Why We Started Cobalt

We started Cobalt because the access solutions industry is at a turning point, and business owners haven’t had access to a sustainable answer. Cobalt exists to provide them with one.

For the sake of clarity, the term “access solutions” refers to the products and technology that govern access to, from, and within non-residential properties. Specifically, that means installation, servicing and optimization of the doors, gates, cameras, and access control systems that simultaneously help us move around and keep us safe. Whether you’re a facility manager, school principal, or casual shopper – and whether you’re aware of it or not – well-designed access solutions are mission critical for our daily lives.

Further, demand for modern access solutions is at an all-time high, and it’s growing. Due to aging commercial and industrial infrastructure, increased adoption of building automation technology, and heightened awareness of security, business is booming for access solutions providers. And that’s great news for the owners of these businesses.    

The challenge is that these business owners can’t find technicians to handle the demand. Like many service businesses, today’s access solutions businesses face a serious and increasingly problematic labor shortage. And the pervasiveness is shocking. Every access solutions business owner we speak with says that their number one challenge is identifying and retaining excellent technicians. In other words, the demand for access solutions has never been greater, but businesses can’t find technicians to do the work.

Separately, many access solutions business owners are reaching – or have already reached – a point in their lives at which they’re not so sure they want to keep burning the midnight oil running their business. Providing mission critical services makes for a great business, but it’s a grind. When a hospital door, an industrial loading dock, or an elementary school’s automated door-locking system breaks, it requires immediate fixing. And in those situations, it’s usually the access solutions business owner that gets the call – no matter the time of day.

So, it’s understandable that eventually these owners would start thinking about an exit plan. But that exit plan isn’t always so obvious. The options are typically: pass the business down to your kids, close your doors, or sell. 

“We take care of our people, we do right by our customers, and we honor the missions and values that made our businesses great in the first place. ”

Passing the business down to your kids can be a great option, but not everyone’s kids have an interest in taking (or can take) the reins, particularly with declining interest in the trades among younger generations. And while some businesses unfortunately need to close their doors, the last thing an owner of a thriving business wants to do on their way out is wind down their operation.

Then there’s the third option: selling your business. On the surface, selling your business may sound like the most compelling of the three options. You take your financial chips off the table, step away from the daily grind, and leave the business in capable hands. The issue is that most acquisitions fail. Short-term thinking and financial engineering interfere with the kinds of things that made the acquired business great in the first place: taking care of customers and employees and working in deep service of a mission. Sure, it’s nice to cash out and not have to monitor your cell phone at all hours of the day, but at what cost?

Our mission with Cobalt is to offer founders and business owners with a long-term home for their business that they can feel proud of…one that secures their legacy and unlocks possibility for their team, for their business, and for their future.

On securing legacies, our approach is simple. We take care of our people, we do right by our customers, and we honor the missions and values that made our businesses great in the first place. We want 100% of our founders, their employees, and their customers to say that they feel proud to have us as a partner. Our gratitude for the blue-collar workers who power their communities runs deep and dictates how we run our business. It’s also why we named ourselves Cobalt.

And on unlocking possibility, our aim is to equip access solutions businesses with the ability to say yes to customers more than they say no. With centralized investments in technology, recruiting, and training & development, among others, our goal is to enable our businesses to do all the work their customers demand of them, and to do it excellently. 

In summary, we want to offer owners of access solutions businesses with an answer to their two biggest problems: 1) more demand than they can service, and 2) lack of an exit plan they can feel proud of. 

It’ll be hard, but we plan on waking up every day laser-focused on solving these two problems. And we couldn’t be more excited to get started.

Sincerely,
Anthony and Tyler, Co-CEOs