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Eric Anthony:
Hey guys, Eric Anthony here, and if you want to be on the podcast, we'd love to have you on the podcast. We're looking for MSPs, we're looking for vendors, especially MSPs though, cuz we really want to talk about your business and what you need for your business. We have lots of experience running MSPs. We've worked with lots and lots of MSPs to talk about their businesses. Come to the podcast, it's like therapy for your msp. Just do it. Atsp do link slash podcast. Couple of questions, we'll get in touch with you and you too can be on the podcast. Hey everybody, welcome to the All Things MSP podcast. Unfortunately, Justin cannot join us today. However, he did do an intro, so I'm gonna go ahead and play that intro now.
Justin Esgar:
What's up everybody? Justin here from the All Things MSP podcast. I'm sorry I won't be there today to record, but I leave you in good hands with our producer and OG host, Mr. Eric Anthony, and our guest today, Mr. Lauren Williams from PCs for People.
Eric Anthony:
All right, thanks Justin for that intro. Now let's go talk to Lauren. Hey Lauren, how are you today?
Loren Williams:
Good, how are you Eric?
Eric Anthony:
I am pretty good. Unfortunately Justin couldn't make it, you know, scheduling everything, but we're here and we wanna talk about PCs for people. But before we get into that, why don't you tell us a little bit more about your journey in the tech space?
Loren Williams:
Sure. So I have pretty much since graduating college, I've always worked in technology and mainly in hardware, in, in buying hardware, selling hardware and leasing hardware. Most recently before PCs for people I worked for IBM Global Financing, which is the leasing arm of IBM Corporation.
Eric Anthony:
Interesting. Yeah, I'm a lot of people, you know, have cut their teeth on IBM through the years. I, I've got a, a marketing person that I work with who, you know, she worked at IBM originally and you know, turns out some good alumni from from that company.
Loren Williams:
Yeah, definitely. There's a lot, a lot to learn there for sure, for sure.
Eric Anthony:
Yeah. So how did you end up at PCs for people?
Loren Williams:
Well, it, it's kind of an interesting story. In the, I live in Illinois, in the Chicago area and in the early stages of the pandemic, the governor of Illinois would do a press conference every weekday, like two or two 30 in the afternoon. And being a glutton for punishment, I watched that not every day, but a couple times a week, and he would always tell the straight story how many people passed away, how many people were infected, and then he would say, what the state of Illinois is going to do to help people and know one day it's, we're gonna get more ventilators, the next day we're gonna get more p p P to those in need. And then one day he just goes on a tirade about the digital divide and how over a million families just in Illinois don't have sufficient access to a computer or internet.
And, and of course we're telling everybody, stay home, have your kids log into school, work remotely, things like that. And, and over a million households can't do that. So he's a good politician. So he brings a problem and he brings a solution and he said, here's our solution. We're going to bring PCs for people to the state of Illinois and open two locations in Illinois to distribute affordable computers and internet service PCs for people as a nonprofit organization. Been distributing computers in other geographies since 1998 and we're gonna bring them to Illinois. I, I saw that and I said, wow, I bet I can help connect those guys. I know a lot of people in hardware. And I go on LinkedIn and I realized that my college roommate was connected to one of the senior managers at PCs for people. So I got in touch, I said, Hey, let me know when you're opening, I can make some intros. And he said, yeah, well we don't have our warehouses yet, but we're gonna be there soon. And then I stayed in touch and five months later I'm hired and working here and I love it.
Eric Anthony:
That's awesome. And I mean, it just sounds like PCs for people is doing, you know, really some interesting work because it satisfies a bunch of stuff for, for a lot of different problems that we have in the industry, right? It's the digital divide, it's the mountain of stuff that needs to be recycled and, and so there's just so much that I see PCs for people helping, and I, I saw from the website just a lot of the different ways that you guys do that and you do it, in my opinion, pretty smart. And, and that's interesting to me. But talk to me a little bit more about the, the mission of PCs for people and, and kind of how it works and, and that kind of thing.
Loren Williams:
So on the on the distribution side, we distribute refurbished computers, desktops and laptops. What whatever somebody needs very low prices. They come with Windows 10 preloaded. W we are a Microsoft authorized refurbisher, so it's a fully licensed loaded copy of Windows 10. They come with a one year warranty and tech support from us. And somebody can come in to one of our retail stores or go to one of our distribution events in our communities, and they might not have internet or a computer in the morning and they can go home with a computer and an internet hotspot and, and be online by the afternoon. So that's, that's really great to be able to do that on the backend. We partner with a lot of different types of organizations to collect retired computers. The average computer, you probably see this too, and all MSPs probably see this gets refreshed every three years when the warranty expires to, to maybe five years.
Organizations that like to stretch it or don't, don't they, they don't have power users. And we can take those computers and give them a whole second life the way, do you want me to go into a little how we do that? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So, well, once we found somebody who has computers and wants to contribute those computers, we'll send our teams into the location where the computers are located with our trucks, our personnel pick up the computers, take them back to one of our nine technical centers around the country soon to be 10 opening in Philadelphia soon. And we unload the computers, take them into the secure warehouse. They get in the warehouse, the hard drives come out of the computers and go to a, an even more secure limited access room because we realize data security is extremely important to our partners.
In that room. The hard drives go through a data deletion process to totally wipe all data. They then get tested if the data is not 100% deleted, every location has a giant shredder and that hard drive will get shredded. If the partner would like a certificate of data, sanitization will produce that after everything's gone through that process. And a lot of, I would say 75% or more of the mid to large size corporations want that certificate. Either way we're gonna delete all the data whether you want that certificate or not. And that certificate shows every serial number of every computer and then the serial number of the hard drive and certification, that data was deleted or the drive was destroyed. And then we take the computers and refurbish them, test them, upgrade them as needed, install that windows I talked about with the Microsoft authorized Refurbisher license and get them ready for distribution and then distribute them to those in need.
Eric Anthony:
Yeah, and you know, I really, I looked at the data deletion piece and that piece is I think, really important to the MSP partners on the call because, you know, large corporations aren't the only ones who have a liability when it comes to that data security, right? So does the MSP who's managing this or managing kind of the relationship between the client and maybe PCs for people. So, so I think it's great that you guys have the limited access room and the certification available to the MSPs so that they can, you know, have the proof that the data was in fact destroyed all the way up to if you have to shred the drive, which I think that's also, you know, really great that you have a, a real way not just putting a drill, you know, through a drive platter of, of getting rid of a hard drive properly. So so once they're refurbished then you know, you get them to the people part of it, right? Yep. So I noticed on the website that it looks like you can actually go to the website and order one of these from the website. How does somebody do that?
Loren Williams:
So they would just go on the website. They, there is an income qualifier, so not, not everybody can get a computer from us. We're a nonprofit. We're there to supply low income individuals and families. They'll show proof of income that they're at 200% of the federal poverty level or below. There's other means of income testing as well, or by showing that you're already receiving government economic aid. So there's about a, a dozen or 15 different known programs that if you're already a part of that program, then you qualify to get a com computer from PCs for people. And then once you've gone through that certification part, it's a matter of ordering online. Like, like you would on pretty much any website. It might not be quite as smooth acting as Amazon or some of the other places, but you can order and have it delivered. And we do ship to all 50 states in Puerto Rico.
Eric Anthony:
That's great. Now I know, you know, you mentioned the pandemic earlier and, and everybody had to work from home, do school from home. Obviously that's difficult with just one computer in the home. Is there a limit to the number of computers or is it based on the number of people in the home? How do you guys do that?
Loren Williams:
It, it's, it's not limited to just one per home. So yes, it's based on people in the home and then of course the income test. Yeah. We, we realize that one computer for a family of five or even four or three is not enough.
Eric Anthony:
Yeah, I, I agree. And, and I think it's great that you don't have that limit, but I also think it's great on the other end that you are qualifying people to make sure that people who can afford a computer, you know, aren't taking advantage of the situation and and depleting inventory that could be used for somebody who really needs it.
Loren Williams:
Yeah. We want, we want those folks who can afford it to be buying it from their, from their favorite MSP
Eric Anthony:
<Laugh> of course. Although, you know, a lot of MSPs don't like residential customers. But that's, that is a total discussion for another podcast that I'm sure that Justin and I could get into at a, at a later date. So one of the things that you talked about, cuz this is not just about putting computers in the hands of people, right? It's about that internet access as well. And, and so I wanted to talk a little bit about that. I know that my friend Dave Sobel, who does the Business of Tech podcast, talks about the digital divide quite a bit, especially in terms of having good high speed internet available especially in rural areas. So what are you guys doing to help spread internet to those people who need it?
Loren Williams:
So, so the quick down and dirty way and, and you, first of all, you're absolutely correct. It's, it's 2023 and everybody should have access to internet, just like everybody has access to electricity and plumbing if you want it. And if you can't afford electricity, we make it a little less expensive and it should be the same with internet. And the federal government is getting there. There are actually just a couple of days ago, a lot of money was released from the federal government to build that infrastructure. There has been a program in place called the Affordable Connectivity Program, or ACP for Short, which gives a low income family $30 a month credit towards internet. So our, our down and dirty way of supplying internet is, is a little h a little spot like this hotspot like this, and the monthly cost on this is $15. But if we help somebody enact their a c p benefit, it's $0 per month. And it's a month to month service. We know a lot of our clients move around from one residence to another. So if they are in an apartment and there's internet there, don't pay for the hotspot. If you go move in with your grandma for the summer and she doesn't have internet turn that hotspot on $15 a month and you're, and you're up and going. We also, yeah, also,
Eric Anthony:
I I I think you'd probably also help because a lot of times there's deposits and things that, that you have to pay or installation charges when you move from one place to the other, which are now not a thing when you have the hotspot from PCs for people.
Loren Williams:
Right, exactly. And it's through the T-Mobile Sprint network. So it's, it's pretty national. The other thing we do, we've got a program called our Wisp program where we'll basically go into a high density area that's underserved in terms of internet or at least affordable internet. We'll find the tallest building in the neighborhood, we'll put an antenna up on the top of that building and we're able to broadcast internet out for a mile or two again then at $15 a month.
Eric Anthony:
Wow, that's, that's really great because I mean, the pandemic really kind of amplified the problem, right? And, and I think it's great that you're not only supplying the equipment, but you're also supplying the internet access, which is really, you have to have both components, right? You have to have the endpoint to be able to actually see and interact with the online services, but then you have to have the internet to be connected to them. So closing that loop and providing both pieces through one agency, I think is, is really just a smart way of doing it.
Loren Williams:
Yeah, it's like if you, if you built an amazing road or superhighway and didn't have a car to go on it or access to a, a bus stop to ride a bus on that highway what, what's the point of the highway if if you can't get on it? And then there's actually a third component. You can have a computer, you can have internet, but if you don't know how to use it, then, then you're still stuck. So we do address that. We do a little bit of rudimentary education and part of that one year warranty is not just a hardware warranty, but technical support for just about any kind of question. It, it's not uncommon for our customer service team to get a call asking, how do I set up a Gmail account? Because that's somebody's first computer and they don't, they know they need an email, they've heard of Gmail, but they're not quite sure where to go. And we help with things like that as well.
Eric Anthony:
Well, and I'm sure that's especially helpful to, you know, kind of a, a subset of what's probably some of your customers as well, and that's the elderly who didn't grow up with this technology who are living off of public assistance. And so, you know, they're obviously a candidate for your program, but they don't have the background that some of us have, and especially these kids today have because they all grew up with it.
Loren Williams:
Right? Absolutely.
Eric Anthony:
So that's great and I love the fact that you guys are supporting, you know, the the bringing together of the digital divide, so to speak. But there's also something else that you guys do that is probably more tangible to the s side of this discussion, and that is the recycling program that you offer. So talk about how partners can get involved with your recycling program.
Loren Williams:
Sure. It, it's, it's pretty easy. I mean, you just reach out to me or anybody at PCs for people or go on our website and there's a form to fill out where you just fill in the equipment that you have and the location it's at, whether it's at the MSP's office or at their customer site. And we'll schedule a truck to come pick it up, as long as it's a, a reasonable amount of equipment within a reasonable distance from one of our, our tech facilities equipment can also be dropped off. It's been not uncommon that I've connected with an M S P who's been taking the customer equipment back to his own office, filling a closet with it and saying, someday I'm gonna delete all that data. Someday, maybe I'll repurpose that. But quite honestly, I don't think an msp makes a lot of money by doing that, by sitting around doing data deletion or, or swapping hard drives or things like that. They, they probably have, you know, more important things to do to serve customers and run the business. Yeah. So we find that closet and we come in and, and give them back their closet space basically, and let them rest assured that they, that the data will get securely deleted.
Eric Anthony:
My guess is that everybody listening to this podcast has, or have had a closet exactly like that because I know that I did mm-hmm. <Affirmative> you know, and, and you're right. You know, we, we put it there and we're like, oh, someday we'll get to that. And we never do. Yeah. So plus as an MSP it's not feasible for us to have the limited access area necessarily. I mean, your tech areas, by the way, should be limited access areas, just to be clear. But they definitely, in most cases, will not have the shredding device or the capability to do the certification and all of those things, which are really not optional today, in my opinion. You have to have those capabilities if you are going to be in the business of recycling or destroying hardware. So I think it, it's, what is I get, because this is the question that's gonna get asked, right? What is a reasonable amount and what is a reasonable distance or is there a little bit of a, we take it on a case by case basis there?
Loren Williams:
Yeah, so just as kind of a guideline if, if you are in the metro area of one of our tech centers, so if you're in the metro Chicago or metro Denver area, or Baltimore or any of our other locations and you have 15 computers or more, we'll send the truck. If you're gonna get out we'll go up to four hours and sometimes even more. But then we're gonna want, once we're going that far, we're gonna wanna kind of either fill the truck and we, we run 26 foot long trucks. They'll, they'll carry about 10 skids of equipment or we'll say, Hey, can you just hold onto that till we have two or three pickups in your area? And most people who have been storing equipment for weeks and weeks, hey, if it's another few weeks or a couple months, that's totally fine.
Eric Anthony:
Yeah. Weeks, months, years maybe <laugh>. Yeah, yeah. No, yeah, I'm familiar. So, so they just go to the website and, and connect with you and, and that's how they get started.
Loren Williams:
Yep, yep. It's pretty simple. We ask for just very basic information in order to schedule that pickup. Just the location, best contact information. Is there a shipping dock? It, it doesn't matter if it's packed or loose. I mean, we'll, as long as we know up front, our teams will arrive with the right packing material with the right rolling carts. We've picked up in basements, we've picked up on the 50th floor of skyscrapers. And, and we're well equipped as long as we know upfront to do any of those.
Eric Anthony:
Well, Lauren, that's great. I love the fact that you're solving a need with solving another need, and that's definitely something that's a win-win for, you know, people who, who need the equipment, need the service for the environment where we just don't want to throw these things out in the trash. Right. and then I assume that you have some way of where you have, when you get a piece of hardware that you can't refurbish anymore because, you know, there are things that are that old that you guys have a process for properly getting rid of, of that equipment as well.
Loren Williams:
Yeah, no, nothing that goes into our trucks goes into a landfill later down the road. So kind of our secondary mission is a green mission. We're zero landfill, so first we'll, we'll refurbish and reuse as much as we can, that's filling our primary mission. And then we'll take pieces and parts where we can, we can't use that whole computer, let's, let's salvage some memory from it. And then they'll inevitably, especially when we're cleaning out old storage rooms, there'll be something too old, too broken not feasible to repair or just not appropriate for the folks we distribute to. And we, we have a zero landfill policy, so everything gets take kind of taken down to the component level, and if it can't be reused, it gets responsibly recycled. There's a certification for that R two recycling and some of our locations have that certification. Otherwise, we partner with a local recycler in the area to, to be our partner and certifies that nothing goes in a landfill.
Eric Anthony:
That's awesome. I, I really appreciate the fact that you guys are doing kind of the, the end to end and at the end of the day, not contributing to the additional landfill. That just doesn't need to to happen, especially when it comes to some of the waste in there is hazardous waste, and we don't want that leaching into the water system or the, the ground at all.
Loren Williams:
Yeah, absolutely.
Eric Anthony:
So is there anything else that we should know about your organization?
Loren Williams:
I think it, it's just we, we make it easy to partner with us. We're not if you send us to your customers, we're not a competitor. We don't sell new equipment. We couldn't sell equipment to your customers, even if we wanted to, unless they meet our income criteria. And then they're probably not your customers necessarily. And it's just, it's a great way to give back. We, we can all give back to the world in our own ways. And there's if I can go on a little tangent here. Sure. There's, there's a really great chef Jose Andres, I don't know if you've heard of him. Have you ever eaten at one of his restaurants?
Eric Anthony:
I have
Loren Williams:
Not. It's a, it's a treat to eat. Okay. It's a treat to eat at one of his restaurants. It's a little bit upscale, great to go with friends and family. He moved to the United States from Spain when he was 21 years old in the, in the early nineties with 50 bucks and some culinary training started these amazing restaurants. A lot of 'em are in DC couple in Chicago Los Angeles. And when the earthquake hit Haiti in 2010, he started a nonprofit to serve the people there who were starving. And it's become World Central Kitchen. And now he goes all over the world providing food to people in need. And this isn't a plug for him, this is but, but definitely check out his restaurants if you can. But he's grown his nonprofit to give back with food. He's a chef, he gives back with food. We're in the IT business. We can give back through it.
Eric Anthony:
Yep. And you know what, you brought up a good point that I hadn't thought of. And this is another angle for the msp, right? Because some MSPs, you know, some of them just have offices, they don't have a, a repair shop where people can come in and drop things off, but some of them do. And it's not unusual to get a customer come in asking about used computers. And so you guys are a perfect answer to that, where the, the MSP or the break fix shop doesn't have to worry about putting labor into building something, putting something together, selling it cheap. They can just reference you guys and, and send them to the website where somebody could get an a, an affordable desktop or a laptop. And, and by affordable, we're talking, I, I looked at the website laptops start at what, a hundred dollars? And it looks like they go up to about 1 75
Loren Williams:
Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And often in the, in the retail stores that we have, we have a retail store at every warehouse. It's often, we often have a selection that's even less than that. And going back to the affordable connectivity program, there's a way to get a hundred dollars device credit through that. So we can take those. I, I saw recently we were selling laptops for $11 with your ACP subsidy. Wow,
Eric Anthony:
That's incredible. And it's definitely a way where, you know, if the MSP doesn't have the resources or doesn't want to spend the time to help somebody out, but has the heart to help them out. Yeah. Now there's a way to help those people out without it affecting your msp. So I think that's great, right?
Loren Williams:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Happy to partner that way.
Eric Anthony:
So Lauren, if people wanna reach out to you, how do they reach out to you?
Loren Williams:
So can I give my email address? Sure. Okay. It's L Williams. So first initial, last name@pcsfourpeople.org. So PCs, the word for f o r people.org.
Eric Anthony:
Alright. And those of course will be in the show notes for this podcast. And, and with that, Lauren, thank you very much. I'm gonna do a little outro and then then I'll come back and talk to you in the green room.
Loren Williams:
Okay. Thanks Eric.
Eric Anthony:
Hey everybody, thanks again for joining us for another episode of All Things MSP podcast. Next time we will have Justin back. Don't worry, he's not gone. There wasn't some, you know, subliminal thing here. He will be back sometimes, maybe I won't be here, who knows? But we always wanna bring you a podcast. We always wanna bring you value, and we will see you on the next one. Have a great day.