As a broke college student attending Dixie State, Ken Hendrickson picked up a gig selling pest control door-to-door. He recruited his classmate, Jimmy Sorenson to join him. The selling gig didn’t last long, but it was the start of a long-term friendship and partnership.
After several years of door-to-door selling, Ken and Jimmy were ready for a change. It was 2007, and they decided to start a software company. They called their software Anagram Financial. The software was finance-focused. It was designed to help accelerate the payoff of debt including a mortgage. Shortly after starting, Ken and Jimmy realized they were over their heads. Building software can quickly become a black hole. It seemed like the software always needed more. More money. More time. More resources. Ken and Jimmy couldn’t keep up. As a result, they ended up in enormous debt. The great recession of 2008 was in full swing. Their debt was looming over their heads, and they realized Anagram Financial was not going to make it.
At this point, Ken and Jimmy took a step back and looked at how they had run the business. They decided to start a new software company. They would take things slow, and not let themselves go into debt. And hopefully, the new software would make enough money to pay the bills for both of their companies.
During their door-to-door business ventures, Ken married the love of his life. Before his new wife and he would go sell door-to-door during the summers, Ken would get a storage unit to store their belongings. Every year, renting a unit turned into a frustrating experience for a seemingly easy task. The storage facilities wouldn’t answer their phones. They didn’t have the right-sized unit available. The prices weren’t right or consistent. It was never convenient, easy, or simple.
Jimmy and Ken saw these frustrating experiences as an opportunity. Out of this, Easy Storage Solutions was born. They started to design the new software for self storage facilities. It would help make the rental process smoother and easier. However, since they decided to not go into any debt again, the process was slow. This was hard because it meant slower growth. There was always a huge list of programming tasks that needed to get done. It also meant they couldn’t sell their software to many clients because the software was so basic.
Anagram Financial was eventually sold for the exact amount that was owed. This allowed Ken and Jimmy to focus 100% of their efforts on Easy Storage Solutions. Over time, they added features to the software and clients came one-by-one. Being patient was starting to pay off. The software gave the ability for tenants to find and rent a storage unit online. As storage owners realized the convenience of the software, Easy Storage Solutions grew.
Today, the company has over 4,300 storage facilities that use its software. Easy Storage Solutions runs globally and adds over 115 new storage facilities a month. With over 70 employees and growing, the company has made it far from its slow beginning. Easy Storage Solutions management software has many more features now and is simple yet through for the end-user. It is one of the leading storage management software programs in the world. The company also offers call management, accounting and tax services, tenant protection plans, SEO and online marketing, cloud access control, and self storage consulting. They are constantly growing and improving. Jimmy and Ken attribute their success to focusing on solving problems, being patient, and surrounding themselves with great people.
See the complete article here.
