DYNAMIC NEW COMPANY FORMED

November 1, 2005 : SHAWN JENKINS, president and founder of Benefit-Focus.com, started a so called “dot.com” company in Charleston five years ago with himself and a partner. By the end of the year, 18 persons were employed and today the company has 250 employees and is growing briskly.

A graduate of Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pa. in the field of aviation, the Daytona Beach, Florida native began his working career as a commercial airline pilot. All the signs for starting his new venture were stacked against him: it was the wrong time, Charleston was the wrong place, there could be no financing available. But by the end of the first year he purchased a 31,000 SF former Walmart in Mt. Pleasant and the specialized software company took off from there.

The thrust of the company is to write software to create a single website from which individuals can transfer basic data to other settings. The goal is to tremendously reduce hard copy paperwork. When Blue Cross/Blue Shield of South Carolina came on board the company was well underway with a major focus on the health care industries.

As the fifth year comes to a close the company has a new 140,000 SF building on the drawing boards to be constructed on Daniel Island . They expect to spend a half million dollars in the next year on recruiting alone.

In many respects the company has been radical in its enthusiasm to grow with Shawn cheering the company on and literally ringing a gong at the work place when a new client comes on board. The company’s creed is two fold: Have respect for each individual. Stress an anticipation of future service. Clients are visited regularly as the company strives to offer new techniques to solve age old problems. 311 new clients were brought on board in the past 4 weeks.

Putting their technology to work for themselves, major contracts are prepared and “signed” electronically. He credits the Federal government as being way ahead of private industry by enabling the legality of electronic contract services.

The company operates with virtually no formal salespersons, but company representatives are constantly going to the clients to provide orientation to the new programs.

In response to questions from the floor:
Initial financing was through mortgages and loans, but major investors came along and joined the board.
Recruiting qualified programs is an ongoing challenge. Locally there are enough masters level applicants, but there is no local Ph. D. level pool. They have established good relationships with SC colleges and universities but are also recruiting nationwide.
They do not anticipate outsourcing work overseas.
They are looking at Brazil as their next marker
The company is very pleased to be in Charleston, but it is a conservative environment which does not quickly take to new ideas. They have dealt with this by emphasizing personal hospitality and stressing the point: “Do what you say you are going to do!”

Reported by Fred Sales, Keyway Committee