Consolve Began With a Plumber...
Consolve Began With a Plumber...
During the summer of 2020, our fridge broke. We googled a repair business and hired a little mom-and-pop shop. The repairman came, fixed our fridge, and requested our payment. To process our payment he didn't pull out a phone with a credit card scanner attachment or open the company Venmo or enter our data manually into an online shopping cart...
No, he pulled out carbonless copy paper (the white paper that transfers whatever is written on the top white page, to the yellow and pink pages underneath). Even pre-COVID pandemic (where regulations dictated paperless and cashless transactions), we would have found this very strange.
In a technologically advanced society, we haven’t seen this somewhat archaic form of documentation in years. It sparked a conversation between the two of us.
How does this company keep track of clients? Does an employee enter it all in by hand? Or (what seems to be more likely) does the handyman only use the info for accounting purpose? How does the company market and remarket to its customers? Can the company upsell to a customer it doesn’t have a record of? How does the company gain customer loyalty? We realized then that small businesses spend so much time working in their business, they have little time to work on their business.
But what if we could automate the process? Store data in one spot to easily communicate with and market to? Use one system for it all so there's less time wasted learning new platforms as the company grows?
How much more could business owners and entrepreneurs accomplish, if they weren't bogged down by the daily details? What opportunities could they pursue given this "extra" time and money?
We realized many business owners are missing the tools (or have too many tools they've tried to "Frankenstein" into one system) to make the most out of their business. We wanted to create a platfrom that could best meet the needs of small business owners everywhere.
And thus, Consolve was born.
The Infant Stages of Consolve
Soon after this encounter, I took a New Venture Marketing class as part of my graduate program at Utah State University. This class would give me more credits than needed to graduate, but my entrepreneurial spirit inspired me to take this class anyway. I spent an entire semester dreaming, designing, planning, and strategizing about Consolve and formed an initial business brand and strategy.
The work done in this class became the backbone for our initial business strategies and brand positioning. And while my original business plan (the final project for this class) has been referenced time and time again as we've prepared content for our website and social media channels... The branding has left much to be desired.
And while I'm a little embarrassed to show our original logo... I'm also proud of how far we've come. I look back and think about much I've grown in skill, vision, and understanding since then, that I can't help but say now, "That's cute."
Because it is cute! It's a cute attempt at something that's much grander now.
A Brief Pause In Our Dreams
When Garret and I graduated college, Garret immediately began working at a small start-up company, and I pursued some light contract work in addition to being a stay at home mom to our son. We didn't pursue Consolve full-time because we felt we needed some real-world experience under our belt first. We sought to hone our skills. After all, one of our family mottos is "Expand Your Capacities."
(photography: emiliebachphoto.com)
And quite frankly, our vision was much smaller back then. We needed time to refine our unique skillsets and grow our passion for Consolve. As our skills increased (do I need to show you the old logo next to the new one?), we were able to dream bigger. Our vision for Consolve and it's mission to empower small business owners and help better their business, became elevated to an entirely new level.
Back when I was in college, I worked on a report for a technical writing class and used Consolve as the topic. During a mandatory meeting to discus this paper with my professor, I pitched Consolve to her. And all I remember her saying was, "Who would want to buy that?"
While I tried to defend my little idea, I couldn't help but think myself, "Who would want to buy that?"
You see, back then, Consolve was originally meant to be only a database and marketing consulting company. (And, as a little aside, I've since learned that there are "only" database companies like Salesforce and Hubspot that make millions and billions in revenue each year... so apparently LOTS of people want to buy that).
Since this experience, we've learned about how crucial other functions are to businesses, that being a CRM/database company with a little marketing on the side just wasn't good enough for us anymore.
(Photo by Manuel Geissinger: www.pexels.com)
We began exploring other functionalities to implement with Consolve, and before we knew it, our vision became much bigger and much better.
The Catalyst For Consolve
After spending two years "Frankensteining" systems together, with varying levels of success and repeatedly switching systems in attempts to find "the one," the unthinkable happened.
In an attempt to fix a bug, a contractor accidentally erased the startup's entire database.
Hundreds of thousands of leads... gone. In an instant.
Cue the panic.
For several hours, every solution Garret and the contractor tried, failed. Until finally a somewhat recent back-up was discovered and reinstalled. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it did save a majority of the list.
This was the turning point for Garret. Fed up with all the tech issues over the years, he set out to create the actual perfect solution.
Consolve's Development
Over the next several months, Garret poured all of his spare time in making Consolve a reality. He found a wonderful company to work with that developed a majority of our platform. Garret has since added his own programs and integrations, to fully create the best software platform for small businesses. (By the way, in case you didn't know, a small business is defined by: firm revenue ranging from $1 million to over $40 million and by employment from 100 to over 1,500 employees. But we personally consider a small business to be 1-300 employees).
Consolve is an all-in-one software platform for all your customer-facing needs. Yes, we mean ALL-in-one. Our all-inclusive system is user friendly, highly automated, and cohesive. Consolve empowers small business owners by (1) improving productivity, (2) increasing profitability, and (3) keeping clients happy.
Consolve includes: CRM + pipeline management, sales funnels, website builders, survey + form builders, email marketing, 2-way SMS marketing, appointment + booking, LMS membership/course platforms, built-in phone systems, call tracking, reputation management, analytics, live chat on websites, team management + messaging, and more!
Once we had our platform developed, I began to work rigorously on the rebranding and building of the website: https://consolve.io.
(Much better this time around, right?)
A 5th Anniversary Gift: Consolve's Launch
On our 5th Anniversary, we officially launched Consolve for the entire world to see. We chose our anniversary for two reasons: (1) So Garret only has one anniversary to remember and (2) We thought it would be an excellent hook on social media (and it was! We had over double the views on this particular Instagram reel).
And so, here we are. :)
A few weeks into one of the biggest adventures of our married life (right up there with having two kids!), and we are more excited than ever to help the businesses in our community.
We've never been interested in "working for the big man" and we've always been passionate about helping "the little guy." And yes, a small business that revenues $40 million is not really a "little" guy (those are not amateur numbers!!), but they are often competing agains billion dollar corporations.
So like Steve Jobs sticking it to tech giants by investing in the graphic user interface— enabling every individual to use computers, (NOTE: Apple's original mission statement: Apple is dedicated to the empowerment of man—to making personal computing accessible to each and every individual so as to help change the way we think, work, learn, and communicate), we want to bring more power to these smaller companies. We are passionate about empowering entrepreneurs and seek genuine business betterment.
Your success is our purpose. We are excited that you are here with us and look forward to our success together!
