5 years of Fighting and Now we are Winning

September 1st, 2019, marked the start of a transformative journey. I founded my business with a clear vision: to be an advisor offering services through a program designed to connect advisors. Little did I know the challenges and triumphs that awaited. On that inaugural Monday, I sat in my office chair, brimming with excitement for the future. This chair, now bearing a broken arm, mirrors the trials my spirit would endure.

By the end of the company's first week, I had met my now-wife. The irony of starting a business and a serious relationship simultaneously wasn't lost on me. It was a whirlwind, a testament to the unpredictable nature of life. Yet, there I was, embracing the chaos and the unexpected joy it brought.

Over the course of the next 3 months or so,?I was blessed with help from everyone I knew and humbled by the challenge of building from the ground up.

• My first advisor client was my former company (Thanks Bill Gregory Robby Paul )
• My first commission client was handed to me by Moe Ilyas (could not do it without you)
• The Nextiva Kickoff allowed me to hear Marc Randolph's story who I had always admired.?He may or may not have caught me creeping like he was a movie star.

All of this excited me and fueled the belief in what I was doing and what I was attempting to build.

Then, everything fell apart. I became so ill that it felt like death was near. Exhaustion overwhelmed me, and my girlfriend of less than three months had to help me to the bathroom. The doctors were baffled by my flu-like symptoms, but nothing provided relief. After three weeks of battling this illness, news of a novel disease emerged – Covid. Less than six months after launching my business, Covid struck me and my industry hard. The weekend before Channel Partners, our industry's largest event, major companies began withdrawing, and the conference was canceled.

I was devastated. I can't travel anywhere. I can't meet customers or go to events and conferences which were such a large part of my business plans.??

What should I do now?

How would I find clients?

How would I educate advisors?

Just keep moving!

“It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward!” - Rocky Balboa

These were my first tears I cried for this company.? I was sunk and thought there is no way I could start up a new advisor business in the middle of this chaos.? Let's be real, larger more established businesses could not survive a global economic shutdown.? How could I?

Most of 2020 was spent fighting tooth and nail for consulting jobs, focused on serving the clients I had with excellence. By the end of 2020 I had burned through most of my savings and was beginning to think it would all collapse before it really began.

Once again it's my ecosystem that saves me, and in the first month of 2021 the world starts to see hope at the end of the Covid tunnel.? A vaccination had been created but the next problem to solve was how do you give over 700 million shots across America?

This problem, this question, and this challenge is born into my DNA and thus my company's DNA.?We were given 3 business days to build a bid on running the technology at one of the country's first mass vaccination locations at Gillette Stadium in Boston. For the next 9 months Metadata Engineering ran over 10 mass vaccinations sites across the country.? We were able to build teams of field techs across the country and were able to provide excellent services for our customers and for our country.

We thought we had made it.? I started investing in different areas and in different people before the worst professional year of my life hit me like a ton of bricks.? The vaccinations dried up and we had no other revenue opportunities.? We had no direction and very little vision.? This led me to trusting people I probably shouldn’t have trusted.? We were taken advantage of in a time of need.? Shame on me! My team, my family, and my clients (as few as we had) depended on me to perform and make decisions of excellence, and I failed.? Tough lesson.

By this time, my now wife had moved in with her two kids doubling my family.?Doubling the traffic in the house and removing places I could hide away.??

Tears for this company again.? I remember laying outside in my front yard away from the family crying and asking myself….

How did we get here?

What did I do wrong?

I should never trust again………

Wait a second! Is it not trusting my friends, my partners, my ecosystem that got me to where I am now?? I refuse to change who I am based on the character of another person.

“What THEY do speaks to who THEY are, what YOU do speaks to who YOU are!” - To my knowledge me

I doubled down with my key employees Sean Holmes and Jessica Dyer and we made a plan and then we executed.?

Brings us to 2023, the year of rebuilding, defining and circling anyone and everyone who could help us.? We changed our partnerships, created visibility and began focusing on who we are and where we are going.? We fought for every inch and every deal.? We rebuilt our business plan, rebuilt the website.

For those that are known entrepreneurs or have been part of start ups, you can contest that most companies have experienced what we did and most of them never see the next year.? We did and I will be damned if I let one bad year kill my fight.? My friends, my partners, and my advisor won’t let me give up.

“In order to become the 1%, you must do what the other 99% won’t!” - Unknown

However, now we have rebranded to SimpliMeta, which matches who we are and tells our story appropriately.? We are growing and staying true to who we are and what we want.

The theme here is believe in yourself, stand up and fight for what you know will work and what you believe is right.? Do not allow your circumstances to stop you or change who you are.

Thank you to everyone who made 5 years come true and know we will be here and we will fight for you if you give us a chance.? No one can make it alone and that's why you should partner with someone who gets it.