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Entrepreneur

David Welles from Tunnel Vision Technologies (TVTI)

by Lane Campbell

This is the third Entrepreneur Interview featured on ManhattanDigest, please use the contact us form if you would like to be interviewed for the website.  David Welles is the Founder of Tunnel Vision Technologies, Inc. (TVTI, Inc.) in Chicago, IL

Founder of TVTI, Inc. out of Chicago, IL
Founder of TVTI, Inc. out of Chicago, IL

What was the inspiration for starting TVTI, Inc.

I worked for a Fortune 500 company, I was sick of being Micro Managed. I think most entrepreneurs know they want to do something on their own at some point. It pushed me into doing something on my own. I didn’t know what I wanted to do but I knew I didn’t want to work for corporate america.

What challenges did you face getting going initially?

I had no idea what I was doing, I never went to business school, and I never worked for another entrepreneur.  We started working out of my house and focused on our clients.  I think thats what made us successful.  Most of our competitors were all using established business models within the industry.  We had to work harder and develop a model that fit our clients needs better.  When we started out it was without money, and we didn’t have the resources to bring in talent initially.   Though those are issues most companies face.   I could go on for hours about challenges.  There are challenges still to this day.

When did you know you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

When I was in 7th grade I knew.  It was in the 7th grade that I started a company called electric car cleaners. It was a car detailing business. I really loved the fact that I was able to create my own flyer that was put on cars. I liked working the hours because it didn’t feel like work.  I was able to do the work myself and I knew then I liked doing my own thing. I think we did just $600 in sales with electric car cleaners. To a 7th grader that was a lot of money. I knew then that I potentially wanted to do something on my own. All through college I knew I wasn’t going to build a career in corporate america. Most think they start a job and grow in that job. I tried that for 6 years and its isn’t for me.

Who is the perfect customer for Tunnel Vision Today?

It’s a tough question because we love all our customers!  I can say that our ideal customer is someone who is into technology and likes music but doesn’t want to manage it, so they are looking for a partner to help them. We focus on residential customers who are not afraid to reach out for help. We work with partners to reach out and make consumers aware of our existence.   Usually our customers are over 40 years old and love the ease of being able to use gadgets to change the temperature and lighting from the same controls. We are not a company that takes advantage of our customers. We like customers that want to grow into a system, with something small and add more equipment over time.   The difference with our approach is our post sales follow up where we work hard to keep our customers happy, a big part of our post sales process is making sure that customers stay updated with the latest technology.  We call and email twice a year to make sure everything continues to work.   Yet all of our customers want something that enables their stuff to work and not have to worry about it.

What advice would you give new entrepreneurs today?

It’s going to take 2 years minimum before you will feel good about what you’re doing. It’s exciting at first and there are a lot of things you will learn from your mistakes. Whether your customers let you know or not, facing those challenges can be frustrating.  Take slow, small steps toward growing and learn from the experience.   Don’t be like most people.  Most people think they know what they are doing.  I had no industry experience and it took me a couple years to learn the industry, then another couple of years to learn how to run a business of any kind.  There is no book or class that can teach you everything.  In our line of work you will need a good bookkeeper and a good attorney.

What is next for Tunnel Vision?

We have grown every year since we were in business. We are now at the decade phase. It’s been 14 years since founded but its been 10 years of being a real business. We are looking to expand into other markets. We were 100% residential until 2011 but are now expanding into commercial. We can help a CEO at his house and now his business. We can help with all different types of industry. We want bigger and better projects. We will continue to grow without losing our focus on residential customers, we love those customers and will never give up our focus on them. We are growing our staff with knowledge and training. Twice a year our team is re-trained on everything. Mainly, moving into other markets. We are now doing jobs all around the country. Detroit, St, Louis, Milwaukee, will get satellite offices, not all at once but stay on the lookout for those offices.

You recently launched a new website?  What was the motivation behind that?

The website is our storefront. Our website was done about 5 years ago and in that time the world we live in has changed, the where the web is now everything for generating business. It’s like generating a paint job, our website was worn and we updated it to be easier and greener to browse. What we had 5 years ago was fantastic but today it was very dated. To me the website is a validation of our company. Most people in our industry are researching lighting control. They will look at our website and know we are more than just credible.

What types of training does a new employee go through?

We now have a six week training program, we just acquired 3,000 additional sq feet so we will have a new training center. Half on site and half in the center. Everything from customer interaction to servicing equipment. Learning about new products. In the past we didn’t explain the products as well as we could, so we wanted to be more fair to everyone in the company.

If you could have one superpower what would it be?

I would choose to fly!  I would love the ability fly!  I would hands down be superman if I was picking a super hero. I only know of three that were normal people. Spiderman, Green Lantern, and Superman.

Filed Under: BREAKING NEWS, BUSINESS Tagged With: david welles, Entrepreneur, tunnel vision technology, tvti

Eric Rachal from MXToolBox.com

by Lane Campbell

Eric Rachal
Eric Rachal
Eric Rachal Founder of MXToolBox.com

Entrepreneur Interview #1

Eric Rachal from MxToolBox.com sat down with ManhattanDigest for a brief interview.

What was your inspiration for starting MXToolBox?

The idea can be traced back to the mid 1990’s when I was working for an innovative startup in Austin Texas.  I knew back then that ultimately I wanted to own my own thing.   It was at this startup that focused on building residual revenue as a WAN management service that we pioneered a concept known today as Managed Services.

There is sense of stability built into any kind of business with residual revenue.   That stability and challenge is what attracted me to building MXToolBox in the first place.  MXToolBox started out as a reseller of spam and virus filtering solutions.   The website’s tools were assembled out of necessity to help manage our customer email systems.

As the tools grew in popularity I registered a domain and put the tools online for all.

When did you know you wanted to be an Entrepreneur?

I don’t know exactly.  It wasn’t in my teenage years.  I think that I drew the inspiration from a conversation with a stranger that happened when I was around 20 years old.  This stranger told me about his lifetime of work in the potato chip business.  He explained the different facets of the business and as an older guy who had been around the block there were some great stories.

I walked away from that conversation with a greater sense of what I wanted to do with my life.  I realized then that as an entrepreneur I would always be growing as a person.  A lot of career tracks seem to end.  A lot of trades don’t allow for personal growth past a certain point.   Generally when someone chooses a career they choose to do the same same thing every day until they retire.  There is really no end of personal growth opportunities for a small business owner.

What is the hardest thing you have ever had to do as an Entrepreneur?

The hardest thing is also one of the most important skills an entrepreneur needs to be successful.  If you look at successful people and where they are now you’ll miss the most important part of the journey.  Successful people aren’t afraid of failure; you will find a trail of wreckage from failed ideas in these peoples pasts that led them to succeed later.  To me that is the hardest thing.  Learning that something isn’t working and being strong enough to admit it’s failed and move away instead of pursuing failure.

It’s like the song “you need to know when to hold them and when to fold them”

If you had all the money in the world what would your days look like?

I don’t know.  Good question.  They probably wouldn’t look all that different.  I’m a geek, I like building things, playing with things, and I’m able to do all that with MXToolbox.  I think it would be more of that.  I would continue to tinker but I would use the freedom of greater resources to work on projects for the fun of it; instead of considering the bottom line impact the time would have on the business.  Even with all the money in the world my days wouldn’t look that different.

If you could have one super power what would it be?

I cannot even imagine… I know it would have to do with knowledge and wisdom.

What’s next for MX Toolbox?

We are actually at an exciting point!  We are putting more resources into the toolset.  We are hiring! We are bringing on developers, testers, web analysts, and marketing folks.  We are really interested in expanding the toolset and expanding into different areas.  We aren’t going to do anything radically different just more of the same and better.

What is MX Toolbox today?

MX Toolbox is an I.T. infrastructure diagnostic tool and monitoring company.

Filed Under: BREAKING NEWS, BUSINESS, TECHNOLOGY Tagged With: An Idea, Austin Texas, Brief Interview, Building Mxtoolbox, Entrepreneur, Entrepreneur Interview, Eric, Eric Rachal, Interview, Mxtoolbox, Rachal, Work In Austin Texas

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