medical equipment he saw” flimsy guard rails, chintzy grab-bars and poles intended to help a patient balance but were inherently unstable, he said. Vosters cared for Bill a few days a week and saw what a gargantuan task it was for him to get in and out of bed. The Vosters’ own father, Ray, in his ninth decade, began needing help from Vosters’ mom getting in and out of bed.

“He was living at home but hanging on by his fingernails, “Vosters said. “No one wants to leave their home and their independence, and the need was there for better-quality assistive aids to help in the bed area where mobility needs are the greatest.”

So Vosters came up with his Friendly Bed, a strong steel system of grab bars and poles that fits over any size bed. It doesn’t wobble like some cheaper home health products that are covered by Medicaid (which Friendly Bed isn’t at this point), he said.

“There was nothing like it out on the market, and I knew there wouldn’t be until I brought all the (components) together into one package,” Vosters said. “When you put all of these items together, you get a lot more over all benefit than you would with what you could do with a wobbly bed rail here and a flimsy trapeze bar there and a balance pole from somewhere else. A lot of the benefits only become possible because of tying together all of the elements into one heavy-duty product.”

Vosters is marketing the Friendly Bed across the country, via Internet and trade shows, and he has a showroom in Appleton where people can take a test drive.

His patent is pending, but meanwhile it’s protected from theft. Vosters had his own prototype made thorough contracts in the equipment-manufacturing community. He’s a good example of the self-venturing inventor, having launched Bill-Ray Home Mobility to market the Friendly Bed.

“If it all works out well, you get a bigger share of the pie,” Vosters said. “You are doing absolutely everything – engineering, purchasing, accounting, marketing, packing up boxes answering phones – and doing every aspect of the business yourself, “ Vosters said. “Your head starts spinning with the many hats you wear.”

During lunch with a local, serial, small business owner I posed the question, “What was something you thought you knew about owning a small business, that since you have launched and been in business for almost 8 years, have realized was a myth?” After a few moments, the reply was “Being your own boss. Being your own boss is a myth. Customers become your boss and your employees have expectations of you, you have many bosses, not just one.”

Indeed, the pull to claim and control your own destiny and be the “Boss” is a common myth that propels many people to launch their own business. There are other myths about business ownership, including those that stop people from pursuing launching and operating a business; myths like: it takes a lot of business experience to start a business or you have to have a lot of money to start a business and starting a business is too risky. Yes, some businesses are more difficult to launch than others and attracting capital and talent is key however, most of what people hear about what they need to do to successfully launch and grow their own businesses is not true. Today, the average person, with modest experience and access to technology can learn what they need to and dispel the myths associated with stopping them from pursuing their own business. This I know to be true. I've seen it happen hundreds of times. The key phrase being, learn what they need to.

Would-be and soon-to-be entrepreneurs and small business owners who choose to learn what they don’t know and gain the skills and knowledge they need, to pursue their passion, are successful. There are many ways to learn what you don’t know. You can access formal or informal knowledge sharing experiences and move forward with confidence because you are taking action to improve your ability to be a successful business owner. At the FVTC Venture Center we try to create a variety of learning and knowledge sharing experiences designed to help people successfully launch and grow their businesses. One of the most popular is the E-Seed™ Innovative Entrepreneurship Training Series. The next 10-week session launches May 1st. What did you do to dispel the myths; you thought were real, when you launched your own business?

Yesterday was an important day for residents who live and work in the Fox Valley Technical College District. Almost 70 percent of residents voted “Yes” to approve the College’s referendum. This is an exciting outcome for all of us. This investment in our future will maintain and enhance the high quality-of-life we enjoy, for decades to come.

While the Republican primary and the FVTC Referendum are the lead news stories today, another critical aspect to our quality-of -life, soon-to-be entrepreneurs and small business owners, were learning the initial activities they need to execute, in order to launch a small business or entrepreneurial firm, during last night’s Explore Starting a Business session. Guest speakers, Janice Stark, owner of Rivers Edge Marketing and E-Seed™ graduate 2003 and Marc Busko, UW-Oshkosh student and current 2012 E-Seed™ client shared their insight and experience in launching and growing a business with the attendees. The key take-away from both of them, was, go for it. Do it. If you have an idea and you want to turn that idea into a business, then what are you waiting for? Get started.

Almost 30 people were in attendance. Thirty people who, today, recognize themselves as engineers, machinists and artists; as high school students, new franchise-owner and corporate drop-out wanna-be’s. Before their experience last night, their passion and desire to create something bigger than themselves was an ember. Today they are feeling like they were ignited and are on fire! Many of them will decide to move forward with launching a business. When they do, it should be a headline and if they work with the FVTC Venture Center to get started, it very well could be. View our latest attempt to raise awareness about the entrepreneurs and small business owners we work with!

What are you waiting for? Create your headline today. The E-Seed Innovative Entrepreneurship Training Series begins May 1st.

Delivering your pitch. It’s an essential requirement to successfully getting your business out of idea phase into start-up and growth phase. Entrepreneurs and small business owners need to deliver an effective pitch to attract capital, talent and collaborative partners. There are different kinds of pitches including, the 60-second elevator pitch and the more formal, 15-20 minute, investor pitch. The former is the pitch that needs to be developed and honed first, to even get to the point where you are performing your 20-minute investor pitch. Behind every successful small business owner and entrepreneur you will find an effective 60-second elevator pitch. 

One extraordinary artist and entrepreneur who learned the importance of the 60-second elevator pitch is William Strickland, author, Make the Impossible, Possible and featured author for the upcoming 5th Annual Fox Cities Book Festival. Mr. Strickland has been fusing the arts, business fundamentals, vision, compassion and collaboration to solve the problems associated with systemic poverty, for decades. The organization he founded, Manchester-Bidwell has received national recognition for the creative, innovative approach to career-training and education that changes people and the lives they live for the better.

Join Fox Valley Technical College’s Venture Center in learning more about Bill Strickland and his message during the Fox Cities Book Festival and the 2nd Annual Pop-Up Pitch™ competition sponsored by First National Bank-Fox Valley. After his keynote at the Appleton Public Library on Wednesday, April 18th (1:00-2:00 p.m.), Mr. Strickland will become part of the Pop-Up Pitch Panelists who provide feedback and insight to the Pop-Up Pitch Contestants who are competing for a featured prize of $2,500! In this competition the audience rules and their votes determine the $2,500 cash winner. But wait, there’s more! The Pop-Up Pitch competition will be followed by a networking session featuring desserts from local culinary entrepreneurs. 

Here’s the Agenda for this year’s event. See you, there!
Wednesday, April 18th – Appleton Public Library

12:30-1:00 p.m. – Registration & networking
1:00-2:00 p.m. – Keynote by Bill Strickland, author, Make the Impossible Possible & President and CEO of Manchester Bidwell Corporation.
2:00-2:30 p.m. – Networking
2:30-3:30 p.m. – Pop-Up Pitch Contest 
3:45 p.m. – Pop up Pitch Winner Announced!
3:45-4:30 p.m. – Networking Reception featuring the Taste of Entrepreneurship-Desserts

Present your :60 second “pitch” to a panel of judges and the Fox Cities Book Festival audience. You have to share: 1) Who you are, 2) What your business does, 3) Who your business serves and, 4) How you will use $2,500 in your small business…and you only get :60 seconds. The final winner will be chosen by judges and audience votes. The winner will walk-away with $2,500!

So, what’s your pitch?

“There may not be a better time than now, to start,” shared Congressman Reed Ribble during last week’s small business round table hosted by Fox Valley Technical College’s Venture Center. Congressman Ribble enthusiastically shared his own experiences as a successful, serial, entrepreneur and small business owner. He’s owned three different businesses: a family-owned roofing company, partnership in a construction industry-related business and a recording company in Nashville. Congressman Ribble is passionate about small businesses and the jobs they create, stating to the intimate group, “most job creation comes from businesses of five years old or less.” 

Several people asked questions about small business issues regarding the Affordable Care Act, trademark law and accessing capital. Congressman Ribble was informative and respectful with his responses. He shared that the Affordable Care Act causes a lot of people concern and he and others are working with the President to address some of the challenges in the new law. His demeanor (even though he was fighting a bad case of bronchitis) was positive and compassionate. He shared he thinks people get too caught up with “demonizing ideas” brought forward to address today’s challenges. He believes to solve our challenges we need to listen to each other and work together.

As far as launching a small business and entrepreneurial firm Congressman Ribble said, “Today the opportunity is broad and bright. The American marketplace is full of pent-up demand.” We agree and are wondering, what do you think? Do you agree with Congressman Ribble? Do you think now is the right time to launch or grow your small business?

Last week I had the opportunity to meet Cal Siegrist, an independent agent with The Insurance Center. He had decided we should meet after reading Sean Johnson’s, Insight on Business, September 2011 article, Stuck in Job Lock. In the article Sean describes the reality that many qualified, talented, people choose not to pursue entrepreneurship in some part, due, to the lack of affordable health insurance. Thanks to my meeting with Cal, I now understand there are affordable, creative, health insurance options available for small business owners and their employees. 

One such program is the 401 (hp) offered by The Insurance Center. The 401 (hp) functions as a complete standalone employee benefit program or as a supplement to an existing health benefits plan. It is affordable and flexible. While, I am not an insurance benefits expert, Cal is. He is also passionate and excited about helping small businesses and entrepreneurial firms compete. He can help you design a health insurance benefits package that will put you ahead of most small businesses when it comes to attracting talent. It doesn’t cost as much as you think to access health insurance for yourself and your employees and the peace-of-mind it provides is the best benefit of all.

The Spring 2012 E-Seed™ Innovative Entrepreneurship training series kicked off this afternoon in Appleton. It’s been a decade since the first E-Seed series was launched and you know what? It never gets old, meeting these new, aspiring, enterprise owners. In the weeks and months to come their vision will take form as they translate what’s in their mind’s eye to paper and what is on paper, to reality. Their ideas become plans for action and the evolution from, “I want to start a business” to “I am launching my business” is one of the most exhilarating experiences one could ever undertake.  Have you done it? Don’t you agree?

It takes a community to launch and raise a business and E-Seed provides a platform for our clients to learn from people who have the insight, guts and expertise to help them move forward. Whether it’s legal issues, accounting questions, marketing strategy, hiring people, acquiring financing or all the above, E-Seed invites the community into the classroom and that’s a difference maker. During the last decade more than 1,000 people have experienced E-Seed and hundreds have launched, creating more than a thousand jobs in Wisconsin and beyond.

Here’s to another decade of fusing information, expertise, knowledge and collaboration to drive entrepreneurial and small business start-ups…we can’t wait to see new Open for Business signs, can you?

More than 275 to be exact. From Open Road Harley to Action Painting Services to Appleton Solar, the Venture Center has launched more than 275 businesses in the Fox Valley Technical College (FVTC) and New North region thanks to the entrepreneur and small business education and training services, coaching and networking. If you haven’t seen our entrepreneur map, check out the businesses that have accessed our services. One of our fall 2005 E-Seed grads, Sue Leonard, says keeping connected to the FVTC Venture Center helps her even today. A graduate of the E-Seed entrepreneurship and small business training series, Sue owns Leonards Designs in Hortonville. She credits E-Seed with helping her to identify her target customer—sounds simple, but that one decision helped guide many of her marketing and product decisions. Gene Dorn started D&D landscaping in 1970 because as a farm boy, he liked the outdoors. But almost 35 years later, he took the Pro-Seed Powered by E-myth series because he wanted to learn how to delegate more and improve his business systems. Through one on one coaching sessions, Dorn was able to create manageable systems for his business and get his employees directly involved. “There are a lot of businesses who try to do this themselves,” Dorn said, “but Pro-Seed helps you create the systems you need so you can leave your business and know it’s going to run without you.” From the idea stage through growth and transition of an enterprise the FVTC Venture Center is dedicated to assisting people pursue their passion in order to create a healthy diversified economy. Congratulations to Sue and Gene for the success you have in your small businesses! The FVTC Venture Center is thrilled that you are a part of our network.