Going From Startup to Success | Andrew Limouris

So let's start from the beginning just to figure out how you got here.

Uh, so let me ask you, you started MEDDICS in 2001 after losing your own job in the post-9/11 recession.

How directly did that experience shape the company's mission and the culture from day one?

Yeah, well, Marlene, first of all, I'll say thank you so much, uh, for having me on, and thank you to ASA for always being, uh, uh, just the backbone of our industry and making sure that you guys take care of us.

Oh, thank you.

And it's, a- and, and, and it's been a strategy for us to, you know, connect with, you know, organizations, uh, to, to make us better.

So just wanted to give you guys a shout-out before I get started.

In 2000, December 2001 was kind of a unique time.

Uh, we were in a recession.

I, I, I, I had lost my, uh, a job a, a couple months beforehand.

You know, but as I, you know, as I, you know, r- reflect on a couple things from that time, today what it reminds me of is day one mentality.

How do you continue to have the day one mentality? And then secondly, you know, a, a, a good friend of mine recently over the past year gave my, my daughter some advice, and he said, "Life is full of peaks." And I think, you know, th- there's, there's some good peaks and bad peaks in life.

And so I, I look at me losing my job was a very difficult time, uh, but it, but it did open up the doors to, uh, put my arms around a business plan that I had written a few years before with some, some help from some really smart folks.

Um, and as the business started to get kicked off, 10 months into the business I had lost my mom unexpectedly.

She passed away of pancreatic cancer in about 90 days, and it was a really intense time.

So in a matter of a year, I got laid off, found out my mom was sick, and, and, and, uh, she passed.

There was a lot of stuff happening, and my wife was pregnant.

So there was a lot of, lot of, lot of transitions, a lot of life changes.

And as I reflect back, it, it, it almost gave me this idea after 2002 was complete.

Now, I didn't say this to myself then.

There was a lot that happened, but a few years had passed.

And when you wanna honor something bigger than yourself and you, you are, uh, incredibly close to one of your parents, I was very close to my mom, you start to do things that, that are, um, you know, that maybe start to lean into the best version of yourself.

So I look back at that day one mentality, or day 24 months mentality, and everything that had happened in that first 24 months really kinda shaped my inside gut, I guess, heart, and mind for what was ahead.

So there's a lot that went into that.

Everybody's got an entrepreneurial story that started a business.