(Click the picture to enlarge)  

>> 1. What is your background? Did you go to college? What were you interested in? Which was your first company and how did that start?

After graduating from Wawasee High School in Syracuse, Indiana in 1997, I attended ITT Technical Institute in Fort Wayne from 1997 to 1999 and received an associates degree in electronics. While attending ITT I was working at Dana as an assistant network administrator. After graduating from ITT in September1999, Dana hired me as a full time audio visual specialist. Less than a year after graduating from ITT, I started my first company, Benson Communications, in February 2000, doing computer repair along with the video production I was already doing. Since high school I had been doing video production on the side. I continued working at Dana while working at Benson part time. I had been spending more in rent for the Benson office than I was making while I was trying to save for my upcoming wedding. It was starting to look like I would have to give up on Benson. For two weeks I didn’t even go into the office. On the other hand, things were going extremely well at Dana. They were even flying me to plants in other states to do video productions. One evening I went out to eat with my father, and I shared with him the frustrations that I had with Benson. He told me to give it two weeks, and if I couldn’t make it work out to be done with it. Unbeknownst to either of us, about a week later, in August, 2000, I was the first of 100 employees to be laid off in Dana’s first downsizing. At the time I thought the world was going to end. I was so glad that I hadn’t gotten rid of Benson. I went into the office and said, "God, it’s you and me that are going to make this work. I can’t do it without you." In the next month I made more money at Benson than I had since its conception. While sitting at my parents’ house on Labor Day, I knew I had made the right decision. I was continuing to work at Benson full time and preparing for my wedding, which was to take place in December. A few times I considered closing Benson and finding a "real" job since I was about to be the head of a household. I’m so glad I didn’t do that, since my fiancé called the wedding off a few weeks before we were to be married and our relationship ended a month after that.

Benson’s original office space was a 10x10 foot room in an office complex. We rented this space from February 2000 until January 2001. At this point I had my first employee and was repairing about 20 computers a week. One day we had 15 customers waiting outside of our small office to pick up or drop off a computer. We knew that we had to do something soon. We moved to a 30x20 foot storefront on Main Street in Syracuse. I thought, "this is more space than I’lll ever need." Less than a year later we were bursting at the seams and decided to rent the rest of the first floor and the basement of the building.

The name Benson came from a computer administrator at Wawasee Community Schools who gave me the nickname Benson because Ben in Hebrew means son. I used it as my first online screen name and when I was choosing the name for my new business it seemed like a natural fit.

Benson Communications is a registered trademark that I filed myself (without an attorney) in 2000. It took almost a year to get registered.

As computers were getting less expensive and the need for repairs was decreasing, I knew Benson would need a new game plan. In October of 2002 I attended a trade show with Rich Hays, the director of development at a local ISP. During a lunch break we noticed a conference about to start called "How to Start Your Own Telephone Company." Our expectations were not very high, since we were 2 of 4 people sitting in a room with 200 chairs. After an hour and a half our jaws were hanging open and we were thinking, “How could no one know about this?” They ended the presentation by saying, “this can all be yours for one low, low price.” I thought to myself that if they can do it for that price, there must be someone who can do it for less.
When I returned home I started searching and found someone who could do it for a third of the price. I got a group of friends together and brainstormed.

Having no competition allowed Sprint, our local carrier, to charge customers whatever they wanted. I was no longer willing to be one of the people sitting around and complaining about my bill. I was going to do something about it.

My goal was to start a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC). This is a local telephone company that competes with the larger telephone companies such as Sprint or Verizon. When a customer switches from their current telephone company to a CLEC they will not notice a difference, except that their bill will come from the CLEC and will be less expensive, thus allowing there to be competition and keeping prices down for consumers. There were already CLEC’s in many cities throughout the country, but very few in small towns, particularly in the Sprint territories of Indiana.

I decided to create a company separate from Benson, which we named U4. Our certifications with the IURC and other state regulators took almost an entire year and thousands of dollars. Benson had fallen on hard times, but somehow we started U4 with a couple hundred dollars in the checking account. We sought out many private investors since banks considered us too new and most did not understand our mission. They were not interested in investing in an idea, only in bricks and mortar. After a year and half of Benson supporting itself and U4, barely keeping the lights on at both buildings, U4 took on its first customer. We opened the doors at the U4 Store with a provisioner and a customer service representative. We thought the customers would beat down our doors to sign up. Boy, were we wrong. Although it was much slower than we thought, U4 began to grow. After identifying that many customers were looking for packages, we decided to offer internet and long distance and combine them into one bill. After the first year we had about 1,000 customers. A year later we had 3,000 in 2007 we had 13,000 customers. We offer local telephone service in Indiana, Ohio and Florida and also offer nationwide dial up internet and have wholesalers offering long distance in 43 states.

In March of 2005 I got married to my wife Kristi.   

In 2005, many of the U4 employees were working at the Benson office since the U4 store was too small. I was sitting in the lobby talking to my wife on the phone wondering where to relocate when I found myself staring at the for sale sign across the street. This was the beginning of Wawasee Plaza, my third company. With the help of a partner, I purchased the 22,000 square foot building after eight banks turned me down. Again banks were hesitant to lend me money because they did not understand U4. Much of the building had been sitting empty for 15 years. Prior to our purchasing the building, my wife and I created blueprints of what we wanted the interior of the building to look like. The bank that finally gave us our loan said the blueprints signified to them that we had a plan and vision.

Once the building was purchased our first two tenants, U4 corporate and Benson Communications moved in. I decided the 2nd floor would be used for my companies and the 1st floor would be turned into office spaces. The building is split into 3 sections that look like separate buildings from the front. The East building, which was once a 110x35 foot grocery store, became 5 offices, a kitchen, a bathroom and a three room suite including a storefront. The local Edward Jones became our next tenant. They moved into the office suite and have now been there for over a year. The Chamber of Commerce moved into the front of the middle building next to Edward Jones, and we completed a second office suite behind the Chamber’s office. We are offering high speed internet to all of our tenants.  For a complete list of tenants please go to www.wawaseeplaza.com

>> 2. What kind of challenges presented themselves when starting the  businesses?

The largest challenge when I started Benson was simply figuring out how to start a business. I was learning everything from taxes to customer service to advertising as I went along. An ongoing challenge with Benson is that we have to constantly reinvent ourselves as the industry changes. When I started, computers cost a few thousand dollars, but now they cost a few hundred. I used to sell about $6,000 of retail items such as printer cables, but as Walmart became more popular, people began buying these items there because they thought they cost less even though they actually cost more. Eventually we eliminated carrying retail because the insurance premiums to sell retail cost more than what we were making.

A year ago I decided that I will never start another business that will not have reoccurring billings because business is too hard when you don’t know what income the next month will provide. Benson goes through times of feast and then famine. There is no stability.

The largest challenge when starting U4 was learning what it takes to make a telephone call happen. The telco. industry is very complicated. Being undercapitalized is also a huge challenge. Most CLEC’s start with at least a million dollars in financing. We’ve managed to do it with less than a third of that. We amaze our regulatory attorney on a regular basis.

The largest challenge with Wawasee Plaza is choosing between time and money. When we started remodeling, my partner and my wife and I did all of the work, but were left with absolutely no time. We’d often put in 50 hour work weeks and 35 hours working on the building. With each area that has been completed we’ve been able to hire others and do less of the work ourselves.

Each business that I’ve created has been easier than the last because I now know the importance of procedures, business rules, and leadership.

>> 3. How in the world can you run three companies? Please give a brief description of each.

Running three companies is like juggling three constantly changing objects. My job is to determine what needs my focus that day. I am extremely detail oriented. It is very important that I have good people under me who I can trust to take care of my concerns. The key to everything is getting something done everyday. When I go home at night I can say that I got something done today even if it was just a small task. I think this is important because we are measured by what we do, not what ideas we’ve had. I think many people get overwhelmed with tasks and then spend most of the day thinking about all of the tasks and have a hard time getting any one thing done.

>> 4. Have there been any surprises, good or bad, along the way?

Surprises… too many to count. Some customers have surprised me by being the best form of advertising available. But others have also surprised me by being unethical and not paying their bills.

>> 5. Where did you get your entrepreneurial spirit?

Starting and running a business is a huge rush for me. My wife says that when I come up with a new business idea my eyes sparkle and my face lights up. Just a few months ago, after purchasing a motion background online, I decided to have Benson start a new website that sells motion backgrounds for PowerPoint presentations and worship music projections. Within a day of brainstorming I named it snazzybackgrounds.com. The site is almost complete, and I think it blows all of the current backgrounds websites out of the water.

I have always had and always will have goals. Benson, U4 and the Wawasee Plaza are goals that have been realized. Within each of the companies I have many more goals that my employees and I are working towards. My next large goal is to charter my first bank.

>> 6. Did anyone help you along the way?

My family was a huge help. They have spent hours helping me move the companies and remodel my offices. Also, my sister was one of my first employees. For the first years of business I had very few people in my life who understood what starting a business is like. In 2003 I met my wife. She is the local Chamber of Commerce director and my biggest supporter. She and I spend hours and hours talking about the companies and making plans.

>> 7. What advice would you give other entrepreneurs just starting out?

I would tell entrepreneurs starting out to set their goals high because if you do, you will accomplish something great. If you set your goals too low, you won’t accomplish much.

Entrepreneurs need to talk to other entrepreneurs for support and understanding. It is hard for anyone who hasn’t started a company to understand us. We really are a different breed. If anyone is interested in talking with me about business I would be more than happy to talk with them. My email is ben.plikerd@email.U4corp.com

There was never a day when I woke up and decided that I’d become an entrepreneur. Circumstances and my own ambition slowly helped me to become the leader of three companies.