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Rob Senatore WINS by surrounding himself with WINNERS.

• Carrie Richardson

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 From Sprint to CEO: Rob Senatore’s Journey with Data2Go Wireless

In this episode of the WIN podcast, host Carrie Richardson interviews Rob Senatore, CEO of Data2Go Wireless. 

Rob shares his inspiring journey from being a sales rep at Sprint to becoming the CEO of a thriving wireless company. He discusses the pivotal moments, challenges, and lessons learned along the way, offering valuable insights for aspiring entrepreneurs. Rob emphasizes the importance of adaptability, team building, and strategic planning in achieving business success.

Episode Highlights:

  • Early Career at Sprint: Rob's experience as a sales rep and the influence of small business clients.
  • Taking the Plunge: The decision to leave Sprint and start his own business with his wife’s support.
  • Major Breakthrough: Involvement in New York City's taxi and limo commission technology upgrade.
  • Birth of Data2Go Wireless: Developing a software platform to unify multiple wireless carriers.
  • Challenges and Lessons: Early struggles with variable charge items and the importance of prepaid billing engines.
  • Financial Wisdom: The value of clean books, strategic budgeting, and transitioning from an LLC to a C Corp.
  • Leadership and Team Building: Importance of surrounding oneself with a strong team and trusting their expertise.
  • Future Growth: Plans for Data2Go Wireless, including new products and strategic partnerships.

Guest Quotes:

  • “You have to process the information correctly. But once you process it... you just have to go with it.”
  • “Every mistake that you create for yourself or that you have to go through is going to bring you closer to the goal.”
  • “The only thing that's for sure is that things will change and that you have to roll with the punches.”

Guest Information:


Carrie Richardson and Ian Richardson host the WIN Podcast - What's Important Now?

Serial entrepreneurs, life partners and business partners, they have successfully exited from multiple businesses (IT, call center, real estate, marketing) and they help other business owners create their own versions of success.

Ian is certified in Eagle Center For Leadership Making A Difference, Paterson StratOp, and LifePlan.

Carrie has helped create and execute successful outbound sales strategies for over 1200 technology-focused businesses including MSPs, manufacturers, distributors and SaaS firms.

Learn more at www.foxcrowgroup.com
Book time with either of them here: https://randr.consulting/connect

Be a guest on WIN! We host successful entrepreneurs who share advice with other entrepreneurs on how to build, grow or sell a business using examples from their own experience.

Carrie Richardson:

Good afternoon, I'm Carrie Richardson, a partner at Fox and Crow Consulting Group and the host of the WIN podcast. What's important now? Today, I'm asking that question to Rob Senatore, who is the CEO of Data2Go Wireless. Rob, thanks for joining us today. How are you doing?

Robert Senatore:

I'm excited about this conversation.

Carrie Richardson:

Good. Let's start with the basics. Tell me your life story.

Robert Senatore:

Wow. Yeah

Carrie Richardson:

in 5 minutes or less,

Robert Senatore:

Kind of an elevator pitch on who's Rob Senator. So, I started out early in my career as, a rep at sprint. So I bled yellow for a long time. I was at sprint about 12 or 13 years. I think I learned more from the smaller customers than I did from the bigger ones. And that's where the writing was on the wall for me, where I knew what I wanted to do. The folks that own smaller businesses up and down the coast had offices close to the beach, that sold prepaid calling cards and international routes and international toll free. That cool, new stuff at the time, was more interesting to me. And I walk in their office, they'd give me coffee, we talk about business and we talk about life. And I was like, wow, I like what these guys do and I know that's where I want to end up, but I kind of felt stuck. I think that's what holds most people back from actually making that jump. Sprint made the jump a little bit easier for me in 2007 ish, they offered a package. they wanted to lighten their sales load The package gave me a 2 year start. I was in my early 30s at that point. I went home, spoke to my wife. I was like, this just happened. I want to go out on my own, but I'm scared. my wife's like, I support you and whatever you do, I know what you got in you and whatever it's going to be, it's going to work out for us. So she gave me that vote of support. That was really important to me, and then I took the plunge. I knew that this was the time to do it. So I basically raised my hand and said, pick me for the package. Left on good terms and day 1, I went back to Sprint to get an agency contract, so I can continue doing what I knew how to do and make money, but really the idea was, now I don't have a ceiling Now, I know that as much as I can put into it is what I'm going to get out of it. And that was really exciting to me. And you got to be a certain type of personality to do that, right? So anyway, took the chance and sometimes good things happen to you. Just. Out of the air, right? I got called in from a friend of mine in New York and said, I need some help with a customer of mine. they're looking for a wireless expert to help them with the taxi and limo commission r. F. P. that was put out for the technology upgrade for the cabs in New York City. So I said, yeah, let me do it. I'll do it. So I went up to New York. They brought me in. We put the pieces together. So, Verifone transportation systems in New York City felt comfortable using me as their subject matter expert on the wireless piece of the business. We ended up. building a, a circuit board for them, where we inserted the PCMCIA form factor cards and the devices have 2 Ethernet ports. 1 went to the information monitor in the back of the cab. The other 1 went to the credit card reader. The whole idea behind the TLC doing this. technology upgrade was to force the cab drivers to take credit cards. Verifone won the contract I think we got 10 of the 15, 000 available in New York city and the TLC wanted to split it amongst two vendors. So we got 10, 000 there and I'm just one guy. An agent for sprint at the time just typing in, orders every day. Verifone calls me and says, hey, this is working out. So, well, we're gonna roll it across the country. So everything scaled up And this is where the idea of Data 2 Go came from. I only had access to sprint at the time. But at that time Verifone had to use Verizon. They had to use AT& T. They had to use T Mobile and I didn't have those contracts. So I lost that business. We used Sprint in a lot of other cities. I didn't get all of them because I didn't have access. So the light bulb went off in my head and said, Wow, there's an opportunity here if I could build a software platform, and I could bring in all the carriers into 1 place. That would be a really valuable tool for big enterprise like Verifone, but I think it's also a great tool for other technology companies that want to play in the wireless game where maybe they don't have all the expertise, or the knowledge, or the money to actually build out a platform or to buy inventory and all that kind of stuff. That's what I'm going to do. And I'm thinking about how to develop this platform and what I need to do. the gentleman that I bought the PCM CIA form factor cards from, they were Novotel cards. He propositioned me and said, Hey, Rob. I know the embedded module business really well. And if you would be the back office for me, I'll go out there and I'll sell it I said, yes, and we started that embedded module distribution business and, my partner was just a monster in a good way. Within the first three months, we have a half a million dollars of revenue. He's just selling it. We ran that business up to almost 20 million a year, but it's not a recurring business. So January 1st, you're starting at zero every time. And there were a couple of turns of the wheel where, I wanted to shop it a little bit. I wanted to see what the value of the business was and because there wasn't really recurring aspect to it, it was more of, Hey, we're just selling hardware, moving boxes. it wasn't as valuable as I really wanted it to be. At the time I was like, yeah, I'm not in love with this business anymore. Did it for seven years or so. Then I went back to my partner in California. I said, Hey, I want to really go where my heart is, which is the wireless WAN and the wireless connectivity business. Buy the company from me. so sold the hardware company out to him in California and that's where Data 2 Go. Wireless was born. 1st, things were to, bring on, the technical expertise to be able to build the software platform. My expertise was on the sales side. I knew how to go get the contracts and wholesale because I worked at wholesale for the carrier. So we put that together and. learned a couple of really hard lessons early on I think planning, was a big thing. I'm much better at planning now than I was back in the day A good lesson that I can speak about is we learned that when you open up a spigot for usage for a customer with a variable charge item, a metered item, like wireless services, you need to have some controls in place. Otherwise, the customer is not going to pay you at the end of the month. We built a prepaid billing engine into the platform to capture and run credit cards as customers are using the data. And that system is still being used today in our business. We got the wholesale contracts built the prepaid billing engine and it was a really big lift for a small company. It's not like I went to a VC and said, hey, I need a bunch of money and I'm going to turn it into 100Million dollar business. So lifestyle business. Right? Which is fine. but, didn't have the money to do everything that we wanted to do. You get your back against the wall and you have to bring other money in. That was another hard lesson too. Just because somebody has money doesn't mean that they're the right partner for you. and these are legal contracts. This is business. There's some hard truths to learn there. Once you get in with somebody, it's not like you can just cancel it, like canceling a subscription. it took me. 4 or 5 years to kind of go through that cycle to get out into the position that we're in now. I'm really happy that we're at that inflection point. Company's doing well. I'm hiring more people and, I'm using a lot of those lessons that I learned for, 10 years. Right now it's really starting to sprout up. There were a couple of hard lessons that I'm applying today. As I'm applying those lessons, the company is benefiting from it. You have to learn from the mistakes. Always adapting and always being flexible. A lot of entrepreneurs think that things are always going to stay the same way. The only thing that's for sure is that things will change and that you have to roll with the punches. There's no such thing as staying still. It's either backwards or forwards. I learned that the hard way as well. Sometimes as an entrepreneur, I'll get paralyzed in thought, just paralyzed in thought. And then you end up doing nothing. Doing nothing is the worst thing that you can do. Taking action, even if it ends up being wrong is better than doing nothing,

Carrie Richardson:

I'm the complete opposite of that. If I don't know what to do, I'm doing nothing until I figure it out because I am a reactive business owner and I've blown up vendor partnerships. I've blown up client relationships. I've blown up personal relationships all because I reacted quickly and made a decision that could have waited. Are there no circumstances under which you think you Not acting would be a better choice.

Robert Senatore:

I like what you said because you added more detail to this conversation. I think that at the beginning, you have to process the information correctly. But once you process it, and look, I'm going to take something from Bezos He says once you have 70 percent of the information that should be enough for you to be able to make a decision. If you wait for 100%, you waited too long and too many other things are happening at that point. So thanks for bringing that up Carrie, because you do have to process things. Don't get stuck after that. When you make a decision, and you just have to go with it. If it ends up being wrong. Every no is 1 step closer to the yes. Every mistake that you create for yourself or that you have to go through is going to bring you closer to the goal

Carrie Richardson:

And what is your goal?

Robert Senatore:

I think the goal right now is adding revenue and bringing on people that are going to help us add good revenue to the business.

Carrie Richardson:

Tell me about what growth looks like for Data 2 Go

Robert Senatore:

We brought on a, another rep in, to handle our wholesale business and then I have another person right behind them. Success for us is having more of that consistent growth. That's a danger in a lifestyle business. You'll have your wins and your revenue will spike up. And then you'll go flat for a couple of months until that next big deal comes along. I can't be the only one in the business that's generating revenue. I need other people to help me do it because I need to be able to elevate myself act like the CEO and do all the other things that need to happen in the business. It's a tough balance because you need revenue to stay alive. You need to keep bringing on new customers, but you also have to manage the technology. You have to manage the finances. You have all the HR functions. building the right team. And I think again, learn the hard way knowing my strengths and weaknesses. You have to build your team around your weaknesses. You have to fill those gaps. Those gaps will stunt your growth and you're limiting yourself by having those holes in your business. I know what my strengths are, and I'm bringing those things to the table for Data 2 Go, and I have other people around me that are really great at the things that I'm not good at. Bringing those people on, and then trusting them with their ideas and their thoughts. Those are the things that have really moved our business forward over the last couple of years Having that trust in your team and believing they know better than you in certain things. We've heard all the billionaires, they all say you don't need to be the smartest person in the room. You need to surround yourself with the smart people.

Carrie Richardson:

What was the 1st thing that you were able to take off of your plate as the CEO wearing all of the hats? Which hat were you happiest to take off?

Robert Senatore:

I've always been in technical sales and I love technical, but I love it more than my abilities. Then the finances. Our controller has been with me from the hardware business and this business for 10 years. So she's a double threat. She's a CPA, but she also can apply that financial knowledge to our business and she understands our product. So I can speak to her like a wireless person, but she's able to translate that into real financials.

Carrie Richardson:

For me, it was definitely finance. I gave that up before I could afford to

Robert Senatore:

yeah.

Carrie Richardson:

A few years later I paid him more to tell me how much money I made every year than I was making when I met him.

Robert Senatore:

That's great.

Carrie Richardson:

Nice Cinderella story.

Robert Senatore:

Financials. will give you an honest view of where you are because the numbers don't lie. Having clean books are really important to know where you are in the business. Having clean books is important when you need to raise money. And it's critically important to have clean books if you're trying to sell your company. So why not start now? Because if you have five years or 10 years of financials that are not clean and they're not concise and hard for somebody to read, you're not going to be able to clean that up. You're not going to be able to go back 5 years. You need to do that from the start This way. You look good when you're ready to exit. You look like a real professional.

Carrie Richardson:

Yeah, we always tell our clients that, three years before they plan to sell their business, they have to give up the nonsense that they enjoyed as entrepreneurs.

Robert Senatore:

That's right. Part of us changing from a lifestyle business to a real corporation started with us changing from LLC to a C Corp And that's really what the money guys want to see. they would rather buy a C corp and then buy an LLC and there's also some really good tax benefits. I learned a lot about the, qualified, small business stock and that's 1 of the reasons why we switched to C corp as well. Because if you hold the company for 5 years, after you have that C corp, and I think if you're below 50Million dollars, when you sell the company, you don't have the capital gains on the sale of the stock.

Carrie Richardson:

Talk to your lawyer, talk to your accountant.

Robert Senatore:

You really have to lean on those professionals. if you don't want surprises, it's the lawyers, it's the accountants. That's got to be all put into your budget. Budget. There's another thing. Is there really a budget starting lifestyle business? No, there's not. You really got to sit down every year. You have to plan things out. What do I think my revenue is going to be? What are my expenses? Are you going to hit your revenue right on the number? No, you're not. Are your expenses going to be exactly what you are guessing they're going to be? Definitely not, but you have to have a starting point and put your feet on the ground somewhere. So at the end of, the third quarter, start planning for the next year.

Carrie Richardson:

Was the decision to go from lifestyle to a higher growth business intentional?

Robert Senatore:

There are signs that pop up for you to tell you, Hey, you need to do something a little bit different. I think a lot of it's tied to, That overwhelming feeling day after day after day that once you get to a certain mass, one person can't do it. Early on one person can do it. you can swivel you can do all those different functions But once you're successful enough, you need to depend on other people. You need to bring in other team members that, can support the path that you want to put the company on.

Carrie Richardson:

How was hiring your 1st employee.?

Robert Senatore:

People that get it right the 1st time are very lucky. Or they're smarter than me,

Carrie Richardson:

two things can be true.

Robert Senatore:

We definitely made mistakes early on. if we didn't make those mistakes, we'd be further along right now, but I also wouldn't have learned that lesson I think the 1st team that was assembled here. It wasn't a fit. There were cultural or social differences and ideology differences on how the business should be run. Everyone's gotta be pushing the same direction. It took some time to be able to get the team to a place where everybody is moving the same direction. And everybody's thinking the same thing.

Carrie Richardson:

Did you focus on a specific strategic planning methodology to align everyone around your vision?

Robert Senatore:

I don't think it was anything specific. You can tell people what you want them to do, but the better way to do it is ask them. What you can do for them so they can perform better and help the company in a more meaningful way while still keeping balance in their life and keeping them happy as human beings as well and accepting everybody's differences. You can't expect everybody to think like you. And I think understanding different personality types, I think as a CEO, you have to be a psychologist at a certain level, everybody's different and everybody has different needs and you have to cater to those needs. And I think you have to be specific with each person, understanding what their needs are and cater to those people individually. You can only try your best. But I know that we're making leaps and bounds. The company is mentally healthier with that kind of leadership style.

Carrie Richardson:

I think that that's a hard lesson for most entrepreneurs to learn We don't all graduate from Harvard with an MBA and start a business. Some of us just start and fumble our way through and then in spite of ourselves end up creating something that becomes bigger than us.

Robert Senatore:

Yeah,

Carrie Richardson:

Then we backfill with the education that we didn't have when we started. I look at the difference between year one and year 10 for me, I was a completely different leader with a completely different business. I had to change in order for my business to change. I didn't really have a choice. My business dragged me kicking and screaming. My business outgrew my ability to lead it very early on. I was a minimum wage kid with a seven figure business and I didn't know what to do with it. It was, very overwhelming at times.

Robert Senatore:

It's balance. It's balance in everything in our lives, right? You don't want to grow too fast, but you also don't want to grow too slow. It's got to be Goldilocks.

Carrie Richardson:

When I stopped growing rapidly, I was surprised. We'd always grown so much every year that when it stopped, I was like, Oh, that's an anomaly. We'll be fine. And then it did it a second year. Then I became teachable.

Robert Senatore:

That goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning, you have to always adapt. You have to listen to your customers too, because your customers are the ones that really dictate where you need to go with your business. And I think as time goes on. And technology keeps coming to the table faster and faster with new stuff. That period of where you can get away with being complacent is rapidly shrinking. And I think that adaptability has to come to the table more often. Listen to your customers, listen to your employees. They're going to tell you where to go.

Carrie Richardson:

So, what's next for Data 2 Go?

Robert Senatore:

there's some new products that we're trying to bring to the table. We're thinking about some private LTE solutions. It's a big lift, though. If you want to do something that is crossing the line into something different. You need those ecosystem partners and you need to depend on other people that have the same goals that you do. in order for me to do this, I need a and B. I have a, I need to go find somebody and create an ecosystem partner. That has B, because when we put a and B together, we don't just have C. We have more. It's exponential. 1 and 1 equals 3 in a lot of cases, and you'll be surprised at what you could do by leaning on partners that you can trust.

Carrie Richardson:

I think that's a great place to wind up today. Thanks very much for joining us on win Rob.

Robert Senatore:

I appreciate you having me. Thanks, Carrie. Thanks, everybody.

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Carrie Richardson

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Ian Richardson

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