Business partners and cousins Chris and Phil Reynolds didn’t start a company because they had a plan, any market research or a passel of money. They founded Intuitive Web Solutions LLC in 2004 because they both crave control.
“I’ve always been someone who wanted to be in control of my environment,” says Phil Reynolds, president of business development, echoing the reason Chris wanted to work for himself.
That shared desire and common work ethic combined with a belief in empowering employees with ownership in IWS’ success propelled the company to annual gross revenues of $3 million in 2011 from $2.2 million in 2010.
IWS is a Web-based software company that offers insurance-administration software for small to midsize property casualty insurance companies. With 46 employees, IWS hosts the software, and has a client-services department that is in almost daily contact with clients.
Last year, IWS ranked No. 288 on the Inc. 500 list that features the fastest growing privately held companies; won the Missouri governor’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award; and was a finalist for the Springfield Chamber of Commerce’s W. Curtis Strube Small Business Award.
Both Missouri State University graduates, the Reynoldses had full-time jobs when they started IWS, writing electronic statements for the credit union industry. That led to developing a quoting system called IWSQuote for Old Missouri Mutual, formerly known as Nixa Farmer’s Mutual.
The next step was to incorporate the many facets of insurance administration, which eventually resulted in the creation of BriteCore, the Web-based processing system that is IWS’ main product. The company has 25 clients in 15 states, mostly on the East Coast.
“It’s a tremendous, tremendous workload to grow a company at this pace,” says Chris Reynolds, president of products.
Risk is part of the mix, too. When it was time to add a second customer, the cousins bought a booth – despite little cash flow – at the Illinois state convention of mutual insurance companies. In an industry that sits on the opposite end of the Silicon-Valley spectrum, companies didn’t know what to make of IWS’ modern booth.
By the end of the event, the Reynoldses were tearing down their booth, depressed they hadn’t sold anything. Then, two companies approached IWS, and one of them bought.
“In the end, it targeted the kind of customer we wanted – the technologically minded, forward-thinking company,” Chris Reynolds says.
When IWS ran out of those forward-thinking companies and prospects looked bleak, the Reynoldses received an invitation to attend the West Virginia convention of insurance companies. Attending would be expensive and the event was small – only six companies – but the cousins went anyway.
That decision proved pivotal, leading IWS to more potential clients and the development of BriteCore, which was made possible by the investment of five companies who purchased the rights to the software, which is owned by IWS.
IWS puts a huge emphasis on its hiring process and in the conviction that satisfied, well-placed employees create products the industry will buy.
Multiple interviews and an assigned project are part of the process. A tech background isn’t mandatory, but a desire to learn and the ability to adapt is.
“Our employees definitely feel the company’s success is their success, and that’s definitely critical to our success. We couldn’t have (grown) without our employees,” Chris Reynolds says. Remaining nimble and lean as growth continues will be challenging, Phil Reynolds admits. But IWS intends to expand its offerings within the insurance industry – perhaps into the auto segment – and acquisitions might be down the road, too.
“The trick is learning how to preserve that willingness to take risks,” he says.
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