221: Pool Boy builds Tech Company that Employs Thousands Worldwide – John Simpson of Patra

221: Pool Boy builds Tech Company that Employs Thousands Worldwide – John Simpson of Patra

Background on John Simpson of Patra:

John Simpson is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Patra. An innovator and entrepreneur, John founded Patra in 2005 and has grown the company to more than 3,200 employees worldwide. In 2017, Patra landed in the top third of Inc Magazine’s fastest growing companies. John understands the importance of efficient internal systems to support the complicated needs of a service organization. As an entrepreneur, he knows that it’s vital for a business leader to have total trust in any partner. John has spent more than 20 years leading technology-focused companies, and previously founded CyberBills, an innovative web banking technology company.

Patra is focused on using technology and services to improve processes within the Insurance Industry. Currently, Patra offers insurance brokers, MGAs, Wholesalers and Carriers the ability to outsource portions of their customer facing and back-office services. Their technology and processes are enabling these companies to use their existing employees for higher value functions, saving up to 50% off their existing costs, as well as increasing the overall quality of the work performed. Patra currently serves over 40% of the top 100 insurance brokers in the US and hundreds of other insurance companies.

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

[1:00] John Simpson, 55 years old and lives in California, runs a company called Patra Corporation, which provides tech-enabled services to the insurance industry.
[2:48] Patra is a technology-enabled service, which is basically people and technology combined to get the job done.
[3:41] In terms of size, Patra has over 4,000 people worldwide and revenue this year will be about 75 million dollars.
[7:16] John tells the story of how he got his experiences in entrepreneurship and running a company at a very young age.
[13:41] He started a company called Cyber Bills, where he learned a very important lesson when the dot-com crash happened.
[19:41] Starting his first company, John didn’t have much money and he was living paycheck to paycheck. With his connections, he was able to get some investors on board to build up his company.
[22:31] John explains the difference between strategic investors and financial investors.
[26:46] Looking back, John recalls one of his biggest mistakes when running his first company.
[33:56] There is another important lesson that John learned when his first company was about to go public.
[36:01] Being a stay-at-home dad and doesn’t have too much to do after selling his first company, John created several small businesses such as a pool cleaning service and a babysitting service.
[42:48] After selling his swimming pool business, John was called to look at this software idea that eventually led to the problem of fixing certificates of insurance.
[46:10] John had to go to India to set up his insurance business.
[49:46] A more in-depth explanation of why there is a need to solve the problem of the certificates of insurance.
[55:20] Patra is a Hindi word that comes very close to a certificate.
[57:41] John has another interesting story that involves looking for tracking software.
[1:07:29] There were some challenges that John had to deal with when going to India.
[1:16:15] One of the things that helped Patra tremendously was going to this insurance conference called CIAB held in The Greenbrier in West Virginia.
[1:19:37] According to John, he won’t get bored with the insurance industry. He describes it as a jigsaw puzzle with so many different aspects and components that add to its complexities.
[1:22:42] John feels like his mission in life is to create jobs for the people.
[1:25:49] Honesty, integrity, and respect are the three pillars that John believes in and takes to his employees every day.

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Fabulous 4 Questions:

📖📚 Favorite Books? The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman
🙌😎 Favorite Amazon.com purchase? Teleprompter
🌱💸 Favorite Tool that's GROWN your Business? Quickbase
💭💡 BIGGEST Challenge keeping your Business from GROWING? Customer Adoption

Key Point from the Interview:

“And this is one of the biggest things I learned was, don’t trust the financial investors, they are in it for themselves, they are not in it for you.”

Resources Mentioned:

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