Let's Meet Andrew Bolton

is because for the past 3 months, we, we just wrote a paper on senior citizenship in 2025, and we're not getting the usual types of calls. Yes, we do get the emails and the Facebook stuff, but what we do get is video games, dating, podcasting. Um, what we've found is around 15 to 20% of our call volume is just basically what we would consider advanced technological help. People like yourself that have podcasts, that have these YouTube channels. And this is not your— this is not the grandma and grandpa of what we remember.

Oh, that's so funny. Well, let me welcome everyone because they're like, wait, what? Wait, did I miss half the show? You missed half the show. Where have you been? Now, hello everyone. Okay, so I'm going to introduce you to Andrew Bolton, and as usual, I have no clue who he is, But he's brave. He's brilliant. And I think he's got a little hair, so I don't think I could say bald, but can I? A little— well, no, he's got a little hair.

I'm getting there.

Andrew, I love it. I can't— I want to, I want to go back to what you were just saying because I want to understand that. But Andrew has a really cool company called Tech Rescue. So I put the website there. You got to go check it out. It's really cool. So Andrew, first of all, where are you located?

So I split my time between South America and the United States.

Wow. Okay.

I'm just outside of— I'm just outside New York City. Wow.

Okay. Very nice. Uh, Connecticut area?

No, New Jersey. Um, just outside Manhattan. Okay.

Got it. Got it. I'm a Connecticut girl at heart in Daytona Beach right now. Love it. Okay. So tell us about you and then Tech Rescue and then what you were just saying, because I found that fascinating.

So Tech Rescue is a 24-hour customer support hotline. We handle everything from Bluetooth connectivity, it's your router problems, printers, scanners, things like that. We are 24 hours, 7 days a week, humans on the phone. So with your insurance agents, your banking, whatever it might be, you get tired of getting the bots and the mazes and press 1 for English, 2 for Spanish. We don't do that. When you call us, 855-250-8586, you get a real person on the phone 24/7, 7 days a week. You get a real person on the phone that can help you with your problems. Because after all, when you're calling, you want help. You don't want to go through a library. You don't want to read anything. You don't want to chat. You want somebody to take care of it for you. That's what we do. That's, that's our business.

I want to say I want to pay for it. I don't want to ask someone. I don't— I'm not going to be like, hey, can I pick your brain? How do I do that? Don't do that, people. It's not— just pay for it because it's not nice to do that. No picking of brains. So that's what I think.

So for $50 a month or $400 for the year, you get 24-hour access, 24/7, 7 days a week. And really what you're signing up for, or your loved one, is that peace of mind you have that you're no longer the tech support for mom. You're not dropping whatever you're doing, you're not going over to help her upload photos to Facebook, because for us in our family My grandmother was into genealogy. She loved it. And when Facebook came about, she really went into it because now she could contact family members that she had, you know, from the Library of Congress and the local— and local mortuary. And she was able to find all of our family's lineage through Facebook, whether it was in Canada, Scotland, England, and Ireland. She found it because we were all connected. And what we've noticed in our company over the past 2 and a half years of inception is that at the end of the day, we as a people just want to connect with each other. That's all we want to do. And what we've seen as a society is that I can know everything about you by going on your Facebook. I can know the name of your cat, where you go shopping, what you do on weekends. I can know everything there is to know about you, but I don't know who you are. We've done that. And we can see it within our personal relationships that we know these people, but do we really know them? We have common interests, but we don't share any of those interests together. Which, to our comment, what we were talking about now in our business for the past 3 and a half, 4 months, we're seeing questions come to us about, uh, skins in video games, Fortnite level codes, um, map walkthroughs. Oh yeah. 18% of last Christmas's purchasing power was done by senior citizens. And what they're doing is they're buying video games and they're subscribing to online video, uh, online entertainment such as World of Warcraft, Star Wars, um, The Old Republic, Fortnite. And what they're doing is they're getting involved with their grandkids. So their grandkids are big video game players with Nintendo Switch and, um, PlayStation handhelds. And what they're doing is they're buying the video games themselves and they're engaging with their grandchildren and their nieces and nephews online. So PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox comes in around somewhere between $400 and $600. You can get a 65-inch plasma screen TV at Walmart for under $400, some games here and there, and some online subscription. You're talking somewhere in the neighborhood of an entire setup for less than $1,000 a month. The average, um, uh, Social Security check that comes in is somewhere between $2,600 to $2,900. So for less than almost half of that, you have the ability now to connect with your grandchildren from the other side of the planet or just down the street when they come home from school. Because what are they doing? They're not running around in the backyard. They're going on to play video games. So what do grandparents do, or uncles and nephews? And they're going on and playing video games with them. So what we're seeing in our business is this evolution of connection as a society. And we're getting these questions now. We've also done a study on the divorce rates in terms of senior citizens and elderly care that are now re-engaging in a dating market. We are getting questions on hashtags, emojis, We've gotten some interesting questions about risqué conversations. And, uh, that makes sense.

Should I go on this web called the dark web? Wait, do you mind? I want to present— I, I, I never do this, but I actually want to right now because I think— okay, I don't even know what this looks like right now, do you? All right, so we've got— so I'm sorry, so I want— I, I just want to do this. I I can't help it. I want to look at this because this is so cool. Let's just take a second. Walk me through your site, Tech Rescue.

So here we have our intro video, basically trying to explain what it is, who we are, and what we do. Long story short, as I mentioned, we're 24-hour tech support. We offer backend protection, um, so your name, your telephone number, your email address is protected. Um, we have a backend development team that God forbid, you know, something was flagged on the dark web. We get a notification about it and we'll let you know. And then it's— and then we inform you to, you now need to take care of this. You know, credit card information is one of the top things that are stolen from seniors 65 and older. Over $8 billion was stolen over the past 2 years in 2022, 2023, and 2024 with seniors because it has gotten so advanced, the scams. That even, even the federal government is having trouble trying to identify them. So with the power of AI, we all love it, it's a useful tool, it's made chatbots much easier, it's created whole new genres on YouTube for animations and storytelling. It's very powerful tool, but in the hands of wrong people, all the information that people put online, such as your videos, uh, your pictures and things like that. All of that information is public. So somebody has to do is download your videos that you have on, let's say, Facebook or Instagram, save them to a folder drive, upload those to, let's say, Sana or, uh, one of the other AI programs, and they can create a script to call your loved ones. So you're a grandparent, you have a, you have a granddaughter, grandson in college. It's 11:30 on a Friday, you get a phone call. Grandma, Grandpa, it's Steven, it's Tyler. I'm in trouble. Well, what's the first thing you're gonna do?

Bail him out. That happened to my sister-in-law.

Her—

yep, that's exactly what happened. And they didn't even know about it. He woke up during— he happened to end up having heart surgery. When he woke up, he looked and he's like, oh, I thought you were— like, how are you? I was so scared. I— and that's when they found out. And that was like a while later. So I love this, by the way, not just seniors, but like my husband has a traumatic brain injury. So kind of, you know, so he's like, he is every day. It's like, how do I do my phone? How do I do this? And it really, it's annoying because it's like, we don't, none of us know how to really teach him correctly in a way where we're having him write it down or, you know what I mean? Like he's listening, he's getting it at that moment, but then he's not. So I could see it for anyone that has any, you know, TBIs. Oh, like this right now, he's interrupting me even though I told him 25 times that I'm in a podcast. Yes, I am.

See, it happens to everybody. My grandmother, my father were the reasons why we created Tech Rescue. He asked how to forward an email, and I looked at him and I said, how do you not know how to forward an email? And sure enough, he doesn't. See, what people don't understand is this piece of device right here, this little thing right here, is more powerful than all the computers at NASA sent Neil Armstrong to the moon. This thing right here is more powerful than the computers that sent us to the lunar landing. Technology advances on an average about 5 to 7 years every year in terms of— let's consider it technology dog years, if you will. So from those who have seen technology from the size of the Chrysler Building to tools more powerful than rocket propellants in the palm of your hand. You know, these past 80 years, you know, 70-something years has been extremely difficult for a lot, and it's, it's evolving ever faster. So people are getting left behind. So what do you do? Well, there's nothing out there. We looked.

I love it. Is that what happened? Okay, so tell me, give me— so when— because that, that's a true entrepreneur. So guys, when you're listening Andrew Bolton is a true entrepreneur because people said, you know, there's businessman, business owner, entrepreneur. He saw a problem and then he found the solution, and that's what I look at.

So serendipity works in many different ways. So as I said, I'm from Jersey. So after I come back into the kitchen, I'm sitting down with Mosh and we're having our coffee, and she looked at me and she goes, you're telling me that there's nothing there? And I said, no, there's nothing there. So We pull out the phones, we start looking, and we both said there's nothing here. There's no— there's no number that you can call. There's no nothing. That's just video libraries, call it next business hours, um, contact robots, AI chatbots. It's— there's no putting—

one other thing, I'm sorry, wait, can I just say this? So when my daughter called Apple because she had questions, so she went on to the web, found the number for Apple, called and I was listening to conversation. All of a sudden the person's like, and, um, oh, I need you to go to the store and get me some gift cards so you can pay. And I was like, Alana, this— so I talked to, obviously a scam, hung up, and I was like, honey, where were you? They're creating like fake websites so you think you're even calling Apple tech support and you're actually not. You're— they're gonna try to scam you. So that's crazy. So really having trust and faith. $50 is such a fair price. How do your people know everything? What if I called, I said I have the Galaxy O02 and, uh, I need to know how to post a photo and, you know, and how do I get on Facebook Marketplace?

So one of the things that my job is every day is answering the new standard operating procedures. So I pull calls from all of our call center in the Carolinas. So I'm pulling every one of— I'm pulling the samples every day, listening to them, writing the standard operating procedures on the calls that we hear. And if there's something I don't know, I outreach and I call different, uh, companies, and we, we get access to the procedures on how to do things. Um, we've hired tech analysts and tech support before, um, people that have written code for Apple, for Microsoft. Um, I have no problem, none whatsoever, being able to answer problems that people call in for. Uh, the thing I would say that is extremely important to the company and the core pillars is empathy. Um, my grandmother just loved which— being connected with everybody. And when you call us, in the second page of our standard operating procedure is in big red letters Every call is somebody's most important person. It's in big red letters because that's somebody's husband, that's somebody's wife, that's somebody's mother, their father, their aunt, their uncle. That's somebody's most important person. That's why they subscribe to us. So every call is important. And when we don't know something, I have personally made those phone calls and walked the person through it because I had to go find out how to do it. So as an owner, as the CEO of the company, I am responsible. The buck stops with me. So if we don't know something, it's my job to figure it out. And that's what—

is that your grandma with holding the doggy dog dogster?

Yes.

She's so beautiful. What a beautiful woman. And then the other picture, is that your grandfather?

No, that, that's, um, that's my uncle. That's one of my uncles who, uh, had trouble with technology.

All right, so I have a couple questions. So what would happen if we picked up the phone and we called right now?

Do they want to know my membership number, or if you're a member, uh, they'd say, thank you for calling Tech Rescue, are you a member? And they would look up your name, uh, your telephone number if you have one. And if you are a member, your, your information will automatically pull up because we use HubSpot. So our call center has that integrated with the system. So when you call, it'll automatically come up and say, yes, Mr. Anderson, yes, Mrs. Mrs. Smith, thank you so much for calling Tech Rescue. How may I help you today? Because at the end of the day, when you're calling, like, let's say your insurance company or your bank, you got a problem. I want to speak to somebody. I don't want to wait on the phone for 20 minutes. I don't want to keep pressing buttons. I want to pick up the phone. I want to talk to somebody. I need this fixed. We've gotten into a generation of being instant gratified. I get that. I am the same way too. But what really irks me is that We spend all this money, right? Let's say your health insurance, right? You're spending $600, $500 a month on your overhead, and then you still have maybe a $9,000 to $7,000 deductible. And when I call, I'm spending maybe $20,000 a year. I expect my phone call to be answered, not to wait 45 minutes to get somebody on the phone. Or to call back at next business day. Same with the bank, and same with, same with any car lease or anything. If I'm paying you this kind of money, $500 to $1,000 a month, I call, I expect an answer, and I expect it not to be treated like I'm bothering you to be called. That's what I've gotten on the phone with many of the, many of our suppliers. And in my personal life, you call a place on the phone and it's like, why are you calling? Like, why are you calling me? Just hand me your money and don't bother me.

That's funny. Growing up in a family business, my parents always said to have a live person answering the phone. All right, so I want to go through— I'm curious really about like your marketing of this product because I could see on the website it definitely looks like you're marketing it to our seniors, which I absolutely love. And I loved— I saw, you know, you're right, like if you're a doctor or an attorney, you have some of these jobs where your time is so limited and now all of a sudden you want to help your family member, but you don't really have the time, or maybe you don't even have the knowledge either. You're not 100% sure. Not everyone knows how to teach something. So you can know how to do it right, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to relay it correctly. So like half the things my husband asks to do, I don't have the patience. So my daughter will do it until her patience is gone. So something like this to me really makes sense. How are you marketing it to the seniors?

So my sales team is in California. They're doing their outreach to assisted living facilities and retirement communities, um, as well as, uh, the independent livings like the villages and things like that. And my marketing team is out of Wisconsin, and they're doing our YouTube channels, our, um, our social media pages. One of the best pieces of advice I got from Harvard was The best companies are delegated, and I delegate all work to those who not only, one, enjoy what they're doing, but they're also good at what they're doing. And those two combinations make for me not having to micromanage anybody.

I love that. And you're empowering them. I just wrote an article about delegation and the importance of it if you want to grow other people. Now, just, just FYI, in case you didn't know this, you probably do, but like the, um, the assisted living and the associations, they do have like the organization. So I would go right to the top. Like the Florida Assisted Living Association and then go down. And I know that because I used to do work in the promotional products merch business, and that's how I would get into the door is I would start from the top and go down. So I don't know if your team knows that, but that's the best way to do it.

I'll pass it along.

Yeah. And to reach out, I think that's great. All right. But what about other markets too? I totally understand. Is there like, I just bought a Microsoft, I just bought a Dell. What happens in there in that case?

So with small businesses, we have delis, pizzerias, laundromats, taco trucks, you name it, we have it. We've gotten calls from small, uh, bodegas that have, uh, the card panel systems that go down, you know, all of these new ventures in terms of like credit card payment systems. There's always a new one coming out every 6 months, so we're constantly trying to keep up with who's coming out with what new system because there's Chime, there's Apple, there's Acorns, there's, there's EveryPay, There's just so many different ways to pay these all-new machines. So we're constantly getting calls about that. Um, the new ones, um, we're getting are just companies are nervous about the economy. And we were originally going to be expanding this summer into the European markets, but with everything the way it is in the market, we just, we couldn't really look to a stable projection for these next 2 quarters. And for us right now, the United States is where we're just going to be circling the wagons, I think, for the rest of the year. And then we can see what happens towards the end of next— at the end of the 4th quarter.

It's— I, I just absolutely think that this whole idea is so fantastic. I'm so excited that you're a guest because I could see the need for it. And I will tell you, not to brag, but my parents My dad was on social media, on social. He owned an art gallery, so he loved going on. So he actually was on X, LinkedIn, Facebook. He loved it all. So when a lot of people say, well, I'm too old, I'm like, my dad was 89 and still— he passed away at 90, both my parents. They were still on. As a matter of fact, I still have all their messages. My mom, every time she wrote me on Facebook, I would be like, Who's your cousin's first name? What's her first name? Because I, I couldn't believe it. I still had a hard time when one day my mom called me. She's like, why are you quizzing me all the time? It's truly me. And I'm like, I don't know, Mom. I'm just surprised, right? A lot of people are surprised, but give our seniors a chance to let them show that they want to be on it. They just need to have their answers, their questions answered. I just love it.

Well, one of the other things that we have found is that because things like social media, like X, Instagram, Facebook, they're not really businesses, they're marketing platforms. And what we've noticed, and my father actually was the first one to bring this to our attention, is they're constantly moving their setting systems around from where we originally knew that their settings were. They've constantly moved it around because the data that they collect on you when you deselect all those settings, all those trackers, where you go, what you're interested in, who your friends are, who you send messages to the most, what those messages are usually about, these are tracked. And if you ever wonder how you go on your social media and you have the most perfectly tailored, you know, marketings for golf, for a car, for a vacation, for a hotel, whatever it might be, it's because you're being tracked. You're being tracked all the time. And what they don't want you to do is play with the settings. So my father, you know, his phone buzzing all the time, he wanted the settings turned off. And it took me a good 15 or so minutes to find out where they put it, where they've put some of the different settings. And they do that on purpose. So it's not, it's not a lack of knowledge on our seniors' part. And people in the small business community. It's the fact that we're playing a game with companies that are purposely trying to keep an eye on you. That's the game we're really playing.

No idea at all. So wait, so what were you doing before this?

I was on Wall Street. I specialized in derivatives, specializing in finance and technology, and then I went into venture capital where, uh, we launched two other companies and This is my third launch.

Wow. I absolutely— all right, so what if, like, I'm curious, so I love ChatterSocial.io. So Chatter is a new, uh, audio video platform, amazing, where people go on it. Would you have, like, what is— if I called, I said, I have Chatter, I have Clubhouse, or any of those fan play base, I think it is, and any of those. Blue Sky, do you know all of them too? You go in and get the, the—

yeah, so if you are a member, we'll pull up your information and we have, we have a database of the things you've called about. So if we've seen that this is a problem for you, like a constant thing, we can put these— we can put a few of those cases together and we've reached— we've actually written out to Virgin Mobile, we have written to AT&T, we have written to Verizon saying we're putting a collection of, let's say, 50 of our customers are facing this particular problem. There's a bug that you need to fix. There's an issue that you need to fix. So we've put that data together. So if you're not a member, we'd ask you if you want to sign up. And once you did, we'd walk you through the process. We'd send you an email with a third-party encrypted link. We would now connect, and we would be able to take over the device wherever you are in the world, from anywhere in the world. And fix the problem right then and there. And when we're done, we'll disconnect from that connection and we cannot get access to that device ever again. We have to start the process all over. So there's no way for us to take the data. Now, the beautiful thing about our company is that we also use a HIPAA-compliant call center in the Carolinas. Um, so we are in the telehealth sector. We are helping seniors put that information on their medical information online for their primary cares as well as specialty groups, because a lot of Aetnas and Blue Cross Blue Shield as well as, um, Humana are doing away with a lot of the in-person stuff. They're pushing a lot of the telehealth information. So we are on that front line with our, with our customers, helping them get involved with those particular aspects of the day-to-day routines of telehealth. Um, for example, 43.3% of seniors ages 65 or older are in telemedicine since 2021, and almost 14% of our 80-something million seniors do not have access whatsoever to any home care, which is visiting, uh, visiting Sisters of St. Mary, Meals on Wheels, um, uh, traveling nurses. 14% of our population doesn't have that ability. So with Tech Rescue, if we can help you get on to your primary care, if we can help you get on to, let's say, your insurance's, uh, website, we can then help you set up an appointment. We can then help you set up a car ride, uh, to go visit your doctor. There's a lot of things with technology that we can do that if you're not comfortable with it, which 73% of seniors to this day are not comfortable with technology today, they're not. So to download an app for an Uber, to put the Uber address, to set up the payment system to your credit card or banking account, that all of these things that we take for granted are milestone challenges for those who may not have experience with it. And that's why we're here.

Incredible. What about those that are vision impaired?

So vision impaired, we have a standard operating procedure for that, um, where we have a specialist trained that do, um, from the telehealth market side of our call center. They're the ones that take over that specialty. So there's whole— there's a whole situation that goes into all that.

I'm so impressed, Andrew. I feel like it is— I want to go back to your website actually. So Excuse me, I want to, I want to look at it again because it's— you have the case. Tell me about the case studies, that just to help someone understand.

So the case studies are for the universities, hospitals, and some of the organizations that are using some of our data. So we supply some on publicly on our LinkedIn page. We produce, uh, case articles and things like that for anybody in the scientific community to actually take some of that information What people need to understand is when companies also collect data, we're not also collecting data to sell you something. But at least on our side, my mother, who's Dr. Virginia Bolton, who's the CFO, is also a proponent of women's health studies. And her philosophy is this: if information is out there and it's public, there's somebody out there that can do good work with data. Because without data Without information, we're just guessing. So if we as companies are willing to share certain types of information, then young writers, young analysts, young doctors, young scientists, people who can use that data to answer some of the questions that we haven't asked yet can be asked. And that's how we grow. That's how we keep moving forward. but we have to be able to be willing to send some of that data to the real world, which we try to do as best as we can.

I don't even know what to say. I'm so impressed by what you've offered. This is really a solution to a serious problem for— and not just— it's twofold, not just for the senior, but also for the family member that may be short on time, or again, just doesn't know how to explain things in a way, or maybe just doesn't have the answer. Instead of going to ChatGPT and trying to figure it out. Wow. So really, for someone like myself who, you know, I fool everyone, they think I'm so savvy and I'm not, but you know, I don't tell them that.

Well, you can be. You just have a secret weapon now.

I love it. And the price is really fair. $50 a month is very fair. $400 a year is very, very fair.

Well, my mother— I was having dinner with, you know, I was having dinner with Mom and we got into the argument of, you know, We're— she, you know, at the end of the month, you know, she's the CFO, so she runs the bills. We're a very, very successful company, and my mother runs it like a house, like, which also keeps me in line too. But, um, we were looking at the Netflix bill, and she goes, are we even watching this? I said, I haven't watched Netflix in months. And she goes, we're paying this money for Netflix and nobody uses it. I said, yeah. He goes, she's all right. So we're less than a family package for Netflix.

It's amazing. It is really amazing. Which, by the way, I think that's amazing. That would be a good service, is to help people figure out where their subscriptions are and how to cancel it. So easy to actually open a subscription, but really difficult to cancel it. And I think that the— with the Attorney General now, you're supposed to have it be just as easy to open as it is to close with one click, but nobody's really doing that. And I know seniors, they probably don't realize how many subscriptions, or maybe they ask their granddaughter, oh, well, you know, do that subscription. So I think that would be a, a good little add-on.

I mean, we, we've had one or two of those calls. I mean, we haven't had many of them, but it is something that we can address with our clientele and you can help them to figure it out, right?

Yeah.

We can definitely make more of an announcement or market that a little bit more. Um, of course there's always room that we can improve. The thing that I would say to any entrepreneur is that with your business, you can't take it personal. You have to let data speak for itself. You cannot— because when you're an entrepreneur, it's not just a business, it's a concept, it's an idea, it's, it's where you tie your value, you know. You have this hypothesis, this question that you need to have answered and you need to be right. But the problem is, is when you get so into that, you miss the data and you need to be willing to take a step back and see where you're failing. I have many of those issues too. Every week I have my meetings with my sales and marketing team. We look at our pass-through rates, we look at our click-throughs, we look at what are our subscription rates for that week, that marketing campaign that we just launched. Everything is measured, and if it's not moving us in, in a direction that shows projection, then we're not— we, we can't afford to keep spending money on things that just don't work.

I love this. Andrew, before I let you go, I have a question. How long did it take you from ideation to like creation?

We're coming to our 3-year mark. I think it took about 7 months, 7 months of what started was a question. The next stage was whiteboard markers on the stainless steel refrigerator. Then it turned into a business plan, then it turned into an LLC, and then it turned into a website. And then it, you know, it was, uh, doing it yourself, marketing yourself, and then saving up to hire a marketing person and then hiring a sales team. What I say to any entrepreneur is that if this is something you want to do, you got to believe in it more than anything in the world. You, I mean, you, you have to believe in this more than you want to breathe, more than you want to eat. Um, you going to— your job is no longer your job. Your job is the way that you earn money to put into your business. That's all it is, because all you think about is your business. When you're at work, all you think about is your business. You, you need to be prepared for this to be an obsession, because if you're not obsessed, you'll never make it.

I love that. I do know David Meltzer, he has a saying that says, if you love what you do, then learn to love the things you don't love to do, which I love that, because once you'll do that, you're really set. I, I think it's such a thing. I'm so like, there's times where I'm like, I, I feel like when I do No Prep Needed, I'm like, am I missing the boat not knowing? But I kept this You know, as it is, I'm very transparent. I didn't look you up. So I'm like triple excited because it is such a great idea. So well needed. I'm looking forward to really, I'm going to go in and every platform you're on, I'm going to share it and tell people, cause this is huge. I absolutely love it. And yes, I am in Florida. So we have a high percentage of seniors.

Florida is a very big demographic for us. I've gotten asked where they can send Christmas cookies. I've gotten asked, um, what our favorite— you know, what's the team's favorite pie. I mean, I, I laugh and I say, don't worry about it, save on the shipping cost. The shipping cost alone right now will kill you.

I just love that. I have a question before you let you go. Sorry. Do, do people do— and I'm not even thinking seniors in general— do people want to talk to a male or a female? Is it usually same-sex or not same-sex? Does it matter? Has anyone said, no, I don't want to talk, I want a different voice, like when they're getting help?

You know, surprisingly, we've never run into any of those problems, um, which is one of the things that I look at in terms of our country, as us as a society. We're not really— I know this is a hot take, but I don't think we're really as radical as you know, some of the media plays out to. Because if I look at my fellow Americans, um, I see young white children wearing, you know, NFL, MLB, NBA jerseys of different races, creeds, and cultures. I mean, if we really were those type of people, you know, those people, we would never be letting our children wear, you know, the, the name or number of somebody other than you know, who we identify as. When we listen to phone calls and I listen to my, you know, my samples that I pull every day, I hear people from all parts of the country, from California to Texas to the Dakotas to Boston to Florida, New York. Everybody is somebody else's grandmother, everybody is somebody else's mother or father, and they got, you know, a tablet, they got a PC, they got a phone, they've got something, and We're just looking to have somebody on the phone say, listen, I understand, I can help you right now. And what I love most about what we do is we're just trying to make the world a better place, just one phone call at a time, and helping people.

Oh my gosh, Andrew, I just absolutely love everything about the business, but you are incredible. You're the founder and CEO?

Yep. And my mom is the co-founder and CFO.

I love that. I worked my parents— my parents never retired, but I worked with my parents for over, I don't even know, 45 years. It was the best pleasure, except taking vacation together is kind of tough.

Surprisingly, my mother and I, my mother and I have a very good relationship. Um, I've given her more gray hairs than she knows what to do with. Don't tell anybody that she dyes it. Um, but the promise that I made her on this is my third business that we're creating is that she was gonna be the CFO, she was gonna be in charge of everything. And I know it's silly enough to say, we're as successful as we are, my mom has me on an allowance. I am not even kidding. My mom— my mom has a CEO on an allowance. She, she wasn't gonna let me make, you know, the mistakes that I've done in the past. And, um, she runs a tight ship. That's all I got to say. She runs a tight ship.

I love that. People do look at like what the CEO— so you're not driving the newest vehicle? No. Yeah, see, I love your mom. Brilliant.

Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. My mother has strict rules for anything. First, all like any business, all operational expenses have to be covered. Second, there has to be 6 months of leeway in cash reserves for all of our employees. Nobody gets fired, nobody gets laid off because we're having a hard time. We have 6 months of cash, hard cash, ready to go to pay for everybody. And we also do not have clocked-in schedules. Um, and I know we're running out of time, but because we have hot calls— angry, uh, confused, frustrated, uh, lost, or argumentative— every call is a hot call. To me, what's more important for my people is that if you don't feel comfortable today to be on the phone for a hot call, take off. I don't, I don't want you working if you can't. If you're not there— let's say you had a— one of our— call it one of our agents is a brand new mother, a couple months old. Don't even bother. If you don't feel up to it, don't even bother. If you didn't get enough sleep, don't even bother. I would rather— because our reputation of our company is more important and the, and the quality of product that we give and service that we provide I want you to feel comfortable and want to come to work. So you don't miss a paycheck, you don't miss your hours, you get 40 hours no matter what. And if you don't feel up to it, don't even bother.

I want to cry and I'm holding my tears in. It's— that's so beautiful. She reminds me of my mom. That's so— the empathy, you definitely— when you started with the conversation, definitely full circle. I just, I just, I just love, love, love everything about what you're doing. Thank you so much. Is there anything I didn't ask you that you would like to share?

The best piece of advice I could give to, to entrepreneurs and business owners is look at what we've been doing for the past 30 years and ask yourself, is it working? Because what— one of the lessons I learned at school from people who have made multi, multi-million dollar companies is how you treat your people and your clients and customers is how they're going to treat your bottom line and your wallet. Take a look, look at Jaguar. Look at— take a look at Jaguar. Take a look at Disney. Take a look at, um, all the other companies that are completely ignoring their clients. They are ignoring their customers. They are completely disregarding what everyone has to say and proceeding with whatever it is that they feel like they want to do. And look at what happened. Not to get political, but we take a look at Snow White, almost $200 million, $300 million in expenses, and it doesn't even gross $100 million. That tells you something.

Yeah, yeah, you're right. I, I, I, I just, I, I just love everything. I, I think you need more in your, um, I feel like I like going on your website. I don't feel like I got the grasp of your own personal story. You know, there wasn't anything that I didn't see, you know, about the CEO or about ourselves. Like, I think you should share a little bit more of that. I think that would be— because it's just so lovely. Uh, I'm in love with your mom already. All right, well, thank you so much for being out here.

Strong Irish Catholic woman from Astoria, Queens.

I love that. Uh, I just— I, I— it's just so great. Is your— is your father alive?

Yes, my dad is alive. He's still— you can see him on our YouTube channel as I'm explaining some of the things to him. He's still grouchy. He's still—

that's so cute. But it is really difficult. That's the thing. People are like, well, I'll just send you a YouTube. And I'm like, I, I— you know what I love about this is because I don't learn by watching video. I need to— and if I'm watching a video, it's good. I have to stop and do it, stop and do it. I have to have everything lined up. So I think people need to understand that not everyone learns the same way. So I love that you're offering this because they're really walking you through it. So what if I said to them, I can't understand what you're trying to tell me?

Oh, my father was the guinea pig. My father asked more questions than an Alzheimer's patient. What does that do? What does this do? What if I do this? What if I press that? Believe me, this— he was the guinea pig. He was the guinea pig for a lot of this.

Is there a limit to the time? I mean, I Wait, no way. You mean— I'm like, sorry, it's been 5 hours. Is that okay? Seriously, you have to— we—

so far we have kept it under an hour. We have kept everything under an hour so far.

Wow. Oh my gosh, I, I can't wait to get here.

And we have gone down— I've listened to some conversations that have gone down rabbit holes. Rabbit holes. Really? Yeah. And my people are good. They know. They, they are very good. They know how to bring it back. They know how to circle, circle back. They know how to put them back into position.

It—

I, I, I am really impressed with my people. I really am.

Well, it comes to the top, so that's, that's the whole thing. So kudos to you, Andrew, and your mom. I love this. Thank you for coming on. I'm so glad that you saw my show and, uh, and thought enough to ask. I really appreciate it. I, I absolutely just love you. I, I'm so excited. I just, I can't even explain it. Look at— I'm crying because what you were saying about your mother was so beautiful. You, you do understand that, right? It's, it touches the heart to have such a strong mother as a leader and to know that she really cares. The whole idea of an allowance is just sweetness. It's like the sugar that goes—

oh, she— listen, my mother ruled the house with a cast iron skillet. There was nothing sweet about it.

Oh, I love that though. Look where you are now.

There's nothing sweet about that. That Irish Catholic— I've had— we have a pan We have a frying pan in our house that's got dents in it, and those are my first set of concussions.

Oh my God, you're so funny. I have a question for you. Techrescue.io— what does the io actually stand for?

Uh, the io, to be honest with you, it was the only one available when I was purchasing the domain name.

But it kind of goes with it, like opera, like I think of an io. So okay, I wasn't sure.

I started saying that I wanted to have something quirky and interesting to say, but no, it was the only thing available when we bought the domain.

I love it. I just love everything. All right, I'm going to be your number one fan in Daytona Beach, Florida, going through everything. So thank you. This will be turned into a podcast in just a couple weeks. So we are live now, and it's just been great. Thank you so much. And thank you for allowing me to look at your website at the same time. That was fun. I like to do that. So awesome. First time I've ever done that in 4 years.

So, well, when everything— so when the new design comes out, I'll be— I'd be— you'll be the first one to, uh, get a message about it. And We have a couple of big things that we've been working on, um, that I think our customers and our clients are really going to appreciate. Everything that we do is for the better of our clients. It's not just us— yes, making a dollar, yes, we want to be profitable, yes, we want to be a successful company— but what my grandmother taught me and the lessons that I've learned over my lifetime now is that we only really need so much. We only really need, in terms of our success and growth rate, we only need so much. Everything else after that is just stuff that we're going to be sending into different organizations. My mother is a big proponent of the Boys and Girls Club of America, Girl Scouts, YMCAs, uh, the girls, uh, girls youth programs. My mother, my mother was a very, very, um active, uh, active socialist. So she's, you know, she believes in a lot of different causes. So the money that we have that, that comes in more than what is required to really keep the company flowing is donated mostly. Um, so it almost runs as a for-profit nonprofit in a weird way because my mother is a proponent of that. She's one of those people that you know, goes to church every Sunday, still brings me when I don't fight or complain too much. Um, and her feeling is, is that for, for the shovel that you have, God's got a bigger one. So she's, she's one of those people. She's definitely one of those people that keeps, keeps you level and finding true north. You don't— you let— she doesn't let my head get too big.

Oh, Andrew, oh my gosh, I, uh, I could just listen to you for hours. Thank Thank you so much for sharing your mom's wisdom, your own wisdom, which is incredible, and this beautiful technology where— guys, stop answering the questions and driving yourself crazy. techrescue.io. It's amazing. Okay, I'm gonna put it everywhere. Thank you, Andrew. Have a great day. I'm so excited. You really made my day. Thank you. I mean, you got me tearing and crying, but thank you. It was so beautiful. I really enjoyed this conversation.

Well, when things get really moving, I'd love for you to meet Ma, and the two of you can just just, I'm just gonna go and get a cup of coffee and you two just go, because I know the conversation would— will go more than 2 hours.

You're so funny. I love it. I love it. All right, next time I'm in Connecticut— and, and if you ever go to Connecticut, ever been in—

it's right, it's right across the Tappan Zee Bridge.

So my mom and dad left their legacy, and it's a toy museum. It's in Cheshire, Connecticut, the cartoon character and comic museum. And the grounds are beautiful, and they just wanted to do something for kids of all ages. And so 80,000 toys curated, um, yeah, it's beautiful on a beautiful property. So we have very similar parents, and that is what I love. So thank you, and, uh, have a great rest of the day. I just— I, I really— normally I'm like so full of words, I'm like just like, whoo, thank you, this is great. I'm gonna end the stream right now, and I really appreciate just having you.