dnsUNFILTERED: Darrin Piotrowski, Courant

[00:00:00] Mikey Pruitt: I'd like to welcome everyone to dnsUNFILTERED today we're joined by Darrin Piotrowski, and I know I was thinking about your last name. Luckily, I have a weatherman in my area with the exact same last name. Oh, it's my favorite news, personality in the world. Never kids, us about the weather. So I was very easily pronounced, true last name, which I was pretty happy with myself about, right?

But Darrin has been in tech for a long time. He runs a company CEO and founder of a company called Courant in New Orleans. And we're gonna talk today a bit about human connection. Keeping it local. Darrin and his company are very successful with this. They've navigated a rebrand into what is now Courant and we're also gonna touch on cybersecurity a bit.

So let's get started. Darrin, tell us a little bit about yourself.

[00:00:50] Darrin Piotrowski: I started in it quite a while ago. I was worked in a place that. That built computers and they didn't really have a support department and I was a salesperson, so I was, I decided, oh, I can sell a computer and now tell all these people, oh, I'll come, set it up for you for, I don't know, $50 or whatever.

And then started doing that. And then one, one day I just left the company and started. Was Renard at the time. And that was in 1997. So I've been running this company for more than half of my life.

[00:01:28] Mikey Pruitt: Yeah, so renter, that's a really good name for at the time. Yeah. Yep. And it sounds like now you've graduated, just by name, not by actual operations into what is Courant.

Can you describe the current company name Courant for me?

[00:01:44] Darrin Piotrowski: So the, what the name is actually Courant, which is a French word. Which means current. And we worked with a local marketing person and she helped us I don't know, it was like six months or so. And she helped us, rebrand, came up with the name and that was probably long overdue because Rena nerd was not getting us.

We were no longer working in residential and Renton nerd was not getting us the type of clients that we wanted. Or the leads we're getting would be, if it was a business, it would be like a one person law office or just a one person operation. And that, if you're doing managed services, that's not really good unless they're gonna pay you a minimum fee or something, which more than likely they're not.

So we that that I remember once, I was, went to a client's home to install wifi at their home. And it was a business client, nice sized law firm that we do all the work and we will go to the partner's homes to do stuff. We're not gonna tell him no. And it was a Saturday and he was telling me, he was telling me, why don't you change your name?

I was trying to refer you to someone. Was asking who do we use for it? And we're like, oh, we use Renton Earth. They're great. And the other person, his friend, told him, I'm not calling a company called Renton Earth to work at my law firm. So that I was like, all right, it's time. It's time. And then finally we bit the bullet and worked on that.

The funny thing is, one of the first three names that was giving to us in this whole process was current. Courant and the we didn't like it. And six months later that's what we went with. So you corral I'm definitely not

[00:03:28] Mikey Pruitt: gonna say that. Correct that one correctly.

[00:03:29] Darrin Piotrowski: We were worried about the spelling and 'cause it's C-O-U-R-A-N-T and all this other stuff, and then I think we were just overthinking it.

How many tech companies have. A name that is just totally mispronounced and it's spelled incorrectly.

[00:03:45] Mikey Pruitt: Like everyone, like we should remove the devours from our company name just to fit in. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:03:51] Darrin Piotrowski: But that's, that, that was funny. And that whole process is really interesting.

She interviewed clients employees, figured out the whole culture of our company. Through all of this and what our clients thought of us. And that's how the whole strategy came with the, how our human connections differentiate us. And a lot of our clients have grown with us. There's one client that was just five or so employees and now there are a hundred employees when we started with them.

So that, that's yeah, that is, so their recommendations were successful. Yeah, exactly. Definitely. And we have, it was weird 'cause right off the bat we started getting new newer clients and bigger clients. Our wheelhouse is 10 to 25 employees. And that might be dictated by the market we're in New Orleans.

It's a lot of small businesses. Although our largest client is a hundred, and we do have a few in the 25 to 50 bucket, but yeah, that we started getting, architect firms with 2020, 20 employees or so.

[00:04:54] Mikey Pruitt: Yeah. So you guys are really, so you really moved from this, rent a nerd to be projecting more of the professional business that you were I'm assuming, and wanted to become more alike.

And that is funny because when you. Do something physically change a name, change your logo, change your color scheme. Like it does change the mindset of not only you as the owner, CEO, founder, but also your companies and then additionally the customers that are gonna be attracted to that new

[00:05:24] Darrin Piotrowski: brand.

Oh, that's totally true. There was definitely, like we, as far as employees, we don't have a lot of turnover with our employees and there was definitely a shift there. With, and I think some sense of relief that we changed our name. And then there's a few things with, NERD is derogatory and the word rent.

[00:05:44] Mikey Pruitt: We nerds love being called Nerd,

[00:05:46] Darrin Piotrowski: but it's not good for business. And then Rent a Nerd means, Hey, we're just a temp solution. We're not a matter. We're not gonna have. A monthly fee to take care of everything. And so that, that helped a lot. And then we, the name Quran is French for current, as I said, but we also have the Mississippi River.

Which is a current, you could keep our tagline now is "keep IT current" and the I in a T is capital I. So keep IT current. Keep it current. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. We try to like harp, it's our New Orleans heritage, so we like, yeah. And let's,

[00:06:21] Mikey Pruitt: so let's get into that.

Like why is local working and how is local working for Courant? And you hinted at it with the. The translation from Renton nerds to Courant has really changed this mindset. It sounds like the strategist that was helping you develop this new branding also was helping structure, the company voice the strategies that set you guys apart.

And it sounds like a lot of that strategy was really. Double down, doubling down on local New Orleans culture. And I've actually even seen a few of your LinkedIn posts that are, very heavily driving home that we are New Orleans, we are it for New Orleans and.

[00:07:03] Darrin Piotrowski: Call

[00:07:03] Mikey Pruitt: us

[00:07:04] Darrin Piotrowski: and it looks like it's working.

Definitely. And the mindset in our city is that people love doing business with local people. We, I'm not ruling out at some point in the future that we may have to outsource a help desk or something like that, but at this moment, that is not part of our plans. And we, when you call, you're gonna get someone on the phone that's, that we're gonna answer the phones live.

And then we're gonna create your ticket. And, the whole process went the same for every company. And, but you're working with somebody and there's, there's no leaving a message and someone's gonna call, call you back. And we try to, that's all part of the local environment that we apply.

We hire local, so we're, that's again, I don't wanna say that's giving back, we're keeping all our employees here locally. So you mentioned,

[00:07:55] Mikey Pruitt: You said answering the phones like any other company and you get a person, but. In fact, that's not the case with every company.

A lot of times there's the giant phone tree that you have to navigate. Yeah. There's press one for this, two for that. There's, email because we don't do phone support. Yeah. There's, live chat because we don't want to get on the phone. But you said that like everybody does it, and I can almost guarantee you that's not true, that you guys are doing something a bit more unique in, in being human talking live on the phone.

So how do you guys manage that? Technically, 'cause someone has to be there to answer the phone.

[00:08:29] Darrin Piotrowski: So yeah, we the answering now outside of hours, obviously it's gonna be a recording but. We the sorry we we like to answer the calls live and I'm sure there's better ways to do things and more efficient, but it gives the human touch to the whole approach.

If someone's calling us, we're proactive, but if someone's calling us, probably something is broken, they can't print. Maybe there's a thing of frustration and it. I feel even when I call somebody, it's more frustrating when you have, when you're talking to a voicemail and we don't want that to happen to our customers.

Now from that part, maybe we can kick off some automations and stuff. But once we get the ticket in then, someone's gonna call you. We don't just start remoting into your computer, so a lot of times you're on the phone with the customer dealing with everything.

So we, which goes to our hiring process. We like to hire people that are personable and sometimes we joke jokingly say that we're customer service company. It's cliche, but we're a customer service company that happens to be good at tech.

[00:09:35] Mikey Pruitt: What are some of the other things you would say differentiates Courant from the competition in your area?

[00:09:41] Darrin Piotrowski: So we work with our customers to learn as much as we can about their business so that we can tailor almost everything we do for the customer. Now, 90% of the time we can be blanket and generic, all businesses have the same issues, offboarding and onboarding problem, customer, employees security issues and those kind of things.

But we can we tailor that down to the client level. And that, that helps. That, that, that's one of our differentiators. The other thing is we we don't really operate with a tier one, tier two, tier three plan. We assign the right tech right from the get go. It's not gonna be, oh my, my network's down.

Oh, are you gonna start with tier one? And he's gonna tell you to reboot this and that. Okay, now you have to wait for tier two. We just go right to the right, to the person that's gonna be the right.

[00:10:34] Mikey Pruitt: Does each of your customers get assigned, like a person that's their person, or is it like based on that specific need at that time?

[00:10:41] Darrin Piotrowski: It's based on a specific need. We try not to have one person with all the knowledge at a at a, for a particular client. So your,

[00:10:49] Mikey Pruitt: but your customers would get to know the people that work at Courant.

[00:10:53] Darrin Piotrowski: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely.

[00:10:55] Mikey Pruitt: Do they ever call and say, Hey, can I get Bob? Thanks.

[00:10:58] Darrin Piotrowski: So if the customer asks for a specific person, we're, we generally try to assign that person, however, it depends on what the issue is, if it's something silly.

And Bob is a level three tech. We're not gonna. Give the silly, we're gonna, we're gonna

[00:11:13] Mikey Pruitt: but maybe Bob has the best stories about Mardi Gras last year.

[00:11:18] Darrin Piotrowski: So one another thing that differentiates is we don't have, we have very high employee retention rates. So we have a lot of people that have been here over 10 years.

And we're small. There's 10 of us. The newest, obviously the newest employees have been here the shortest and but I think the first six or seven of us have been here all over 10 years.

[00:11:37] Mikey Pruitt: Yeah, it sounds like a lot of this, like your rebranding, your very human approach to support, employee retention, it all goes back to the rebranding of that person or that company that helped you with the rebrand like they were.

Almost giving you the blueprint of how they did it. Like you're now onboarding your customers in a very similar way where they were interviewing you and your co-founders or your coworkers about what you guys are like, who are you? And then they walked through that process and then. Crafted a new brand.

And it sounds like you guys are doing that almost every time with new customers. Like you're really getting to know their business to understand it. And like you said, like 80 to 90% of the stuff is the same, but there's that 20 to 10 to 20% where you can really stand out. It sounds like you guys are capitalizing on that in a major way.

[00:12:29] Darrin Piotrowski: Definitely, and even if 80 to 90% are the same, there's always some little thing that you can do. That makes that client feel special. I went to, so this week in New Orleans, it's New Orleans Entrepreneur Week, and there's a bunch of events. I went, one of our clients had a was a speaker, and so we were invited.

So I went to the event yesterday afternoon, and then afterwards I got the talk with her. And and they're new. I had met this particular client through the 10,000 Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program. And, so I didn't know exactly what they did. I knew they provided safety software in the medical industry, but so we had a lot of one-on-one time and I got to know a lot more about their bus, her business, and which is was pretty neat.

I, like how she got started, 'cause she's not a programmer, that's not her background. She worked in medical, but not but not, but in management side of things. So that's, that's like a little thing, that you that we could do to help make, differentiate ourselves and make clients feel special, yeah. You're

[00:13:38] Mikey Pruitt: like a real partner with them. Exactly. We are people, you're people, Hey, you're nice people. We're also nice people. Let's work together. True. That's great. So tell me about your, like more of the nuts and bolts business side when you are selling security or just it in general, like how are you like packaging things together?

'cause I, I can see your MRR numbers on the DNSFilter side, and I'm curious like. You're obviously a successful business, so I'm hoping that people in the audience can learn what is working. How do you sell that, increases your revenue?

[00:14:16] Darrin Piotrowski: Okay, so the way we so you know, we don't offer a tiered plan or a la carte plans for our customers.

There's no cyber package add-on. Which we tried in the beginning days years ago when everyone was doing the cyber package add-ons we, it's like basically it's our kind of our way or the highway. Everyone, and it makes it easier for the text. They don't have to figure out is this client have DNSFilter, for example, or not?

So answers they do. Yeah. Yeah. No, they all do. So if you're a client of ours they all have DNS out there. And the reason we, when we were trying to do the cyber package upsell, at the time we may have had 60 clients and and with a monthly recurring plan and only two signed up for the cybersecurity upgrade package.

When it was optional only, yeah, two. Like they didn't wanna pay for it, you know what I did I think we tried for three months, three to six months. So six months after that I just sent an email to all our clients saying, we're increasing your rates. And I don't know what it was at the time.

$15 per user, per month to, 'cause we're adding these security enhancements to keep you safer. Not one person complained. They all just went with it. They're like, oh, thanks. No problem. One call, one guy emailed me and asked exactly what he was getting. That was all he asked. He didn't say, I don't wanna do this.

He just wanted to know what he was getting. Everyone else, no, no one. Now granted do, now it leads me to believe, do people actually read the emails I sent out? Did I just raise their rates in the middle of a contract and no one said anything? Yeah and I wanna say that was maybe. Seven years ago.

I don't remember. It was like yeah, seven or eight years ago. But I thought it was funny and I was like, maybe I should do this more often. It's hey.

[00:16:07] Mikey Pruitt: So that was actually in the rent renta nerd dates, is that right?

[00:16:10] Darrin Piotrowski: Oh, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah we've been doing managed services for quite a while.

So it's, I will say, more than 70% of our revenue is from managed services. Now, maybe eight years ago, that number was probably in the upper fifties. Low sixties, upper fifties. We've done a good job. We don't want it to be too high. 'cause that means we're not getting enough projects.

If MRR gets to 80%, then what is the rest of your revenue coming from? That but yeah that, so yeah our plan is especially with cyber security we want you to have. All the stuff that we offer and we, our biggest, if I was to do a pain point with that, our biggest is juggling client convenience.

Versus security.

[00:16:55] Mikey Pruitt: Yeah.

[00:16:55] Darrin Piotrowski: We don't want, clients hate inconvenience. And I know, five years, or five year years ago, I guess people were pushing everyone to move to multifactor authentication. That was a headache. Our clients Yep. Did not wanna do it. We eventually made 'em like, you have to do it.

[00:17:12] Mikey Pruitt: And it's like you said, people hate inconvenience, but you know what they hate more losing their business or being on the news because of a data breach, and it's which one do you hate? Less inconvenience Or the end of your business perhaps.

[00:17:28] Darrin Piotrowski: Yeah. Yeah, that's, inconvenience is a big pain point and you don't wanna.

Inconvenience your customer with your branding also,

then they start associating, ah, alright they're making me ask for permission to install this application or,

[00:17:48] Mikey Pruitt: yeah. And you're getting the clients that are taking cybersecurity seriously because you're taking it seriously and just That is correct. Just like with your branding, you're attracting the exact type of customer that you want.

[00:18:00] Darrin Piotrowski: True. And we want if the client isn't serious about cybersecurity or even their it, then they're not gonna wanna, they're not gonna understand pricing. There's a lot of things we can go on, or they don't value it or, I do, they may not feel that they're that I guess they don't understand what happens when their, it is not working.

Yep.

[00:18:20] Mikey Pruitt: So far we've been on this journey of what is now Courant, a very successful MSP in New Orleans. And can I say Nola? Was that allowed for yeah. You outsiders to say just say Nola or Nola Nolans. I can say it like that. I'm from the south, so I've been in the

[00:18:36] Darrin Piotrowski: past.

It's new Orleans, so I don't think I've ever heard someone say Nolins in the city. Nolins. Only in the movies. Yeah, only in the movies.

[00:18:46] Mikey Pruitt: What do you think? So you have a a business partner now. Nick, I believe is his name, and you guys are like charging off into the future. And I'm just curious what you think that future looks like.

'cause I think the audience would get some, some good insight on what to expect.

[00:19:00] Darrin Piotrowski: Yeah. Approximately. So Nick's been with me for over 20 years and he approached me at a DattoCon, I think it was San Diego, about. Becoming a business partner. And the funny thing was, I had already spoken with an attorney about approaching him and asking if he wanted to buy into the company.

So we were already starting off on the same right page. And then for, we met weekly. We still meet weekly for management meetings, but we met weekly just to see if our brains were gonna be in alignment of what we wanted to accomplish. And then about three years ago, I sold him a portion of the company.

Kind of did like a owner financing type deal. And that has worked great. He he's always wanted to be a business owner. He has definitely brought a lot of things to the table that I never even thought of before. I, and it's been a big relief for me because a lot of times I'm pulled in 1000 different directions.

As the owner of a company, sometimes when you get pulled in a thousand different directions, nothing gets accomplished, and now things are getting accomplished. So our long-term goals are we want to continue, obviously with any business. We want to continue adding customers and but still provide the same level of service that we like to like to.

Provide for our customers. And that's figuring out when to hire a new technician. And when you know, there, there's a fine line between too many techs and not enough techs, we also wanna still provide a good company culture for our employees. That's really important to us.

'Cause if you don't have a good company culture, that will trickle into how customers are treated. So that, that's really important to us. And a lot of that's even more important than like the company's bottom line. And granted, we want to improve our we do wanna improve our bottom line, that, but juggle all of this with.

Culture, client retention. Employee retention. There's a lot of things that, that,

[00:21:08] Mikey Pruitt: that's actually really interesting the way you phrase those things. 'Cause they're not like whizzbang new future perhaps things. And I had, I just heard a like a snippet of a speech by Jeff Bezos, which he gave recently, and it was basically along the lines of, a lot of people. We gonna try to focus on the next thing. What's next? Oh, AI is the next thing. Ooh. And he's that's the wrong thing. What you want to focus on. Is what is not going to change. 'cause you already know how to win at those things. All you have to do is double down on them, continue to invest in them, and have them pay off dividends in the future.

Things like company culture, employee retention, client happiness that you've mentioned. So you and Jeff Bezos, you guys are like twins over there.

Did you hear that same talk that I heard?

[00:21:59] Darrin Piotrowski: I think I'm a few zeros away from him,

yeah, A few zeros, a few islands,

[00:22:04] Mikey Pruitt: a few boats. Yeah. But that's really good to see.

Darna, I, it's great to see that Courant is in great hands with you and Nick leading the ship. And I just wanna say, thank you for appearing with me here on dnsUNFILTERED. Any last words for our audience?

[00:22:18] Darrin Piotrowski: This has been fun. And if you're not using D nm S filter, you should be, it's a great product.

It's easy. They've always adding impr, always adding improvements. Support is great. Like support is really awesome. Like one of the better products we work with pro, probably, definitely in the. Top three. Now I've gotta send you a check. Thanks, Darrin. No. We I'm like yeah, it's been really good and we came from another product that starts with a U and N in an A and that was not very good yeah, exactly.

But yeah, y y'all have been great. I'm glad to do this that this is fun. Yeah.

[00:22:53] Mikey Pruitt: Thank you and thank you for those kind words about DNSFilter and I appreciate again you joining me. Alright, thank you.

[00:22:59] Darrin Piotrowski: Alright.