Bootstrapping a Virtual Company to $10 Million from Atlanta: Field Pros Direct CEO Matt Anderson (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: The benefit you are offering is a flexible workforce of adjusters. They can pick people up as they need to as opposed to having everybody on the payroll. 

Matt Anderson: That’s a part of it. We can scale up and down. From a cost standpoint, it gives them flexibility. Here is an example that I use with my clients. When I was in Crawford & Company, at one point I was managing director for a service center in the state of Alabama.

In North Alabama, we had two liability adjusters. They are probably the two best liability adjusters in the whole state, but they have a daily objective for billing a number of hours like an attorney does. They head to work to hit their daily objective. So, if I have a property claim which these liability adjusters are not good at, we have to assign those claims to a liability adjuster until they have enough work to hit their daily objectives. It’s a broken model.

In my first year, we recruited 40 different adjusters that we could choose from in North Alabama. Already, I’m a startup company that can provide a much superior solution to a property company right off the gate. That is just one of the many things that we do.

We also have automated text messaging like an Amazon tracker for the insurer to keep them updated on the status of their client. We have done so much to add on to matching and how we engage the network. It’s been fun to provide much more than that. 

Sramana Mitra: Very nice company. Is there anything else that you want to add to the company? 

Matt Anderson: For entrepreneurs trying to learn, there’s a lot that I learnt by being around an incubator. It seems everything is geared towards raising money. Raising money is like a milestone.

In some cases, some businesses need that, but any time that you can figure out a way to create a successful business before you raise money, I think that would be my recommendation. 

Sramana Mitra: That is the philosophy of One Million by One Million. We believe that entrepreneurship equals customers, revenues, and profit – and that financing and exit is optional. We believe that you should bootstrap first and then raise money later, or not at all. 

Matt Anderson: There are a lot of things that I read or hear where we still get criticized for not having raised money.  

Sramana Mitra: That’s complete bullshit because if you can maintain the economy and keep building your business without outside financing, you have a much superior situation than having to cater to investors.

Not everything works that way and we have nothing against venture capital either, but venture capital requires that you go from zero to a hundred million dollars in five to seven years. That is a tremendous amount of pressure and stress. 

Matt Anderson: In the conversations that we have had, that’s been my problem. They want 100x their money and they want it in five years. In some ways, you might look at that as derisking because you have additional cash but to get to 100x in five years, you have to do things that increase the risk of your business breaking. The more you try to blitz scale, the greater the chance of the company failing. 

Sramana Mitra: Inevitably fail. Most companies should be discouraged to blitz scale. 

Matt Anderson: I love that message there. Hopefully, I can help contribute there. 

Sramana Mitra: It’s a pleasure having you. Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 6 in the series : Bootstrapping a Virtual Company to $10 Million from Atlanta: Field Pros Direct CEO Matt Anderson
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