I figured a little history would be useful so everyone could know where I am coming from!
The idea for what is today known as Everon was first a glimmer in my eye back in 1999 or so. That seems like so long ago!
I had gone to work very briefly for the founders of what is now All Covered. It was a crazy environment and one that I eagerly exited quickly, but I did learn a lot and I could never get the potential of the industry out of my mind. It was an entrepreneurship case study if there ever was one:
- Huge market
- Highly fragmented
- No major brand
- Known for its poor service
Somebody was going to make it big in this space eventually!
Immediately after leaving All Covered, I started a small regional ISP that was reselling DSL lines through Covad. This was the boom-times of the Silicon Valley, and I was scrambling to learn everything I could about technology while trying to figure out how to make a buck. I was in completely over my head to be honest - I had a business degree but no real experience and no technology background. But hey, it was fun and I was learning!
We eventually got a decent client base going - almost all SMB customers - and were frequently called upon to help configure our client’s networks to use the DSL lines. We didn’t mind because we were making a few extra $ here and there. However, we quickly realized that driving around the Bay Area getting stuck in traffic was no way to make a living. Our solution: we made our consulting/support customers buy a piece of Funk Software that provided remote control; that way we didn’t have to drive.
We eventually sold the business for a little bit of money and went on to start a software company, and then I went on to business school at Babson College.
But I could never get the following out of my mind:
The combination of recurring revenue from the DSL lines and the ability to serve our customers remotely was a pretty nice model!
Anybody that knows me knows that I have the entrepreneurship bug bad, so as I was finishing up business school I was thinking about what business I was going to start, not what job I was going to get. I considered all kinds of businesses, but I could not let the SMB IT services business idea rest.
If somebody was going to make a killing in this space eventually, why not me!?
Around this same time (2003), the remote control tools and network management tools that we use today were starting to come into existence and were becoming practical to use. So, after a few conversations with my wife explaining why it really was the right move to go with virtually no income and start another business (while we had just racked up some student loans and she was pregant with our first child!), Everon was launched!
I made every mistake in the book!
I priced too low, I included the wrong stuff in my service packages, and I sold to the wrong customers.
One thing I did do right was find Josh Clifford, who is now the Chief Service Officer at Everon. That was dumb luck, so I can’t really take any credit for it.
I remember the first few days of working together very clearly. I sat him down at a desk with a phone and a computer and said,
“I’m going to go out and start selling now. One day that phone is going to ring and on the other end will be a person with a computer problem. If you can’t fix it, we’ll probably go out of business. No pressure.”
And with that, we were off to the races! 4 and 1/2 year later we’ve learned a lot, had some fun, and made some money; and I really think that the most exciting times for our industry and our company are right in front of us.
MRC
