From Tech Troubles to Triumph: Andrew Bolton's Journey with Tech Rescue LLC

Hello everyone and welcome. Paul H. Flowers Jr. here with another episode on the Pope Replace podcast show. In today's segment of the Everyday Entrepreneur, we have the esteemed Mr. Andrew Bolton, founder and CEO of Tech Rescue LLC. Now he's going to come on and share with us not just about his company, we're going to dive into a few areas because of course he says that there's no off-limit questions. So my listeners, you know how we go there. And, uh, with that, I wanna open it up to you, Mr. Bolden. Andrew, how are you, my friend?

I'm doing well. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.

Absolutely. Beautiful day in proverbial Hollywood, though neither one of us are on the West Coast here. Uh, so tell us, we're gonna start out with Tech Rescue and then we're gonna go back and then bring it all full circle. So tell us what you're up to now with Tech Rescue, why, this company? Why now?

Why now? Because people are screaming out, people are screaming for it, literally, like literally screaming for it. Um, my company really shouldn't exist. So Tech Rescue is a 24-hour customer support helpline, anything from Bluetooth connectivity to your router to video games, which we can get into in a little bit. Um, we are a 24-hour customer support hotline. There are no bots, there are no mazes, there's no press 1 for English, 2 for Spanish. Nope. One number, 855-250-8586. You get somebody on the phone and you get help wherever you are, anywhere in the world, period. End of discussion. There's no ifs, ands, buts about it. And the reason why our company exists is because we're all tired of the chats, we're all tired of the bots, we're all tired of when I have a problem, I don't want to sit on my phone for 45 minutes hitting 1-3-9-7-star-pound just to finally hear, would you like to speak to a representative? Why do you think I'm calling? And what you'll notice, and I, I challenge everybody to do this, if you start going to the major Fortune 100, Fortune 1000, the Fortune 500 companies, where's their contact information? They're pulling it from their websites.

Interesting. Well, you know what, I'm— this is obviously being recorded, so I'm gonna go back and take the Pepsi challenge, so to speak. We're gonna take the Andrew challenge and take a see who's got that information. Uh, love that you shouted out the number to those, and we'll of course, uh, hit it back at the end again, but 855-250-8586, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I've gotta admit, I hadn't called, right? And I'm just curious at how you're able to maintain a 24/7 call center with all of the various aspects of technology that a person can need help with. How does something like that function?

Well, we've got a really good staff. We got— right now we're growing. We've got currently 15 workers working, uh, 24-hour shifts. Um, we're growing, uh, to meet the demand, which we've now started running into a new set of interesting questions. Um, over 18% of the video game population is 65 and older. So 3 months ago, we started getting calls about skins, expansion packs, and I wasn't expecting these type of questions. So I had to actually hire one of my best friends from my personal life who's a video game nut. Just every console, every game, everything. He loves it. Like, this is what he does. And he's been our He's been our outside analyst writing all the standard operating procedures from World of Warcraft, Star Wars: The Old Republic, um, everything, everything, like everything. And I had to drive up to Boston with him, uh, because he's up in Boston. I had to drive up to him and I spent the entire weekend with him working on different protocols and trying to map it out and We expanded our standard operating procedure from Mac, Windows, and now consoles. So, you know, video games, it's now become a very, very lucrative part of the gaming industry. So at 18% population of 65 and older in the gaming sector, that makes up somewhere in the neighborhood of around— last year it was in the neighborhood of about $70 million worth of spending in the video game sector. By seniors, seniors alone.

It's a nice chunk.

It is. So to give you an example, 89% of all seniors, Americans— now we're only focusing on America, which we'll talk to you about what we were planning on this year. Um, 89% of seniors 50 and older, 65 and older, anywhere between 50 and 65 and older, have a smartphone and have technology accessible. That is up from 2022 by the Pew Research Group from 78%. So we're seeing an increase in the accessibility of our seniors because what we're finding out on our calls is that people just want to connect. People just want to talk to one another. People just want to engage with one another. And if you've ever seen YouTube, which we all have, you've seen Sniper Grandpa. Yeah, I, I, I— a former Korean specialty sniper is just schooling kids all over the world, just murking them, murking them by the buckets. Huh. But guess what? He's found an outlet and he's found this, you know, this, this thing that he enjoys. And we're seeing that in our business. So to answer your other question, what do we have planned? Well, not to get political, but we were originally planning on expanding into Europe this, this summer. We we were expanding European expansion.

Gotcha.

Since the beginning of the tariffs, I've had to rewrite our fiscal projections 5 different times. And not, not to get political, but as— but somebody who, you know, works with economic material, you know, economic news, It's extremely hard to calculate and extremely difficult to predict what could possibly happen when one person out of 8 billion people on the planet can just say one thing and the market spirals 2,000 points. Now, regardless of your politics, if you had an employee that whenever they felt like it could pull the fire alarm and shut the building down and call the fire department, police department and shut down the job site for half a day. How long do you think they're going to stay on the job if they've done it more than once?

Shouldn't be very long, but well, you know, it is what it is.

Hey, regardless of your politics, you know, as, as business owners, it's very hard to figure out what we're going to do. So currently right now, we're really kind of just circling the wagons. My first responsibility as an owner, as a company, is to make sure that the people that are employed and under my care are taken care of. So we have, we're, we have plenty of runway room for our teams. But it's the fact of I'm annoyed because I wanted to actually promote two people, right? I wanted to give them, I wanted to give them a bigger, a bigger, uh, hourly, a bigger hourly salary. Um, I believe One of the best pieces of advice that was given to me is how you treat your customers and how you treat your, how you treat your employees is how they treat your bottom line and your wallet.

Absolutely great advice.

So they've been with me since the beginning. They're fantastic, fantastic representatives. They're calm under pressure. They're great with pivoting, which is negotiation skills. They're great in customer satisfaction. And I think they should be training other people how to do this. So I was going to promote the two of them, and now we can't because I don't have a clear future.

Well, that actually— you answered one of the questions that I was thinking of as far as some of the initial hurdles, because, you know, we're a couple years in now, going on the third year. Is that right?

Yep.

Right. So that obviously is one of the hurdles that can happen when it comes to the change in regime, so to speak. And with that, having to pivot is one of those necessary things. Now, within The Everyday Entrepreneur, of course, one of those things are helping people to understand what can happen and how you handle it from an internal perspective. So yes, we know that you may not necessarily promote and/or not necessarily take a certain expansion to another country or territory, but how does that affect Andrew the person, right? How does that affect you internally? What does that do to you, and how do you keep yourself level, if at all, right? It's okay to be vulnerable.

Uh, I go through Pepto-Bismol like crazy.

Got it, check.

Um, I mean, at the end of the day, the buck stops with me. Um, I've got— I mean, being an entrepreneur, somebody asked me this question on another podcast, and I say to somebody who wants to start a business, make sure this is what you want to do. Because everybody— there's this culture, right? We have this culture of being a boss, right? We all want to be the boss. We all— and, and you hear it in the dating community, I want to be the alpha, I want to be the big guy. Okay, what you don't realize is being the big dog, being the alpha, being the boss is not just the parking space Exactly. You're responsible for other people. You know, how people put food on their table is your responsibility. How somebody's able to get their 9-year-old kid to the doctor's office and have health insurance to get their teeth cleaned or braces put on their kid at $1,500 out of pocket, that's your responsibility as a CEO, as an owner. So this idea that, you know, somebody wants to take take charge. Okay, do you know what comes with that job?

Absolutely. Uh, reminds me of a quote: with great power comes great responsibility.

Ben, Spider-Man.

Absolutely. Now, you let me go back to go forward a little bit, and, and I can see it, you know, for my Audible audience, we're also going to release a simultaneous YouTube version of this. So what you'll notice when Andrew talks about the numbers is like he's really good with statistics. Being able to pull the quotes, being able to pull the stats. And I think that might have something to do with his background. If you would, with us, uh, with our listeners, please, Andrew, share with us kind of how you got to the point of starting Tech Rescue. What was your background and how that influenced your decision to jump right in?

So my background starts, uh, in 2011 when I graduated. Um, I actually was going to do an internship at Bear— uh, at, uh, Lehman Brothers. Uh, I was originally going to do an internship at Lehman Brothers, and I remember the the Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. I didn't have a summer internship that year. I was in college. So when I graduated college, I walked up Park Avenue handing out my resume. There were no jobs to be had in 2011. And eventually I found a Starbucks and I got introduced to one of my first bosses and I took my Series 7, 56, my 6, my 4. I got into brokerage and trading. I specialized in derivatives, option contracts, specializing in banking and tech sectors, and did that. Made my first million, lost my first million, partied away my next million, lost that too. Went to rehab. Then I— then when I got home, mom handed me that proverbial question, what are you going to do with your life now? I guess I'll go to grad school. And I graduated Harvard with my master's. And then I went into the tech space and I got involved with a couple startups and it kind of just went roller coaster from there. We were valued at about $1.2 billion, and that's when I learned about the power of equity in businesses. And I don't like that word because it's amazing. Zuckerberg changed— Mark Zuckerberg, you know, what you think of him, he's changed the private equity and venture capital world forever. If you look at Facebook, you say, what is it? It's really nothing. It has no GDP, it has no intrinsic value whatsoever. It's a marketing platform. That's all it is. It is a very, very unique, customizable, AI-driven marketing platform. That's all it is., and it's worth billions of dollars. So that started the flood of all the things that you see nowadays, all the apps that were created, all the things that were created. Facebook is the one that broke the door down.

Mm-hmm.

So we've, we've been valued by a board of directors, by our advisors. I've heard the B word and I said, I don't want to hear the B word. I don't want to hear that word. It makes people a little weird. Um, for the first part, because I— one, I don't think people really truly understand what a billion dollars looks like, like in terms of spending power. For example, if you were to have a billion dollars net, net billion dollars, and you were to put that, let's say, in a Hartford Annuity, right? One, if they would even take it, but assuming, assuming they did You lock a Hartford annuity at a 30-year annuity rate at, let's say, 5%. 5% of $1 billion for the rest of 30 years per year. Now divide that by 12.

Every month. Wow. Every month. It's a lot to come up with.

Every month. For 30 years.

Look, I'm trying to do the numbers and you look— you're faster than me, so I know you got that.

Make it small. Make it smaller. That's the best way I can describe it is just make it smaller.

Tell me this now. Now, you said you got afraid when you heard the B word and you didn't want to hear it anymore. That, that kind of baffles me a bit, admittedly. Again, knowing that you've been in the 7-figure club, right? Made a million, lost a million, parted a million away. But then a billion comes up and it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second. You would think that again, having had tremendous amount of success that you may be ready for that next level. What, what is it that, that really made you say, you know, take a step back and reevaluate the trajectory?

Because when you start getting to that level, you start putting a lot of eyes on you, and, um, you start opening yourself up for opportunity. You start opening yourself up in ways that you may not want to, um, You see, when in order to get that valuation, you have to go public, right? You really, you really have to. And in order to go public, you got to go with a bank. And in order to go with a bank, you're going to have to make certain deals. You have to make certain things available. And if you want to run a company autonomously, you can't take other people's money.

True.

And the moment you— now, mind you, a lot of people are willing to do this, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with taking outside investment. It's cash. It's, it's lifeblood. I believe me, I get it. But the moment you open up your company to outside investment, it's like opening up your bedroom to a stranger with you and your wife.

It's a really unique way to put it.

Well, you think about it, you started a company from the scratch, from scratch, right? You wrote it down on a piece of paper, you made it happen, and now it's— let's say it's a small little We'll keep it simple, right? Let's say it's a little coffee shop.

Mm-hmm.

You have a recipe that you fell in love with, you've recreated it, and now it sells throughout the community. It's become a county favorite, right? You have little pumpkin things, Christmas things, Hanukkah things, Valentine's Day. You know, you're doing a couple, let's say $200,000, quarter of a million a year. You're living comfortably. And then one day somebody comes along who happens to be in town and he's a distributor. Loves your coffee, sits down with you, tells you about distribution options, shows you a whole new way of doing things. But guess what? Your ingredients are a little too expensive to make the margins that we need to have. And next thing you know, you start playing with the recipe and you start finding cheaper products, you start finding cheaper things. Now what you started off with your love and passion and what everybody else around you fell in love with, and now you got it sitting on the shelves at Walmart, which By the way, there's no problem with that if that's the direction you want to go, but you're going to tell me that what you start off in your little coffee shop, in your, in your corner store, versus what's sitting on the shelf at Walmart is the same thing? No, it's not.

Not at all. Not at all.

So when I say, so when I say that, you know, when you bring that in, it's like bringing in some stranger into your bedroom because it completely changes the dynamic of the entire experience.

So would it be fair to say then that your position is that with growth, obviously you have to be discerning, you can't just take any type of funds or any type of help, but when it comes to growth, if you grow too big too fast, you take away from the quality that was what you were known for in the first place?

Yes and no, because then my next question is, what is it that you're looking to accomplish? Right. So there's— there was a hardware store not too far from where we grew up, and it was a small Ace Hardware store. Guy had no ambitions of going bigger, had no ambitions of doing anything. And it was fine. It was his perfect life, right? He lived above— he lived above the Ace Hardware store, came down in the mornings, went up at night. For some people, just enough. Is perfectly fine. Where you need to ask yourself where you want to be is what's going to determine your next steps. If you want to be a multinational conglomerate, then this is the next— this is the next part of the process. But if you're looking to be a localized, central-local thing, then that option is on the table for you unless you partner with somebody that can keep that original, keep that brand intact.

Okay, so you bring up a good thing when it comes to partnerships. When you started this venture, was it just you or did you bring anybody else on board?

Oh, um, yeah, I brought my mom. My mom is the CFO for two reasons. Number one, I trust her beyond anybody else in the world.

Love it.

Second, she is the one that's going to tell me I've lost my mind, and she's also going to be the voice of reason. So the deal that we had when we started this venture, because history tends to repeat itself if we're not careful, is, as your audience may realize, is that I'm living in my room, my high school bedroom. I am the CEO of a multinational— well, a national, really. Well, Canada, so multinational— multinational tech corporation, and I'm living with my parents at 36 6 years old in my own high school bedroom. There's a reason for that, because my mom can keep a very sharp eye on me and make sure that we, we have proper steps in place. Now, that's not to say that I'm gonna go crazy and wild, but let's be honest, when we're in today's world, a little bit of moderation goes a long way. And somebody with, you know, guardrails in place because you have to ask yourself, what's more important, the longevity and the sustainability of the company and your life, or what other people see you doing?

Um, well, those tend to, uh, go hand in hand, don't you think? So you— longevity and sustainability, at some point people are going to see what you're doing, right? I mean, obviously, if you're going to be out there for a long time, they're going to be watching along the way as you grow.

Yes and no. Because what you do, what you do for the company and what you do personally are two different things. They're simultaneous, but they're two different things.

Got it. Okay. Okay.

But where entrepreneurs kind of slip, and I've seen it at many of the conferences that I've been to, to learn, learn how to be a better CEO, learn how to be a better owner of my company and a better manager is that really the CEO is the last one to get paid. You should be the last one to get paid because I'm not trying to start any trouble now, but I have a problem with Fortune 500 companies where your employees have to go on strike and they can't afford the products that they make. Meanwhile, you take a 30% bump in salary plus stock options and your company didn't pay taxes in, what, 5 years?

Mm-hmm. You are. All right, come on, man. You're opening up that can of worms. Let's— let's—

I mean, I'm opening up the can of worms, but I'm not going to spill all over the counter. I look at it this way, and I'll go back to that statement. How you treat your customers and your employees is how they're going to treat your bottom line and your wallet. Right, right. I look at it— my grandmother gave me good advice, God love her and rest her soul, who was the reason for this company, the starting of the— like, the inspiration for the company is that when you decide to take the shovel out, God's got a bigger one for you.

Hmm.

Okay. When you— she also had another good saying is that anything more than what you need is just showing off.

Anything more than what you need is just showing off. Okay.

Think of it this way. You have a wife. You have— if you're married, you have a wife and kids, right? You have a good house. Doesn't have to be a mansion, but you got a nice house. Do you need— do you like a nice clean backyard or do you need the waterfall and this, that, and the other things? Now, I'm not saying you can't have nice stuff, right? You got a car. All right. A Toyota, a brand new Nissan, you know, Good, you know, good reliable cars. Nothing wrong with that. You really need the Bentley truck?

I was just about to ask. So no Maserati, uh, his and hers?

No, my mother— my— first off, my mother would never allow me.

Okay, respect.

Second, I don't get this. I do not get— I know this is going to be the most ridiculous thing to say— I don't get my allowance until the profits are distributed.

I love it. Now, this is the kind of transparency that we love on this show. You know what, so let's take that a little bit further. Like, what was life growing up— what was life like growing up with, uh, is mom's last name Bolton also? Nope. Okay, so what was life like growing up with Mama Bolton? Like, what— how did she help to shape the gentleman that we see here before us today?

Uh, she let me stay in jail a couple of times. Uh, she broke the belt on me. I've— we've got a frying pan that's got a couple of dents in it. Um, I would say my first set of concussions weren't football, they were my mom.

Ah, in other words, uh, spare the rod, spoil the child.

Yeah, I still, I still gave her gray hairs. I was a wild one. But, um, I will say this though, she did, she did run a tight ship. And from what I've seen in this generation And this is one of the problems that we've been having lately, is trying to find young workers, you know, young, you know, qualified candidates to come work for me. I had this conversation on another podcast. I have no— I have no use for this generation.

And specifically, we're talking about stateside, is that correct?

Correct. So the thing that I know as a business owner, what I saw with the pandemic, every single student that has graduated from 2020 up until the lockdown was released and kids went back to school, that entire 4 years. So that's 4 years post and that 4 years. So we're talking about a combined combination of about 6 years in total. Need to go back 4 years. Mm. And you don't have to take my word for it. I have many friends and colleagues that are teachers. The average high school student right now is reading at a 5th grade level.

Jesus.

Let me ask you this. To anybody who doubts me, when you were working at home and you had your job and your significant other or partner had their job, who was watching the kids on on their computer for class?

I look, I'll answer that one. Admittedly, it was their— well, their teacher was there. And for us, you know, I'm a little bit different in terms of a parent. I'm really, really for the educational structure, although that was hell, admittedly, figuring out the new laptop, getting him adjusted to it. I think he was in third grade at the time. You know, and then that, that was, that was challenging.

So they passed, they passed students who were not qualified to go.

100% agree.

Kids did not take— our kids did not take the SATs, they did not take the ACTs.

100% agree. Yeah, yeah.

This is like, this is one of my problems with having this conversation with people is the fact that we have set these kids up for failure big time.

Come on, man.

We've let these kids out into the world with, one, no accountability, and two, they're taking classes that they have no idea what they're doing, and we're passing them. There's this, this idea of everybody needs, you know, everybody gets— no, not everybody gets to Think of it this way. What's better, teaching a child and letting him burn his hand the first time, or then letting them just do whatever they want? Because they're going to keep doing it if they don't experience the pain.

Absolutely.

So I have candidates that are applying for my jobs who have horrible phone skills. I've listened to their test calls. They're annoyed. They're— they have a certain attitude of inconvenience that somebody is calling them and interrupting their day.

Come on, man, like it's a problem that someone is calling you for the job that you signed up for?

Like, that's our business. We're a help center. So on page 2 of our standard operating procedure in the binder in big red bold letters. Every call is somebody's most important person. When your wife calls me, I'm gonna treat her as if it was my soon-to-be wife, whoever that might be, is calling. If your mother calls, I'm treating her like as if it was my mother that was calling. That's why it's in big bold letters. Every call is somebody's most important person. That's somebody's important person. You may not know that Nana, that Pawpaw on the phone, you may not know that Auntie, that Tio, but guess what? Somebody else does, and that's somebody's important person. So you taking an attitude for them calling? Nope, that's not what— that's not our brand. That is not what we're here to do. We— every call, and we train this, every call is a hot call. What that means is angry, annoyed, sad, confused, depressed, or just agitated. Every call is a hot call. So if you can't do that, this ain't for you, and that's fine. But what I'm concerned about is the lack of communication skills, the speaking in abbreviations or slang, or, you know, I don't know what this bet is when you hear bet. Can you please help me? Bet. I've had to ask Google, what does bet mean?

Taking wagers? What's the over-under? Like, what are we talking about?

It, it's, it's, it, it— the lack, lack— I, I don't know how else to describe it besides disturbing and I've spoken to other CEOs, I've spoken to other small business owners. It's absolutely true, number one. And we've done it to them. We've done it to them. Why do they— why should they go get a job? Well, they need to grow up. Really? Because they're not getting kicked out of the house.

This is true. This is true. So you're talking about an entire generation of people that are almost enabled.

6 years. We're talking about 6 years of kids. That is, when they grow to high school, which is around the ages of what, 13, 14, right, to 21. Now that, that deck, that 13 to 21 deck, has slid over since the pandemic got locked out, and now they're in the workforce.

Well, I read a book a long time ago, uh, Lee Iacocca, Where Have All the Leaders Gone? And in this instance, you're talking about people that will someday lead something from this age.

You know, it's funny that you mentioned— I don't know, I don't know if they will.

So that, that's the part of the question is, is How do we turn that around? Well, because they're, they're here, right? They're not going anywhere.

My question— because my question is, what does the work— what does the future of work look like?

Um, good point. So let's talk about that. I mean, with AI and the advent of obviously all these large language models, how do you see that impacting the everyday person in terms of work? And then also, how do you see that impacting what you're doing currently with Tech Rescue.

So there's 3 topics that we need to discuss: the proper use of education when it comes to AI, the current job market of AI, and the future market with AI. First off, number 1, AI is a fantastic tool, but it'll never beat a human, hands down. I'm sorry, it just won't do it. Listen, AI robots can do a lot of different things, but they're never gonna do what humans can do. They can't. There are soft skills, there's interpersonal skills, there's, there's cognitive reasoning. The thing that people need to remember is AI is not Jarvis, right? We all think of like Tony Stark's Jarvis. It's not. All right. AI starts off by a 2x2 matrix, a yes/no binary code, right? That's the very beginnings of this. You have to build the 2x2 matrix in which this AI sits and lives. Second, an AI is nothing more than a high-program quantifiable machine that does a 1 or a 0 binary in different ways. It's a yes or no question. So what you feed it is what you get. So if you feed the AI like ChatGPT, if you feed it junk, it's gonna give you junk.

Garbage in, garbage out.

So this idea that AI is gonna take over, well, this goes to the education part. This idea that education is going to try to fight AI, that's the wrong way of doing it. That's like saying we're going to fight laptops in the classroom. Every classroom in the United States has laptops, the rolling laptops. Every kid's got a laptop. Technology evolved. They have it. AI is here. That genie is out of the bottle. So instead of can make— making this thing the boogeyman, and teachers are complaining, all my students are doing their work on ChatGPT. Okay, guess what? Same thing happened with a calculator when we got one, all right? The TI-83. I could program the entire textbook into the TI-83.

Absolutely.

But guess what? My teachers got smart enough and they asked questions that you couldn't do just looking up the answers. You had to think about it. So you as a teacher, the battlefield has changed. The battlefield has changed. Your way of teaching Done. It's over. What, what are you going to teach me that in that textbook that I can't take my phone, screenshot it, run it through ChatGPT? Oh, the 3 questions at the back of the, at the back of the chapter that I have to answer? Done.

Yeah. Now what?

You as a teacher now have to come up with ways that make me use this in a different way. The hows, the whys, what-ifs. A chatbot can't do what-ifs. It can run you scenarios, but what does that mean? Explain that. Because here's what's going to happen. It's— you ask a question a certain way, the kid is not going to understand the answer. So what naturally would he do? What does that mean? Oh, you get the chatbot to help you teach the kids as opposed to making it the enemy. Okay, ChatGPT, for me, for example, when I was coming up through school in grad school, we still had to do Excel spreadsheets the long way. I can run a 5-year projection model on ChatGPT and look at it and review it because I understand the principles of my financial models. So when I go through ChatGPT's projections, I can highlight things that, no, that's not right, it's plus or minus whatever. So I can use the tool to make my job a lot easier because I understand the basics. This tool isn't going away, so you as an educator have to figure out a different way to use the tool to your advantage. The kids are going to be curious. All kids are curious of things that they like, right? Some kids like sports, some kids like comic books, some people— whatever it might be, you Kids get engaged when they're curious, so get them curious. Start getting them to ask questions. And guess what? You don't have to worry because the internet, in its single form of all history, of all science, of all math, our entire collective data as a species is in one website.

This is true.

Now, so create Create a scavenger hunt. Like, pretend you're in the Library of Alexandria. You have all the world's knowledge at your fingertips. How are you going to teach it?

You know what, I'm, I'm going to pose a, a hypothetical or what if to you at this point, because now we, we're going to bring this full circle. You mentioned teaching the children to ask questions and causing them to think. Now correct me if I'm wrong, Your business model is based on answering questions with live humans for individuals, not necessarily just seniors, but individuals who may need help with X, Y, and Z piece of technology. Mm-hmm. Do you take on that same approach with the client? Meaning, yes, I'm gonna answer your question, but do you also infuse a degree of teaching and making them think about what they're asking? Or do we just give them the answer and hope that they return?

That's an interesting question. It's a two-part. You're coming to me for help. If you have— if you get into a car accident, you really don't want your insurance company to be asking you a whole bunch of questions on the side of the road.

True.

You want it— you want to just get home as quickly as possible. We can deal with that later. So when we get a call, it's a hot call. Somebody's frustrated, annoyed, they want the answer solved. So when we gain access to the computer, tablet, or phone We use 3 third-party encryption sources. So once we gain access, we only can do certain things. And once that connection is broken, we have to do this whole process all over again. We cannot gain access once, once that's— once that connection is severed, that's it. I cannot gain it again. So once we solve the problem, if as we're going along, we're answering questions that they have, what's this, what's that? Oh, that's what that does. That's part of the process. When our clients are able to let go of the mouse or put down the tablet and they see our mouse going around, the tone in which people then start having the conversations with our agents is far less aggressive. And aggressive not being argumentative, aggressive meaning just at a non-calm pace, right?

Gotcha.

So as we're lowering that anxiety, What also happens is that interest and curiosity comes up. So I would say within the 12-minute mark, that's when we start— I hear on when I pull the calls every day, that's when I hear the questions around the 12 to 13-minute mark is when that takes that anxiety to come down because you're seeing the results that you want, right? You're seeing that the situation is being handled and being taken care of. So right here, your curiosity is nowhere to be found. You're in panic mode. But as your panic starts to come down, what happens? Your curiosity level kicks in because you're not stressed, you're not worried, you're not anxious. You're allowing your body and you're allowing your mind to take it easy, to rest. And what happens when you rest? The other things start to get engaged. Mm-hmm. For example, if you've ever been broke out of college, you're hungry. You don't care about anything else besides eating. It's true.

Ramen noodles, baby. Let's, let's do it.

But guess what? When you have a full stomach, probably not thinking about ramen. Exactly. That's why you never go to the grocery store hungry.

Good point, good point. So a couple questions as we land the plane here. We're getting to the top of the hour, and a few things I want to know. And then this— we're going to focus on the company for this question, then we're going to go slightly off Sure. When it comes to bringing about, uh, again, with Tech Rescue at the forefront, when it comes to bringing about a seamless experience and, and really satisfying each and every one of your clients, what would you say are 2 to 3 things that you make sure that every person, every client, whether it be the employee or the actual client on the end, what's 2 or 3 things that they need to know about that communication or transaction that takes place?

The first thing you know is you're not going to please everybody. Just get that off your head. And there's nobody batting 1,000. Nobody's batting 1,000. So if you're worried about that, just take that off the table and you'll be, you'll be in a better position because a lot of people get that, they get nervous, right? You want everybody to like you. We all do. But I hate to say it, not everybody likes snickerdoodle, snickerdoodle cookies.

This is true.

So that's first. Second, when you call Tech Rescue, if you are a client, our CRM system, which is HubSpot— I'm not afraid to say it, it's a great, it's a great product. So when they call up at the center or on their laptops remotely, the name of the person comes up, their telephone number, their email address, any systems that they've had worked on, anything that— and the notes from previous agents. Comes up. So it's, good afternoon, or good evening, good morning, Mr. Johnson. Thank you for calling Tech Rescue. How can I help you today? When you hear your name and somebody says, how can I help you? Number one, you're at ease. Absolutely. Because I've called— I have a health insurance client. I have a health insurance company that I use for my health insurance. So it's one of the big ones. I mean, for me, I feel like I'm paying a very large amount of money for health insurance. And that doesn't cover, you know, the, um, the premium, God forbid. But when I call, I at least hear— like to hear, hi Andrew, or hi Mr. Bolton. No, it's, what's your telephone number, what's your email address, you know, like you don't know, like you're the— give me your social, give me a member ID, multi-billion, multi- billion, billion, billion annual, annual billion dollar company, and you're going in my lane, man. Yeah, and you can't bother to pay to have, you know, just that feeling of like, hey, I matter. We— and this is, and this is where my business doesn't exist, and I'm glad it does now. I am sick and tired of being an account number. I'm sick and tired of I call you because I pay for you. You take my money, and then as an organization, you take the attitude of, why are you calling us?

Come on, man. Come on. You're getting— you're getting too real for the people, Andrew. You're getting too real for them.

I'm sorry. For the amount of money I spend per month, I think that I want to talk to a human, okay?

Straightforward, straightforward.

I'm sorry, if I'm gonna cost half a G, $800, $1,000, or I've heard stories, I expect that when I call, I should have somebody answer the phone.

Nice smiling human on the other side to say, yes sir, how can I help you right now? Absolutely, absolutely.

The fact that when I get off the phone with my car insurance, my health insurance, um, some of the other things that we have just in our daily lives, I feel like I was annoying them and I was inconveniencing them out of their day.

Again, Andrew, you are going down a rabbit hole, my man. I'm gonna pull you back only again for the sake of time. Because that in and of itself—

I'll say this, when the DMV in whatever state you're in, when the DMV gives you better service—

oh man, you know, I actually had a really good experience at the DMV, and it was— or, excuse me, it's the BMV here in Indiana, I gotta remember— and it was pleasantly, pleasantly surprising. Yet, yet and still Much like you said, I call a major corporation and I'm again gonna take the Andrew challenge and check the websites for the contact info for these Fortune 100 and 500. And it's the longest, most arduous process. And I'm glad then to know that companies like yours exist to alleviate that for, again, not just seniors, but for people all around the country with various issues relating to something that's here to stay, which is again, technology. So, Andrew, I want to wrap up with a couple of questions here. One is a question that is near and dear to my heart, and it's, uh, pretty straightforward, pretty simple, and I'll ask a follow-up question behind it. But Andrew, we like to let our listeners get a little closer to you than most, and not everyone publishes this little bit about themselves publicly. Andrew, what's your middle name?

Warren, after my grandfather.

Beautiful.

Beautiful. Private Second Class, uh, James Warren Cassidy of the Third Division Marines, landed on Iwo Jima, um, Purple Heart, um, went to St. Francis College, raised two Marines, you know, Irish Catholic, Irish Catholic, you know, um, Devil Dog all the way. I was named after him.

Love it, love it. And see, I love the sense of Pride, man. You spit that out like it was right there because it is right there, right for you.

He's right, he's right over there with his beret and, uh, his World War II, his World War II picture, um, when he got out of Parris Island. He got out of Parris Island when he was 19.

Love it. And you know what, I usually wouldn't do this, but for our visual, uh, subscribers, for those that are actually going to be taking a look at this on the YouTube channel, can you share that photo? Can you pan over or take a look or Yeah, I'll grab it. Oh, perfect. And again, ladies and gentlemen, that's Grandpa.

That is right there. That is 19-year-old Warren James Cassidy of the 3rd Division Marines. That was his picture at Parris Island, and that was the beret that made it to Iwo Jima and back. Wow.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are looking at history right now. Again, for my Audible folks, hop on YouTube, check this out.

He was, he was in the— he was the third wave that went to the beach.

Wow. Again, literal history right here.

Yeah. So I think he landed, I think he landed around 8:45 in the morning after, after the first and second wave went through. So you can't even imagine, you know, what you're seeing on the, on the battleships and on the destroyers as the amphibian ships were being launched, and you literally were just a mile out just watching what was happening, and you're heading right for it, and you're, you're next.

So to speak, right? There's a certain degree of bravery that goes with that, a certain degree of gall, right?

And again, I don't even call it brave. Like, you just— not to be too graphic, but death ain't got shit on you. If you can stare that down in the face, death ain't got shit on you.

Oh man, you know, stark contrast from today's generation. But again, I digress. So Uh, this last minute is yours, Andrew. I want for you to share a word of wisdom, something inspirational with the audience and listeners that you feel, again, they need to know. It can be in any area of life, but again, for this particular segment, Everyday Entrepreneur, you know, something for them.

Let's do— let's, let's, let's do something that really needs to be said. Um, we're— regardless of your politics, we're in a world right now that doesn't make sense, and I don't care who you are. I don't care who you are. One and one does not equal two. And if we were really a racist country, I would not be having a conversation with you.

Absolutely, absolutely. For those again that are listening in, we don't look alike, ladies and gents. Come on YouTube and see us.

This country is a lot more forgiving than what the media is saying. We're— I, in my heart of my heart of hearts, regardless of what your politics are, I don't think we're a hateful country. I don't think we are. I think, yes, is there some stuff that's in the bones of us? Yeah, of course there is. But you know what, if regardless of your color, if little kids could be wearing jerseys of different races, creeds, religions, then we really aren't that— we really aren't that. And in regards to the business aspect of it We have done the last 40 years by looking at business as an analysis in terms of numbers. People are numbers. People are quantifiable. You are not going to go broke by doing good work. And I think it's long overdue that I think we as a society, we as Americans, just specifically us, let's keep it at— let's keep it home turf, right? Nothing is stopping you from doing a good deed. My people every day do a good deed. We help people, and that's my contribution to the world. Yes, am I making a profit from it? Of course. But everything that we don't— everything that we don't need to have to run the operation and give back to our people, we donate. Um, my mother donates to the Boys and Girls Club of America. She donates to, um, uh, Women's Rights Act Women's Rights Act divisions. She's donated to, um, the NAACP. Um, she's donated to, um, the Southern, uh, the Southern Negro, uh, Law Fund. Um, beautiful, beautiful. The fact, the fact of the matter is it doesn't cost you anything to do a good deed, and you don't know what somebody's day on the other side of the phone is. For us We get these hot calls every day. You don't know what that person's day is. You don't know what they're going through. So the fact that we can do within 15, 20, sometimes even an hour, just a little bit of good, and just to have somebody's day just a little bit better, we're making the world a little bit better of a place. And I hate to say it, nobody's coming, everybody. Nobody's Superman, Homelander, you know, this idea of somebody's going to come and make everything better. Nobody's coming. Nobody's coming. This is the proverbial garage mess. You keep opening up the garage thinking that today is going to be the day that it's just going to be clean. It's not getting cleaned. So unless we all start putting gloves on and grabbing garbage bags and start cleaning up, what, what do you expect is going to happen? So we at Tech Rescue are doing our part. By as simple as trying to make somebody have a better day on the phone and donating, you know, whatever money we can and whatever resources we can and whatever time we can. All of our research that we do for analytical reports, we publish them on open. We don't make people subscribe to anything. We publish them on our LinkedIn. So the fact that we have 18% of the senior population playing video games, we took a look into that, we published a paper on that. Our work can be used by medical researchers because we're collecting data. Not in the sense of like your name and, you know, who you are, but the things that we listen to and the questions that you're asking, we are taking note on that and we're writing papers on it that somebody out there who's doing research on something has new information.

Absolutely.

We're doing our part to make the world a little bit better because with information we have an understanding, with understanding we can do something. So if you think that you can't be profitable by doing good work, you're wrong. It doesn't happen the same way, but believe me, you're going to feel a lot better about it.

I love it. Well said. Well said. You can't go broke by doing good work. We're going to make that a nice quote for the show. Andrew, tell us, how can the listeners get a hold of you personally and how can they get a hold of Tech Rescue?

Of course. You can go to www.techrescue.io or call us at 855-250-8586, 24 hours a day. Super Bowl, Christmas, Easter, we're on. Don't worry. Even on, even on the World Cup, we're on because we don't watch, we don't watch soccer.

There we go.

And you can get, you can write to us at help@techrescue.io or info@techrescue.io.

Excellent. Andrew, this has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for your insights. Again, history, literal history being brought to the show. That was a first. So thank you so much for sharing that and opening up and looking forward to many, many more conversations. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been another episode of The Everyday Entrepreneur, but this gentleman is everything other than just everyday. He's extraordinary. So I might have to change it to The Extraordinary Entrepreneur. All right. But this has been another episode of The Everyday Entrepreneur. On the Pope Replace podcast show. I'm your host, Paul H. Flowers Jr., signing off for now. Y'all have a great rest of your day. See you on the next episode.

Thank you.