Hi, everyone. Welcome to the first customer podcast. My name is Jay Agner. Today, I'm lucky enough to be joined by the CEO and founder of Effective Solutions, Kevin King. Hello, sir. How are you?
I am well. How about you, Jay?
I am fantastic. Long weekend ahead of us. Let's just start at the beginning, man. Where did you grow up? Where'd you go to school? . Kevin: I grew up in Bucks County, And then for high school, went to Holy Ghost, All Boys Catholic School, which is in Northeast Philadelphia. After high school, went to college, went to American University. And that's actually where I started business. I started effective when I was a junior in college. It was quite some time ago, about 25 years ago, 26 years ago.
the web was new, if you can believe that, it Mm hmm.
a thing getting started. And, yeah, that's the genesis of my entrepreneurial beginnings. It was right there in college.
Where is American University?
In D. C., right outside of Washington, D. C.
Okay. And what did you go to school there for?
like most, I switched around a little bit. I think I started as like a psychology major. But, I think it was sophomore year is when I started, I had always been into technology, programming. and then I think it was in between my sophomore and junior year, I essentially carved out, my own major that was a combination of, business and specifically entrepreneurship. And, MIS, information systems. Oh.
when did you get the bug to start your own, business?
I think growing up, I was always a bit of a, if we had magazine drives and things, any chance I had to go out and do something and hustle a little bit in my neighborhood. that was always there. What really struck me, though, was when I was in college, the, and, A, we had AOL all through high school. And, or online, people got on the internet. But, it was really in 1990s, it was 1995. And, people are just starting to create websites.
There was a group of people in mind at American that I was friendly with, and I know they had started a business. They had pitched to do some work, for some local companies and consulting businesses, and they built their websites. And I think the idea then is really, that's really what kind of ignited it. And so is in between, My junior, my sophomore and junior year, while at school, I was lifeguarding down the shore, like the Jersey shore.
And a good friend of mine that I grew up with down there was a programmer. So he and I did not go to college together, but he was also, bitten by the bug. And specifically with the idea of like building websites. So he and I got to talking and we decided let's give it a shot. So it was right there. when I was, Manning the lifeguards stand every break I could get. I was running down and like calling local businesses and seeing if we could do a little presentation. And,
And, that's a fantastic start. do you remember who was your first customer?
so I'm going to, I could lie and tell you something really. It was a group. So it happened quickly. So I think the first customer may have been heritage surf and sport, which was like, a small chain of surf shop.
That's in Sea Isle City, Ocean City, But, the, so I, we did the website for Heritage, but at the same time I was calling on all the real estate, the real estate agencies, And that was the first real niche with Traction, So we went from, calling on one or two of those to, Every time we went to one, we gave the presentation, It was very much keeping up with the Joneses in that little industry. So it was a natural intro to, to the next one down the street. And there are a lot different agencies.
I think that, the first real customer base were maybe five to ten of those real estate agencies.
And how long did you keep that niche, or is that something you still do today? Like, how long did you ride that wave?
I, remember that, wait, I like that pun. Very down to two hour. I think, for about three or four years, that was somewhere going in, Between sophomore and junior year, we quickly got most of the larger real estate agencies in like the surrounding towns and we hooked up with a guy who was a software developer who had built all the rental platforms for, just about everybody in the surrounding four or five, island towns, and he was doing websites Differently, he was very much a programmer.
We had an aesthetic that we were design oriented. I was going to school for marketing, really looked at it as like a branding platform, but we were also really technical. My partner at the time was a really still programming. He's still like a very kind of all about just ones and zeros. So we built the first database driven website. that let these real estate agencies add their sales inventory.
And this other, software, the guy who owned the business down there, had built a pretty sophisticated rental system to track all their inventory. And we were able to connect it. The websites he was building were very, they looked like a, he was programming. we hooked up, we started doing them in collaboration with him. so we did that, the following year I came back down and just focused on that. And I did it a little bit while still at school, but it was it was a seasonal business.
So it was it worked out nicely. So when I was at school, I could scale it back a little bit. and then after school I moved back to the shore for about a year. So we were there essentially finishing out a lot of the sites that we had done for these ages. And, I think we were there for about another year after that. And eventually it became, I think we saturated what we were going to do there.
mhm
we decided that we could, maybe branch off and do other businesses. So we actually moved back up here to, to Manium. And we got like a loft with a, put the office up there. And then we started focusing on the financial services. Many.
Ok 26 years is a long time in business so you guys have obviously been doing things right, along the way. how many major pivots do you think you've made along the way?
Many. when we started off, we were doing all these real estate agencies. I would say probably half a dozen major pivots. we did the real estate agencies, and essentially covered, pretty much all the ones in the surrounding few towns. And, but we were technical. And it was a weird, it was a weird place, because We were where we could get the most traction. So if you walked into a small business and you were 22, it's expected.
like a small business would expect a kid that was going to be doing their website. It's all very new. But what was really difficult was cracking into like larger businesses that under, that understood branding. They had a brand, they had, they, they really had a larger scale, already fully scaled business. And that kind of area was really more dominated by like ad agencies.
we moved, when we moved to Philadelphia, we were, I was calling them like, I still got some clients that were in financial services, but they were smaller businesses. And then we got an opportunity at SEI Investments, which is like a large mutual fund complex located out here in Philadelphia. And it wasn't the web design aspect, it was really nuts and bolts for us.
Like programming, they asked us, they brought us into a conference, conference room and said, look, we want to, we've got 5, 000 registered investment advisors and they come into our website, they try to get like documents to give, they resell the SEI product and they asked us to build something so that they could easily customize a proposal based on the SEI product, but with the branding of each of these registered investment advisors. And we built the first proposal system.
It was like an intranet, extranet, soft, very technical. and we, that was we were still doing web design, but that was the first real pivot, because it was really nuts and bolts. It was software oriented, and it gave us that, it was a good spot for us to enter, because we were young, so we didn't have kind of the branding chops that I think a lot of other companies have. companies were looking for just the web design stuff.
so being younger and just technical still seemed appropriate in a similar way. and through that though, we started meeting some of the agencies, like through some of the relationships, the banks that we were doing. So we also started doing larger banks that were similarly packaging their products with SEIs. We were introduced to them and we started building similar things.
And I think over that two or three year period, we started doing work for the agencies, where we became like a private label digital law for several agencies. So that was probably like, the third, the second real pivot.
right
Got two down. and that was helpful because then, that, that was how we really started to carve out a niche that allowed us to do the branding and, the marketing aspect of it. and then we merged with one of those. So at some point a few years later, in two, this is, 96 to 2001, at some point around 2000, I think we merged with an ad agency, where we was our shop in theirs. And we started doing all of their client, all of their work.
we did that for a while, and at the same time we were also, we also had some product. that were still specialized in those proposal systems. so we did that. We did that for a while. And then we then we split off and we started private labeling for maybe another half dozen agencies in the area.
Okay. Wow. So you did a lot of, you figured out what worked at the time.
Yeah, a lot of pivoting.
A lot of pivoting. a lot of What did somebody say the other day? So they didn't like the word pivot. I think they said transform, I think was the way that they used it. but they do digital transformation, so I think that's why I said that. where does that leave you guys today? Where do you, what do you focus on today for your clients?
that, that kind of last transition from there, we did that work for those agents, for a lot of agencies. And that was going really well. we got every time we met with an agency we really made a good relationship and we'd start to do the work But at some point decided that we were better off serving our clients more directly and that's really where we landed.
you know that's where Everything that we had learned from being pretty, a really technical shop and doing it for larger corporations, financial services and then we had, a good period of time where we were now opening it up to a portfolio of clients that were like a lot of fortune 500 businesses where we were on the branding side.
So coming out of kind of those several transformations, let's say, gave us an opportunity to really provide all of the above, but in a different, I would say a different kind of service model than like a typical ad agency. They were. A lot of agencies were trying to transform their business a little bit, but without having that, direct expertise inside the technical stuff. Whereas, we came into it the reverse. really technical, with an understanding of the business aspects and marketing.
And so now it's a pretty well rounded, offering. And our model is really based on creating websites, but really managing, becoming that digital arm. for
Mhm.
whether it's a, small business or a large public and trader business, we try to find a match that's going to really augment their internal resources. So they can think of us as a natural extension of what they have internally.
Got it. And how big are you guys today? how many employees?
So we're still, we're lean and mean the, the pandemic really did a number on a lot of different parts of our business. So we've got a few full time people and then we've had a let's say, network of maybe a dozen contractors that we've really, over 10, 15 years, just, from here back, we've worked with for a really long time. And I think, everybody started working remotely. It really made it difficult to bring people into an office in full time.
But at the same time, I think people got more accustomed to. like this video call, I think these new things
Right.
has been really helpful because otherwise, when we were with the different agencies, we would have a lot of people in the office and I was really adamant about having everybody inside the same building because I think it's crucial for communication, but today people are accustoming, that's, there's not a lot of choice in that matter. With video calls, it's easier. It is easier. I think that bridges some of the gaps in communication to be able to like make eye contact and see people and so forth.
Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, I started working fully remote.
And I base everything off of my kids ages, that's how I try to keep track of time, but my daughter was just born, and she just turned seven, so it was pre, pre all that stuff, so when everybody was freaking out about the big shift, I was like, this is where it's at, man, this is, that's how I built my business, was being fully remote, so we didn't have that big transition, but I know being parts of other organizations that, had to make that shift, it can be pretty challenging.
Yeah. Yep.
if, if you could take everything that you've learned over your many pivots or transformations or whatever you want to call it, and you had to start, your business over again tomorrow, what would be step one?
step one would be to really assess the market. though I had done a lot of pivots, I think the thing that has consistently worked is really taking a position of being extremely inquisitive. And really understanding the people that I wanna, that we do our work for. I think, taking a step back, combining it with, obviously, you have to love what you do. I think that's pretty integral to any success. Is if you really have a passion for it.
And then, figuring out a way that matches where the demand is. And then getting inquisitive, asking a lot of questions. I,
That's a great, that's a great answer. let's switch gears a bit. You look like a very healthy guy. You look, great for having run a company for 26 years. I can tell you, I've seen people who've run companies for two years who look like, they're a hundred years older, so you must be doing something. What are your, what are three kind of things, health wise? obviously drinking water is one of them. what are three ha. Stay hydrated.
What are three things you do to increase your health and longevity?
I think high stress is always helpful.
Yes, big time. That's why I have five kids. I agree.
Yeah, I'm sure you do. I, I'm only kidding. I think getting yourself accustomed to high stress and not feeling it, I
mhm.
is helpful. I appreciate you saying that. I feel like I've been, I'm in the worst shape of my life. No, I think to be fair, I feel as though I've said that every six months and I've meant it, I think last summer I was in possibly, but, but I think just staying active, I do stay hydrated, kidding aside. I do always have water everywhere. I want to make sure that everybody's, I really think lots of water important
Haha, mhm.
and just staying active. I have a standing desk. I love my standing desk. I'm always adjusting that. I like to stand on my feet. and just putting yourself generally in positions that make you feel a little uncomfortable. I think is something that is helpful both, to stay in shape and just for business. I think it's an important part.
No, I like that. I always feel like if I'm too comfortable, I'm in the wrong place. being generally comfortable with being uncomfortable is a great one. alright, so let's, let's do the mystery question. and I know, now that people are actually starting to listen to this a little bit, they're gonna, they're tired of hearing this spiel. But, eventually somebody will listen to the mystery question beforehand and it won't be a mystery anymore and I'll have to change it. But, what would you do...
Anything on earth, physical, altruistic, whatever you want to do. what would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?
What could we fail? I would, you know what, I would figure out how to usher in a really safe. ecosystem for artificial intelligence right now.
I love
that is a, a real challenge. Real concern. I don't want to ring any alarms, but I think that, what we're looking at now is a pretty significant shift, not just in like my industry, your industry, but,
Yeah. Now, do you mean that from the sense, and I asked a guy who is almost I would call like a forefather to some of this MML and language stuff a couple weeks ago. do you mean that from... A, being in the wrong hands perspective, or more of a sentience kind of perspective. what do you, when you say, what are your thoughts behind that?
all of the above. without getting too weird and philosophical, I think in terms of safety and it getting in the wrong hands, for sure, I think that's more of an immediate risk. I think in terms of kind of a soft landing in the economy for the impact it's going to have that we'll be looking at over the next, three to five years, two, and to, to the extent you want to debate.
Sentience and consciousness, yeah, I think maybe having a, an approach that is fairly uniform and has some parameters for compassion and empathy, whether it's us and the possibility of a burgeoning intelligence or the notion of imprinting a sense of compassion and empathy to our overlords. Kidding.
think education, too, right? That's the only other one that I, the... I feel like if people can just, AI their way through everything, there's gotta be an impact down the line, right? Like, all these the kids that are, just gonna use it to write all the papers and do all the homework, it's gotta come out somewhere.
I hear you. the first time I used chat GPT and it was given that release in November. I have a couple in laws that are like teachers. Like the same day I was looking at it, I had a couple nephews and nieces over the house and they keep, the parents came over and I was explaining like, I don't know if you've seen this.
And I, I don't know if it was right or wrong, I showed, I pulled out my phone and showed it to their, her kids and she said, man, this is, how do you stop, how do you, I don't know, how do it was, they were, my niece and nephew were, they were saying, they were basically asking proms for, papers they were looking at doing and sure enough, and that was GPT 3. 5 and 4. 0 is even more fluid and fluent and less, I, so yeah.
yeah. Yeah, I have a senior in high school, and he was, he was already starting to experiment. I'll just leave it there. I was, I was not, I, as a dad who hopes he goes on to do great things, you can't It's crutches in life, if you have too many crutches, like you, whatever it is, like you end up being a, I don't want to say weaker person, but you definitely define more character without those crutches sometimes.
how do you, what do you think? how do you, so how do you, as somebody that's more hands on in that kind of realm?
don't, I think just the detection mechanisms, I think there's always, there's never going to be a universal, There's always going to be a, a branch of some open source, something that is going to not be locked down like the mainstream version of GPT, right? Somebody's going to get it, they're going to spin it off, they're not going to follow the same protocols, they're not going to embed the things in it that let people know that it's generated with AI.
There's always going to be that stuff, so I think detection mechanisms are probably going to be, it's going to be a cat and mouse game forever. I don't know, it's, I do see that as being a little bit of the... Pandora's box because you're never really going to be able to stay ahead of the next iteration of it. There's always going to be something next that's going to be out there. So I don't know man.
I've got a lot of younger kids that are coming up and It'd be very interesting to see how it plays out and with school and you know how they handle it and the teachers and all that stuff,
On the other end of it though, maybe it helps usher in some, it, I don't know, I, we use it every now and then, like once a week we'll ask the GPT to write a homepage, let's, and it's just shocking what it does do, whether it really comes back as like a fluid, as something like really on point, it doesn't, but it's close, but generally, it's helpful in the regard that if you understand the broader concepts, it's not going to finish a thing for you.
So it helps get things going and maybe, I don't know, maybe in some respect, even just from a writing, as you're, if you were in high school, I don't know if it would be helpful to assist and create better writing. I don't know.
I think there's definitely the upsides to it. It's just managing it with the downsides but I think my dog is letting me know it's time to go. but this has been great, man. it was fantastic. How do people find you? How do they find Kevin? How do they find Effective Solutions?
So EISolutions. com is our website. If you just look Effective Internet Solutions, on LinkedIn. The World Wide Web, as they call it. I don't know, do they still call that?
I don't know who, I don't think so. I think we're definitely dating ourselves, as we call it, the World Wide Web. but yes, I remember the dial up days very well that my kids have no idea about. I was trying to explain to my son, the, anti shock, protection for the discmans they used to have. I'm like, so you had to have this button that you would push so like it wouldn't skip as much. He's like, how does that work? I'm like, I had no idea. It was like magic, dude.
It just you would hit it and sometimes it would skip less. I don't know. But, all right, man, this is great. thanks for hopping on. enjoy your long weekend and we'll catch up soon. All right.
You got it,
Thanks, Kevin. See you, man.
Alright, bye bye.