https://youtu.be/cpnj7Ggx7q4
Andy Alsop is the inventor of the Employee Supremacy Operational Model and the CEO of The Receptionist, a leading iPad-based visitor management solution installed in more than 5500 locations worldwide. We talk about the effectiveness of visitor management solutions, employee supremacy at the workplace, and how company cultures influence employee loyalty.
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Promote Employee Supremacy with Andy Alsop
Our guest is Andy Alsop, the inventor of the Employee Supremacy Operational Model and the CEO of The Receptionist, the leading iPad visitor management solution installed in more than 5,500 locations around the world. Andy, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, Steve.
It's great to have you on the show. So as always, I'd like to start with your entrepreneurial journey. So give us an overview of, a short overview of how you arrived at owning the Receptionist and your growing the company.
Well, I've always been an entrepreneur for my entire career. It's pretty much like I feel like I was born to be an entrepreneur. Many people don't know what they wanted to do, but I knew very early on in my life that's what I wanted to do. And it probably was influenced by the fact that I come from an entrepreneurial family. I have been the founder or co-founder in about three tech startups in New Mexico and involved at a high level and a few others over the course of about 20 years.
And then in 2014, after not really feeling satisfied with the success I'd had in New Mexico, I decided I was going to move my entrepreneurial career to Denver. And so I decided, why not pick up my roots, my entrepreneurial roots and bring them to Denver. And I really, what I ended up doing in July of 2014 was really just saying, I'm gonna get to know as many people as I can. I leveraged my networks, people who I knew in New Mexico, the new people in Denver, really getting to know people, not just Denver, Boulder, even some meetings down in Colorado Springs.
And then as a result of that, I kind of networked my way into this opportunity where I met a guy by the name of Ted Guggenheim, who owned Texas. And Texas is a small startup that had two different startups running under one roof with no money. And one of them was what was then called the iPad receptionist. So he and I collaborated and I said, you know, what if I just bought this from you? And he said, that'd be great. Gave them a little infusion of cash. And then also gave me the opportunity to take over a business that already had product market fit. And that was huge because, you know, starting something from scratch is really hard.
And these guys have done an amazing job where they had brought on about 120 locations, not many, to use this software. It was kind of a distraction to what they were doing with their business text us. So it's kind of like this good fit where I ended up taking over the iPad receptionist, now known as the receptionist, and been able to, luckily enough, take that from 120 locations to getting close to 5,000 locations, actually. And it's just one of those stories. We started a folding table in this coworking space called Industry that is in the North side of Denver. And it's just me in it and one of the sales guys. And that's kind of where it all started and how I ended up getting to run the receptionist.
That's an amazing story. So going from 120 location to 4,500 location, that's a big growth to manage. So before we dive into the growth, I'm really curious. I mean, is this a competitive market? Do you have other people trying to do the same thing or are you pretty much on the market?
Yes, we do. In fact, there's a lot of consolidation going on in our business right now. We are the only ones who have not taken on venture capital. Pretty much every one of the competitors or what I like to call rivals have taken on anywhere from probably 15 million to $150 million in venture capital. And now what's happening is they're being bought by private equity c...