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I’m on my knees in a Niles, Illinois, apartment, installing a medical alert system for an elderly client. I had just bought into the company, and we were losing $500K a month. I needed to go and see why.<\/p>\n
She served me tea and cookies while I worked. Then she said something that changed everything: “You’re the most respectful and courteous person from any company who’s been inside my home.”<\/p>\n
That’s when I realized we weren’t in the technology business. We were in the trust building<\/a> business.<\/p>\n For us, trust meant three things: consistency, responsiveness and showing up when it mattered most.<\/p>\n Join top CEOs, founders and operators at the Level Up conference to unlock strategies for scaling your business, boosting revenue and building sustainable success.<\/a><\/p>\n The $500K monthly bleed<\/p>\n In 2013, I bought into a medical alert company that smart money had abandoned.<\/p>\n A classmate from Stanford GSB, now at a major PE firm, raised an eyebrow: “That industry? The smart money has left the building.”<\/p>\n He wasn’t wrong. We were hemorrhaging half a million monthly. Competitors were folding or desperately merging. Everyone knew the Apple Watch would be the final nail in our coffin.<\/p>\n I don’t mean to romanticize it. Our financials were a mess. But the deeper I looked, the more it seemed like the real deficit wasn’t capital. It was care<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sitting in that apartment in Niles, installing a system for someone who survived the Holocaust, I saw something different.<\/p>\n These weren’t “users” waiting for the next innovation. They were people who’d learned that survival often depends on reliability, not novelty. They valued humanity and decency above all else.<\/p>\n The service revolution nobody wanted<\/p>\n While VCs poured millions into smart pendants and AI-powered<\/a> monitoring, I made a different bet: What if we just answered the phone better?<\/p>\n We did three things:<\/p>\n Trimmed the fat: Cut three failing channels to focus on two that workedInvested in humans: 10% more training than any competitorRaised prices: Better service costs more. Turns out, people happily pay for better.<\/p>\n The VC-funded competitors promised to revolutionize the form factor. We promised to pick up the phone in three rings.<\/p>\n Turns out, that mattered more than anyone expected.<\/p>\n Why boring beats brilliant<\/p>\n Here’s what Silicon Valley doesn’t understand: In service businesses, it’s all distribution and trust<\/a>. Not technology. Not features. Trust.<\/p>\n Our customers stay with us for years. When they leave, it’s not because they found a better product (or that they passed). It’s because life changed; 48% move to assisted living, 42% move in with family.<\/p>\n They don’t quit us. Some even call to thank us when they cancel.<\/p>\n The pattern that pays<\/p>\n I see the same pattern everywhere:<\/p>\n Overfunded in digital ads? Someone’s making money in direct mail.Overfunded in AI? Someone’s cleaning up with better human service.Overfunded in automation? Someone’s winning by adding humans back.<\/p>\n None of this is easy. Service businesses scale differently. Culture cracks faster than code. But when it works, it lasts.<\/p>\n Maybe you’re the one raising millions to disrupt something. That’s fine. But if not, fret not.<\/p>\n Related: ‘Boring’ Businesses Are Making Millionaires \u2014 and You Can Borrow Their Strategies For Success<\/a><\/p>\n The unglamorous path to $45 million<\/p>\n Over the years, that “dying” medical alert business generated $45M in cash. We built 28% EBITDA margins in a “commodity” industry. We grew 12% annually while everyone said we were obsolete.<\/p>\n No pivots. No rebrandings. No articles in the tech press.<\/p>\n It wasn’t a straight line. But we stayed close to the customer, close to the team and close to what worked. That was enough.<\/p>\n Just consistent service. The kind that earns its keep quietly.<\/p>\n We turned profitable in 90 days by doing what MBAs say you can’t: compete on service in a price-sensitive market. Turns out grandma knows quality when she experiences it. And she tells her friends.<\/p>\n Your boring goldmine awaits<\/p>\n Every industry has its version of this opportunity:<\/p>\n Home services: Where trust beats priceB2B logistics: Where reliability beats speedHealthcare adjacent: Where empathy<\/a> beats efficiencyEducation: Where relationships beat algorithmsLocal services: Where showing up beats scaling up<\/p>\n Every industry has noise. Sometimes, trust and steady execution cut through louder than innovation.<\/p>\n The ultimate service metric<\/p>\n That elderly client in Niles was our customer for eight years. When she finally moved in with her daughter in Phoenix, she called to thank us.<\/p>\n Her daughter said we were the only company her mother insisted on calling personally to cancel. We answered in three rings.<\/p>\n We didn’t innovate the medical alert. We didn’t invest in tech. We didn’t revolutionize the form factor. We didn’t leverage AI or blockchain.<\/p>\n