067-luke-ford

The Importance of an IT Helpdesk

A discussion with My Computer Works CEO, Luke Ford

John DeBevoise:

Greetings, everyone. And welcome to another serving of Business Soup Talk Radio. If it’s in business, it’s Business Soup. I’m your host, John DeBevoise. Luke Ford from My Computer Works is going to be joining us. It is a subscription based computer repair, guidance, educational, tutorial service. I use them all the time to help me out in keeping my data safe, secure, and being able to find it. Luke Ford joins us from My Computer Works, where we’re going to give you the five tips on getting started and keeping your assets covered, right here on Business Soup. Luke, welcome to this serving of Business Soup.

Luke Ford: Well, thank you very much. I’m glad to be here.

John DeBevoise: Luke, I have been using your service, My Computer Works, for quite some time, probably a couple years now. You guys, I contact you all the time with my self inflicted wounds on my computer, and your guys patch the wounds and send me back down the trail. When I call you, what is it that I’m looking to accomplish?

Luke Ford: Every one of our customers are different, but I can certainly answer what the general is. It’s interesting. Most people that call us for the first time, and we do, just to preface it, we do remote computer support in a help desk fashion, so it’s more for consumers and small businesses. And most people call us because their car’s running slow. There seems to be some sort of, too many applications running on their computer, they can’t print something, or they can’t synchronize their phone, or they can’t find the One Drive file they’re trying to get, and they’re freaking out. So they go online and they search for a company and they get us. And usually, something’s on fire when they call us for the first time.

So when someone calls us for the first time, it’s usually different from why they call us continually, which is very different. So because it’s a membership service, when they call us in the future, it’s normally how to do something. It’s more training and education, and I’m thinking of doing this or doing that. And so yes, people call us when their hair’s on fire, when they have our service ongoing. But normally, that very first call is my car’s broken down on the side of the road kind of problem, and I just need help getting it going again. The reason I started My Computer Works is because my wife and I got in an argument about setting up my very first computer with AOL and getting on Yahoo, and trying to figure it out. And why’s it take so long? And you work for IBM. Don’t you know how to do this? No, I don’t.

I thought, “Man, there’s got to be a company I can call that my wife and I could call and work on our computer for us remotely.” That was the brainchild behind it. And so, yes, I am more technical than most. For me, it was, this is great for guys like me that just want to be able to use the technology in front of them.

John DeBevoise: And I can appreciate that because my car’s been on fire many times. And who do I call? But I’ve been calling My Computer Works. And I finally got you to come on the show and talk about how the service works. One of the things that

I like about the service is that I can call as often as I so need to, and I do. And it’s been a perpetual problem on some things because I keep going into places that I shouldn’t be going, and then I call My Computer Works to get me out of trouble.

Luke Ford: It’s interesting. Most people wouldn’t know this because it’s sort of a novel thought, certainly for the consumer. For the very small business with a work at home employee, like a realtor, it shouldn’t be as novel as it is because large corporations have IT help desks. Why shouldn’t individual businesses have an IT help desk? So it shouldn’t be as novel as it is, but it is still pretty novel. And the most important thing is: How many times have you driven your car when there’s a problem, and you should’ve got it checked out, but you kind of just keep driving? And then it gets worse than it is if brought it in. Right?

John DeBevoise: Very good analogy.

Luke Ford: And so people do the same thing with their technology. Something doesn’t seem right, and they just keep driving it. And that’s where people kind of get themselves into problems. And you mentioned something interesting. People don’t believe this sometimes, but our customer averages an hour and 10 minutes a month of service. So once you kind of get the addiction, if you will, of calling us for help, we’ve very much there for people for small issues as well as big issues. And I don’t think people understand that, boy, just a phone call away I can get focused on selling, or do it riding horses, or whatever you want to do, not dealing with the problem on my computer.

John DeBevoise: What are some of the key things that my audience of business owners, where we are susceptible to just about every virus, every ailment that is possible in the digital world, what are some of the things that we should be doing on a regular basis? And how do we go about doing it?

Luke Ford: Most of it is sort of behavioral stuff, and what I would say-

John DeBevoise: So you’re saying it’s my fault.

Luke Ford: I would definitely say it’s your fault, but it’s everybody’s fault. Right? So like I always say, look, if you could have Fort Knox, you could have the most secure bank in the world, but if you have a person that leaves the front door open, it just doesn’t matter what kind of security you have. And that’s a real truism. So first of all, just make sure your software’s updating. How many times do people get a little pop up saying, “Do you want to update your operating system?” Or, “Do you want to update Adobe?” Or, “Do you want to update something?” And they go, “Remind me in 30 days, or next time, or I don’t want to deal with it right now.” That’s bad news. Right? So those are oftentimes patches that people need to say yes to.

So what happens actually is a lot of users are afraid to say yes because they don’t know that that’s actually an application that they want on their computer updated, or whether it’s a virus, or a malware, or some badness. So people hesitate, don’t update it. So number one, update the software on your system because those are locking down holes in your system, so to speak. The second thing is get a good malware software. We actually recommend Malwarebytes, is what we recommend to our customers. And that sort of helps protect you. They’re the ones that keep track of what’s going on, on the internet, to protect your computer. And frankly, if something comes on your computer that shouldn’t be there, it’ll either stop it or let you know, so that’s the second thing.

The third one is really important. And I could name a half a dozen people that have had their computer taken over by ransomware. And what they do now is they take over your computer. They encrypt your data. This absolutely happens to people, businesses and consumers. They encrypt your data, and then they’ll send you a note saying, “Hey, look. If you want your data back, it’s going to be $5000 in bitcoins. Go on the dark web and deposit it here. And that’s not pretend, that’s not fantasy. That absolutely happens. In fact, I know a guy that it happened to two weeks ago. And he was extraordinarily technical. You can’t break through encryption. You just can’t. It’s not possible.

John DeBevoise: Well, we hear about these things, where you’re extorted for your own data.

Luke Ford: That’s it.

John DeBevoise: What about those in the financial service industries, where they have a legal obligation to keep their clients’ information secure and off site? And I know some financial planners who have had their computers stolen that has all of their client information on it. They are personally liable. How do they protect themselves from this type of raiding? It’s literally, the Indians or the cowboys are coming in the camp and taking your stuff and running off with it.

Luke Ford: These are two different questions, really. The first one, I’m going to answer your question that you just gave me right now. And it may be getting a little deeper than I’m capable, but my techs could do it, is you can encrypt files on your computer. So you can do more than just have a passcode [inaudible] your data. You can actually have data on your computer that’s encrypted. And frankly, the FBI can’t even get at it. I mean, it’s an encrypted piece of data or file, so you can do that, so that if your computer gets stolen. I actually have had my computer stolen 10 or 15 years ago, and I actually did have my data encrypted, so I was fine. So that can happen.

But I want to get back to the other one. When they get on your computer and encrypt the data, when a bad guy gets on there, only thing that can stop that is my third recommendation, and that is really remote data backup, because if your computer gets encrypted, there’s nothing you can do. But if you have remote data backup, which isn’t as popular as it used to be because people use

One Drive and some of the other stuff, but if you replicate your computer, if you will, or the data on your computer, to remote location, and you get your computer encrypted, you’re all good. And it’s really inexpensive these days. It’s 5, 10 bucks a month.

And so I strongly recommend remote data backup, and barely anybody does it, which is crazy. I have a computer with my children’s pictures from forever. I got rid of all the videos and stuff that I did back when they were young, put them on my computer. If those got encrypted, that’s worth a lot of money to me. Well, if I have them remote data backup, I’m okay. So I would say that’s the third thing, most important. And then the fourth one that I recommend to everybody is if you don’t know, don’t open it. And it sounds easy, but I can’t tell you how many … My CFO has received emails from Luke Ford that says, “Hey,” by her name, “Please transfer $10,000 into this bank account. I need this taken care of.”

And she actually started a process of doing the transfer, and something didn’t seem right. And she came down and asked me, and I said, “I never said that to you.” Well, we go look at it. The bad guys actually sent it from a different email, but they made the email look like Luke Ford. So you have to think about it. And I can’t tell you how many emails I get, where I’ll send them to my technicians and say, “Hey, guys. Can you tell me whether this is legitimate or not?” And that right there is worth having an IT help desk because, boy, you get one of those Trojans into your computer, you could’ve just gotten your computer locked down.

John DeBevoise: And I know a lot of people who have gotten, whether it be an email or something through Facebook Messenger that is, “Hey. Is this you in the picture?” And you click on that, and all of a sudden, all hell breaks loose. I did that once, and I learned my lesson.

Luke Ford: The reality is if you get an email from a bank, hey, click here, well, it’s not an email from a bank. I mean, if you get an email from a bank, you could always look at the email address. If it’s at, and then usually that’s where they can’t fake it between the at then [inaudible]. But the reality is everybody can get fooled. It shouldn’t be embarrassing because everybody gets fooled. But the reality is if you can say, “You know what, I don’t know this person. I’m just not going to open the email,” and delete it. I mean, at the end of the day, what’s the big deal if you delete the email from someone you don’t know? That’s the way I look at it. So if I don’t know the person, there’s very little chance that their email’s getting opened.

John DeBevoise: Let’s talk about the businesses themselves. You and I both specialize in small business. And one of the most impacted industries right now due to the coronavirus has been the restaurant industry. When it comes to your employees, you’re only as good as your weakest link. And if your employees are operating from a point of sale machine to the computer within the operation of

the restaurant, how can I protect myself in the back office from activities that they may be doing? How do I protect them, them and me?

Luke Ford: Again, it’s still kind of the same thing. Most of bad stuff comes in from the network, not necessarily from the terminals. So I would say that some of the things I mentioned before around making sure your operating systems or your applications are updated, making sure that you have malware on your server or your PC that’s maybe managing those point of sale devices. Most of those point of sale devices, without going too deep because it would depend on which one, most of them have very limited capability around what the user can do. And so they don’t let the user do a whole lot more of those applications, let the user do a whole lot more than what they’re built for them to do. So I think that’s probably a lower risk than coming in from the network, quite frankly.

John DeBevoise: What are some of the telltale signs that you’ve been hacked, or there’s a virus, if I’m in front of my computer? Something’s not working right, it would look like what?

Luke Ford: That’s actually a really good question. First of all, things start opening up a lot slower. Things start happening slower on your computer. It’s like you got a little bit of running through quicksand kind of feeling. It’s when things don’t open, maybe, things aren’t opening, or they open really slowly. Or when you go to boot up, why’s it taking forever? What’s going on? It’s kind of like, okay, you’re not a mechanic, but you kind of know when your car’s not doing what it’s supposed to be doing. You hear a noise, or something’s going on, it doesn’t accelerate like it used to accelerate. I would argue that even the most novice user, human beings have this innate ability to know that something’s changed. And you’re using your computer, and all of a sudden, it’s not doing what it used to do the way it was doing it.

I know this sounds bad, but I think when it slows down, it opens slowly, when you shut it off, it doesn’t really want to shut off that fast. Usually, there’s things going on in the background that are kind of making you feel like it’s just a little lazy. And I think that’s a telltale sign.

John DeBevoise: What about when I go to somebody’s website, and there’s this banner, something that’s blocking the screen, and it says, “We use cookies”? Is it a good idea to say, “Okay, I accept it”? Or can I exit out of that and still go through their website?

Luke Ford: In my opinion, it depends on the website. It depends on whether you’re going to be frequently attending that website. Cookies are actually, the best way I can describe it, are little applications that help you use that website more efficiently and help them know who you are more efficiently, maybe help the interaction between the user and that website. So they’re not all bad. It’s not like this terrible thing. But imagine if you have cookies from every website you go to. All

of a sudden, you’re going to look like Santa Claus. Right? You’re going to get a little full. Your computer’s going to be a little bit full of cookies.

So there’s times where you want to clear out your cookies in your computer, which you can, to make it kind of speed up and be less sluggish. But at the end of the day, I don’t say no to websites. If I’m on, I use Schwab, that’s my financial services company. I like using them. If they have cookies for me to use, guess what, I use them because it allows them to know who I am on their website, which is a good thing, as opposed to if I’m searching for travel somewhere and I’m going to a million different sites, I’m not going to start saying yes to all the cookies at all those different travel websites because I don’t want to start overloading my system. They’re not terrible. They get a bad rap.

John DeBevoise: So your background, Luke, before you started My Computer Works was a technical background, as you indicated that you were in, or you were involved with IBM. Every business starts with an idea. And as my audience know, there are five key elements. It’s the idea, the plan, the people, the execution and the solution. So you said, “You know what,” in your head, “I’m going to create my own.” And so you came up with this idea of a service. What did it take to go from the idea into the implementation?

Luke Ford: Believe it or not, I thought of the idea in 1994. And back then, there wasn’t high speed internet. Content on the internet wasn’t important yet. And there wasn’t proliferation of technology yet. Not everybody had a PC yet. So candidly, I worked for IBM for a while, EDS in Dallas, and then Gapgemini, Ernst, and Young. And I kind of had to wait for the market to catch up to the idea. And in late 2004, I registered my company, but I didn’t really start it until May 2005. And basically, I quit my job and took some savings out, and hired my first technician. And I started knocking on real estate agent doors saying, “Hey, I’ve got a great solution for you guys.” And it was from noon until 8:00 PM was our hours of operation because I had one technician. And we just kind of went from there. And so obviously, my biggest challenge was, actually my biggest challenge has never been delivery.

It’s always been marketing and sales, and cost of acquisition and scalability around cost of acquisition. So the inception was, I thought of the idea, waited 11 years, actually. And then started the company by hiring one technician. He found a software that can remotely connect. And then basically, I went and knocked on doors trying to get customers to sign up for our service. My second hire was someone to sort of be the administrator behind the company from a QuickBooks perspective, and setting up our call center and the software behind the call center, and taking credit cards from customers and all those things. And then the third hire was another technician, and another technician. And once it got big enough, I hired a marketing and sales person to start creating the demand for our call center, so that’s really how it happened.

John DeBevoise: What was your wife’s reaction when you walked in and said, “I’m quitting my job and I’m becoming an entrepreneur”?

Luke Ford: Interestingly enough, the joke goes that my wife loved me, and my kids all loved me, and then I decided to start a company. So life was grand. Right? I’d been working for 15 years. I was 37 when I started the company. I could take vacations. I could do what I wanted. I was reasonably successful, so I said, “I want to start a company and move back to Phoenix.” I was at Dallas at the time, so I came back to Phoenix. And yeah, it was very tough to be candid with you. Our standard of living was at a certain level, not just for her but for me too, and my kids. And my salary was cut by a lot more than half. And my wife is a stay at home mom helping out with the kids. She was an interior designer, and part-time, but the income was really mine at the time. And it was a struggle. There was probably eight years in there where: What the heck are we thinking? I mean, it was quite painful for about eight years.

And to be vulnerable, I would tell you that I speak to U of A and the MBA students down there and the entrepreneur school. And I tell them all that it’s a tough road. But if you get through it, and by the way, I believe if you have to get through it, you will get through it. I have a philosophy around that, that it’s actually, even if you’re not Google, or whatever, you don’t become a unicorn company, it’s a great lifestyle, it’s a great business. And it’s something to be very proud of. I’m employing 50, 60 people and giving them a great place to work. And I’m supporting thousands and thousands of customers with a product that I’m proud of.

John DeBevoise: We’re talking with Luke Ford from My Computer Works. And this is actually a company that I’ve been utilizing their service for probably around two years now. And I finally talked Luke onto coming onto my show here and talking about, for my business audience, you folks, about the five most important things that you need to keep your computer on track. And if you’d like those five points, well, they’re always available the Biz Soup, where business comes for business. Getting back to the entrepreneurial spirit, at what point did the family say, “You know what, Dad, it looks like your idea was a good one”?

Luke Ford: Probably around 2025. So yeah, no. I would say candidly it was about three or four years ago. It probably took us 10 years to get to the point where I was making the same that I was making when I left my corporate job, 10 years. So I would say that the financial impact was pretty devastating, but the last four years have been rewarding. And we’ve been growing, and we’ve been making money, and we’re doing well. So it really took about 10 years. And the interesting thing is for those people thinking about being entrepreneurs with children, I think my kids are better because of it. I think my kids, when they were in middle school, high school, college, I think they were able to perceive, okay, this is what it takes to be successful.

If I was with a big company, I could tell you I’m not sure they would totally know what I did. And Dad just comes home and we go on vacations. Yes, I would be worried, I might be stressed, but I got a paycheck every two weeks no matter what. I don’t think my kids ever worried. Is a roof going to be over our head? Or am I going to have food in the refrigerator? But I think they saw the toll that it was taking on us, my wife and I, to make this successful. And that’s kind of an offshoot. I really do think there’s been a lot of value. My kids are all in their 20s, hardworking, independent. And I think it’s because they saw what I went through, I candidly do.

John DeBevoise: I could go on forever on the subject of entrepreneurship and what it takes to start. And hey honey, I quit my job. And oh, the expressions I’ve had from the one. And when is this hobby of yours going to start making money?

Luke Ford: That’s a tough one. That’s a tough … The difference with me though, candidly, is I started my company to build a business, not to build a job. And I think I did go get money. I did a high replacement. I did go raise capital. So my thought was let’s go build a company because I’m not a technician, again, so I wasn’t building a job. And a lot of people, lot of technicians, by the way, a technician could be a plumber, or a technician for computers, when they start the company, often they’re building themselves a job. I never did that. I built myself a company.

John DeBevoise: Well, I’d like to invite you back for another serving of Business Soup to talk about the process of going out and raising money from outside sources, what that took in the presentation, the pitch, and how many times it took. But we’re out of time for this serving of Business Soup. Luke Ford from My Computer Works. Go to bizsoup.com to get the best practices on how to protect yourself to cover your assets on your computer, make sure that you keep that which is yours, from My Computer Works. Luke, thanks for being on this serving of Business Soup.

Luke Ford: Thank you.