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Meet Fred Babadjanians of Daily Computing Solutions in Glendale

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Fred Babadjanians.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Fred. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
In 1997, I finished my illustrious high school career with a massive graduation party. Picture the valedictorian standing in front of 3,500 people, giving the same speech you hear across the country. “Today, is the first day of the rest of our lives. Looking back at what we have accomplished in the past 4 years and looking forward to the accomplishments left in our lives. Class of 1997, “we did it!” …the crowd cheers…

Fast forward, 2 months. One of my friends from high school, who actually graduated in 1996 drove by my parents’ house and asked me to come outside to talk. We sat on the curb until 10:30pm throwing ideas around as to how we can make money. Some of them were legit, some of them were off the wall, but, we had ideas! We met again the following night, on the same curb, discussing the same ideas. It hit us!

Artin Kasparian, my friend, then my business partner mentioned that he was an excellent salesperson and could probably sell ice to an Eskimo. I was good at computers and putting hardware together; starting a computer consulting company would be brilliant!

We started telling everyone we knew that we just went into business as computer consultants and if they needed anything, we could help! Within a few weeks, we had our first client! The client actually ended up paging (Yes, paging, the little device that went beep beep beep on your hip – then you drove to a pay phone, dropped 25 cents and called the person back) asking if we can help with their current fax marketing efforts. Of course! We could do anything… right? We took on the client.

We spent 2 weeks working on learning the faxing software and the modem setup to actually be able to send out fax marketing to the 800 contacts they had in their database. After getting it to perfection and starting the campaign for them, it was time to get paid. We mailed our $45 invoice to them and followed up in a few days for payment. The famous words… “you want your money? Come pick it up…” Artin drove to my house, picked me up, in pouring rain, and we drove together to Northridge, CA to pick up our $45. We knocked on the door and waited. We knocked again, and waited. How could we have driven all this way, in pouring rain, and there was nobody there to pay us.

We drove down the street to a pay phone, called the client, confirmed that he was indeed there, then drove back again to pick up our money. We waited in the pouring rain for 15 minutes until he finally cracked the door open, slipped us our $45 check and without skipping a beat, shut the door.

We now had our first $45 and we were in business!

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Remember that $45 check we just got? Someone forgot to tell two 18-year old “entrepreneurs” that you can’t deposit a check made out to a company name if you don’t have a bank account or a business tax ID number. Shocking!

Artin and I took a day and drove down to the Business Registrar’s office to register our business name. We filled out the paperwork and submitted to the lady at the window. Her first comment “You know, partnerships never last. You guys sure you want to make this mistake this early in your life??” Challenge accepted. Going on 20 years of a successful partnership.

The biggest challenge we have faced within our business is not ever knowing what to do next. We know how to consult, and we know how to provide value within our solutions, but neither one of us really ever knew how to run a business. Most challenges arise from not knowing what you can / cannot say or do. Having written agreements and contracts in place. Having written work scope in place and tracking time against that scope.

Operationally, our challenge has been the same as every other company in the country. Attracting new business, while being able to manage existing business, and scaling the company to achieve growth.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Daily Computing Solutions – what should we know?
One of my industry mentors has always told us to invest in our employees first, and in turn, they would take care of our clients.

Our company recently made the switch from a traditional break-fix consulting company to a Managed Services Provider model. This model allows us to proactively manage client infrastructure and systems under a subscription model. The increased costs businesses suffer from down time and network instability makes this model an affordable solution to a detrimental problem. This Managed Services Model provides businesses of all sizes the ability to predict the cost of IT Support on a monthly basis and properly budget for scalability and growth.

In our attempt to cover the entire family of IT Services, as well as provide unmatched value, we have also, very successfully, ventured into the Web Design and digital marketing services for our existing MSP clients. These services help our clients grow their operations while they focus on running their business.

Having the experience of running a successful company from 18 years old until today allows us to provide value to all of our clients beyond just IT Consulting. We see ourselves as partners in their business. The more growth we can help push in their business, the more growth we will see in ours.

Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
I’m reminded of an old saying: CFO asks CEO “What happens if we invest in developing our people and then they leave us?”

CEO: “What happens if we don’t, and they stay?”

We firmly believe that our people are our greatest assets. The dedication and sacrifices our people endure to make certain our clients are operational is the key to all of our success.

Collectively, I think we can all agree that the days of walking into a business, fixing a computer, and walking out are long gone. Business owners everywhere are looking for business minded solutions that can help their company grow to the next level.

The more value we can provide to our clients, the more our clients appreciate our work.

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Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

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