We hit an amazing milestone today (July 29, 2020) as we celebrate five years as a company. Roughly a third of new businesses close within their first two years, and then half exit within their first five years of being in business, yet five years later we are still making an impact. Thanks to our employees and clients, “Performance for Purpose” has meaning!
The story started over 30 years ago when Mark Zahringer and Brad Krinhop met at MCI where they both started as call center agents. Long after they left MCI, they remained friends and for years talked about one day opening their own contact center and doing it the right way. Along the way, Mark met Stan Bullis and joined him in helping to start his new ventures – Unbridled Solutions and Unbridled Acts, almost 20 years ago. Mark eventually left Unbridled and like Brad, they continued to climb the corporate ladder. In May of 2015, Mark left a corporate executive job and officially started Unbridled Connect after seeing how unethical and corrupt the corporate environment had become as Brad and he often talked about at their many breakfasts together over the years. Back on July 29, 2015, with help from Stan, Mark getting some prodding/prayer from above, and knowing that Brad would not be far behind, Unbridled Connect was born.
Unbridled Connect started in a conference room in downtown Denver at the Unbridled Solutions office with one client and one employee. They started to build the business, one amazing employee at a time, and after the first year got the company off the ground with many new clients. It was while at The Honest Company, Brad decided to join Unbridled Connect and our mission to impact people’s lives and uplift communities through our Performance for Purpose Model. As we look back, we are amazed at all that has been accomplished as a team and we are thankful to be blessed with such great employees and an amazing and committed management team. As with all new companies, we certainly have not achieved all of our goals! We know we have much work to do to make this an exceptional place that people want to work at and talk highly about, both internally and externally, as leaders in our space and the communities we serve. While that is a high goal, it is our goal none-the-less that we strive to achieve, knowing we have and will continue to make mistakes along the way. But we must keep moving forward……
As some companies are challenged with staying afloat, and many closing their doors, we have been gifted the ability to grow our business like never before. We started with just one team member and are now surpassing 200 team members, and this year could be our best year yet – thanks to all of you. As we often say, “the more we grow, the more people and communities we help”. In fact, on Saturday, July 11, 2020 one of the non-profits we help to support called Peaceful Hugs, delivered over $13,000 to people in need at a housing project.
As we take care of our clients’ customers and each other, we look forward to a bright future. We believe we have created a culture that is more like a family. Here’s to many more years working together to create “performance for purpose”.
Happy 5 Years!
Brad Krinhop
Chief Executive Officer
Mark Zahringer
Chief Purpose Officer and Managing Partner