Welcome to Invest in Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur Podcast. Join the podcast mogul Phil Better as he interviews successful entrepreneurs that make their living in the digital world. Now let's join your host, Phil Better, and your special guest today on Invest in Yourself, the digital entrepreneur podcast.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Invest in Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm with your host Phil Bennett, the podcast mogul, and I am very happy to introduce our guest today. Our guest is a strategic entrepreneur and astute investor currently serving as the CEO or the chief executive officer of Lanteria, a leading business productivity software company based in Seattle, Washington. Our guests' robust leadership and profound understanding of global business trends have played a pivotal role in driving Lanteria's expansion and success in the competitive HR software space. Recently, our guests showcased remarkable investment prowess by spearheading the acquisition of Lanteria.com, which is recognized as the top of HRMS for Microsoft users. This strategic move underlines our guest's ability to navigate complex financial landscapes, employing both the debt financing and equity investment. Sounds like I'm supposed to be on Stock Dirty to me in my other podcast introducing this guest. But, he's, able to make sound decisions that signify significantly contribute to the company's growth.

Under our guest guidance, Lanteria has consecutive remained at the forefront of HR solutions providing innovative offerings that enhance HR cap capacity, facilitates team scaling, and elevates employee engagement for enter enterprise level customers. You think I'd learn how to speak. But that's not all I

get show about entrepreneurs. It's easy to forget.

Right? It's it's hard. But with all that said, let me introduce the guest. You heard him speak. It's Andrew Sollweiler. Andrew, thank you so much for being here even though I I completely messed up your hypeness, bringing you out to the show before.

It's okay. It's okay, Phil. I'm I'm an entrepreneur, so you could have said my name and said, like, hey. Welcome to the show. And it would have been the same thing for me where most entrepreneurs were kind of, always the the ones that I know are pretty down to earth. They're they're happy with just getting their name said and get getting going.

There we go. Alright. So without further ado, Andrew, we're gonna jump straight into the first question because that's what I like to do. I don't like, I like to do the proposing beforehand, but I failed at that. So we're gonna just go straight into it. Why did you become an entrepreneur? What was it that made you start or end up being the CEO after purchasing Lanteria?

So I've I've been an entrepreneur for 12 years since about 2010. I mean, I come from a family of entrepreneurs. So, like, my I think my great great grandfather moved from Lithuania to Wisconsin and started a started, like, a a outpost there, something like that for lumber for lumberjacks. And that store became, a drugstore, and then it became a clothing store that my like so my great grandfather ran it, my grandfather ran it, and then my dad started his own company in Minneapolis. So I come from a long line of entrepreneurs. I would say not super successful entrepreneurs. We've all been moderately successful. Like, been done well enough to sort of earn a living and continue and and work that way.

But I'd say for me, I I worked in private equity before being an entrepreneur, and I, you know, I I ended up moving here. I live in Barcelona, so I ended up moving from, San Francisco to Barcelona. And, frankly, I got into being an entrepreneur because I had no other choice. I didn't speak the language here, and I couldn't get a job. So I would have had to either get a job at, like, a big four, like, accounting firm, which I don't know anything about accounting, or I would have had to work for, like, a local company here who would have never hired me because I didn't speak the language. So, I ended up having to just start my own company. So my wife and I actually started an eyewear company, about 12 years ago, and we sold that right before the pandemic. And after that, I I was kind of exploring, like, what am I gonna do next? And I had known about this thing called search funds, for a long time, since about 2015.