Brian Taney | Episode 001

For our very first episode of Inside The Channel, we’re starting where it all began, by sharing the GetWireless story.

Inside The Channel is all about showcasing the voices and stories of the people shaping the future of our industry. And there’s no better way to kick things off than with our CEO, Brian Taney (BT).

An avid skier, runner, and family man, BT takes us inside the origin story of GetWireless, from its early beginnings to how the business has evolved over the years. We dive into key learning moments along the way, the importance of strong partnerships, and how vision and relationships continue to guide where we’re headed next.

At GetWireless, we’ve seen firsthand how meaningful partnerships and trusted relationships have been a driving force behind our success. This platform exists to help you get to know the people behind the industry and the stories that don’t always get told.

Enjoy the episode. 🎙️

Inside The Channel is hosted by GetWireless CMO, Terra Bastolich.
Terra Bastolich is the Chief Marketing Officer with responsibility for corporate business development and marketing communications. Terra is a true advocate for IoT technology and has held strategic leadership roles in sales and marketing for key hardware providers in IOT. She is an industry veteran and has been recognized by numerous industry publications for her thought leadership in the wireless industry; including Connected World’s “Women of M2M” and “IOT Now Magazine”. Terra also takes a personal role in a notable non-profit (Safe Haven Foster Shoppe) raising awareness and funding for essentials and clothing for foster children.

Transcript

Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Inside the Channel. We're excited to be kicking things off with episode one. Before we get to today's guest, we wanted to share why we created this platform. We've realized that the way we communicate and deliver content needs to evolve. Our industry is moving fast, and while product announcements and updates are still important, they don't always leave room for context, conversation, or deeper understanding. Some of the most valuable insights we hear every day come from real discussions with technology vendors of the products we sell, the reseller and ecosystem partners working side by side with customers, and mobile network operators that literally light up our world. We are very fortunate to work with these truly successful companies, but even more, the amazing people, the people actually shaping this industry. And too often, these stories never get shared. This platform is our way of changing that and gives us a new medium to slow things down just enough to have real conversations. We'll talk about the hot topics and what's happening right now, but we'll also dig a bit deeper into the people behind the technology, the lessons learned along the way, and where the industry is headed next. Whether you choose to watch, listen, or just catch the highlights, the goal is simple: make these conversations accessible, make them meaningful, and share the voices that are helping shape the future of the channel. Thank you for tuning in today. And to kick things off, we'll send it over to our CMO, Tara Bastilich.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

For our first episode, um, we will share our story. Um, like we like to say the Get Wireless story. Um, with many of our partners, this will shed a great light on relatable and uh narrative from starting and scaling a business. Um, BT, thanks for joining me. I know I come up with lots of great ideas that keep you on your toes and put you in uncomfortable positions sometimes, but uh, I'm glad you're here. Um, and we'll start every segment um getting to know our guests. And so, first question for you would be to tell us a little bit more about the man that we call Brian Tani or BT.

About Brian Taney

SPEAKER_02 2:12

Awesome. Thanks so much for having me here. And thanks for always challenging me, Tara. Uh, they always say you need to challenge yourself to grow professionally and personally. So been looking forward to this. Um, I'm Brian Tani, co-founder and CEO at Get Wireless. We started this business, which we'll talk about a little bit later in 2001. Um, but I've lived in Minnesota my whole life. I went to St. Cloud State University and I met my beautiful wife, Melissa, there. We have three children. Uh we have Carly, who's at San Diego State University, is a junior, living her very best life. We have a son who's a senior at Southwest High School in Minneapolis, also very likely going to San Diego State next year. And we have an eighth grader named Cooper, and he's at Anthony Middle School in Minneapolis as well. I love outdoor activities. I do a ton of downhill skiing. Um, do that with some partners every single winter. We call it our boondoggle. Um, love traveling, love to, there's some lakes by my home. I love to run around the lakes and um golf as much as I used to before we started get wireless, but enjoy golf and just really spending time with family and friends and especially the the youth activities that our kids are involved in.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

It's always amazing, us cold weather people, right? That we've handled this cold weather and we make fun of it. But it's interesting that your children have chosen somewhere warm. I don't blame them.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

Yeah, they're smart.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Yes, absolutely. I mean, I that's a great choice to get out of this, especially as we record this. It's below zero here in Minneapolis.

SPEAKER_02 3:46

So everybody says it's a great place to go visit when you live in Minnesota, getting out to San Diego, no doubt.

The GetWireless Story

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Yes. Um, well, let's dive in. I know today the the goal is to talk a little bit and share the get wireless story. I know we love to tell the story here internally. Um, it's an evolution, it's a narrative that I think a lot of our customers and a lot of the people in our channel ecosystem can relate to from a small business that's been scaling and growing and changing and, you know, went through some challenging times and started with very small means. So why don't you tell us a little bit about when Get Wireless started and uh how that how the story begins?

SPEAKER_02 4:25

Sure, absolutely. So it's a proverbial cocktail napkin story at Couples Volleyball League on Wednesday nights. We'd finish our volleyball games, then we'd go have dinner and uh a couple adult beverages and had gotten to know Brian Rasmussen, our current CEO, uh sorry, C O O now, and as we uh call him RAS, we and another partner named Mike Brendan. And the three of us with our wives would be in this volleyball league, and then we'd talk about business. They both had BCIS backgrounds. I was selling two-way radio systems, so I had the wireless background, and we would just talk about how we can start a business that leverages all of our talents and skills. And we said, let's let's start some sort of business that leverages wireless technology and computers. And so we basically filed our articles of organization in 2001. We originally wanted to call ourselves Go Wireless, but that name was taken. So we we ended up calling I'm happy about that.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Yeah, I really I really appreciate that now because I I I love our brand.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

So yes, thank you. Well, you've you're the one who's developed that so nicely. But yes, so we we end up being get wireless with the state of Minnesota, April 16th, 2001. We had a$5,100 investment to start the business, and so there were$5,100 shares of Git Wireless stock, and the rest is history.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

I mean, think about that. Think about how how long ago that was. But you think about the evolution since then. Absolutely. Well, I mean, I think let's talk about the the original technology story, right? The part that changed and what kind of drove it and what is still relevant to what we do today in that technology. I mean, we think we've all heard a little bit about McDonald's as one of the main portions of that story, but let's let's tell that portion.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

Sure. So we are really interested in delivering data over wireless technology more than wired technology from the start. That was something of great interest to us. Wi-Fi was pretty pervasive, but cellular, for those of you watching who have been in this industry a long time, you remember the instability of 2G connectivity and 19,200 baud speeds and how you can never really get to a site that had a lot of images or was data heavy. But we believed in 3G, we believed in the promise of it, and that that we should be well positioned that when that technology got better, that we should be positioned as the leaders in that area from a knowledge perspective. We wanted to develop some great relationships that support that. And we were indeed ready when 3G came to market.

How Has GetWireless Evolved

SPEAKER_00 7:03

It's, I mean, it's an interesting story as we all kind of relate back to the evolution of technology that's still here with us today. Let's let's talk a little bit about the evolution now as we look at the company changing, right? So then it started into being a reseller and the business that you had and the companies that you were working with back then.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

Yeah, absolutely. So that this is one of my favorite parts of our origin story, if you will, is that in 2007, Rass and I were at lunch and we were reflecting on how we really liked the partners we work with. All these other resellers in the community who are ultimately our competitors, but we had talked to them and we'd strategize about business and share industry information. And so we were just talking at lunch and we said, let's find a way to work with the partners that are right now our competitors instead of against them. So we developed a plan and a pitch to go to Tellular Corporation and Airlink Communications and say, we want to move from value-added reseller status to value added distribution status. We're willing to take on more inventory inventory, take on another layer of support for those partners to take that load off of the manufacturers. And we just need a little bit better discount so that we can offer that same price to those resellers we had been working with. And they agreed. Tellular and Airlink agreed. We took on a bunch more inventory. We were super tight on the technology already. So it was no big stretch for us to offer that extra layer of technical support. And since then, we've been in value-added distribution versus being a var, the single largest change in our evolution.

Key Principles & Differentiators

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Yeah. I mean, I really do think that's an evolution that not a lot of companies have. And I think it also brought the principles of what Get Wireless sees as we identify as a value-added distributor because we do like to identify ourselves differently than other distributors. Um, and that really probably comes back from that evolution, from the fact that we saw value, we worked with the customers, we could understand what the partners are bringing to the market. Um, tell me a little bit about what you see as those key principles, the things that are different about get wireless, different about a VAD, different about our core principles that you guys kind of started since, I mean, since the basement, since you started.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

That's right, since the basement. So we found a Get Wireless based on exceptional customer service and fantastic customer support. It's kind of evolved into what we call now the delightful customer experience at Git Wireless. We talk about it all the time. We talk about how to our team, if you push away from your desk at the end of the day and you believe that you've given 100% and it you've delivered a delightful partner experience to customers, vendors, and carriers at every turn, then that's been a successful day. And so that's never gonna change at Git Wireless. And then the other thing is just when you talked about our ability to differentiate ourselves, it's really about focus, focus on a portfolio, focus on the things we're really, really good at at Git Wireless, and differentiating and being able to deliver a lot of these value-added offerings that are really founded in deep product expertise and knowledge. And that's the thing that broadline distribution that's been our primary competitors along the way, it's just very difficult for them to have that deep expertise and knowledge on 200 lines and 25,000 to 100,000 SKUs. And that's really separated us. In fact, I think back to the days when Ras and I were doing everything tech support, sales, packing boxes. And either one of us could pick up a phone call from any of our customers and they could ask us any question. And we both knew everything because it was he and I and one other gentleman at that time and a very small, uh, I guess our second office after we graduated from the townhome basement. But they could call and say, I need some help on technical support on this issue. We'd help them through, and then they would say, by the way, do you know if that order shipped from yesterday? And we would be the right resource to give them all of those answers. So that was definitely part of our secret sauce from the beginning.

Advice to Other Companies in the Channel

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Yeah. Well, and I think that's a principle that we still have today, is even though we've grown, right? And we've been able to scale the business, there's there's still that, those same principles. I mean, I think a lot of people in this company can answer a lot of questions that are very wide. We wear a lot of hats and really do focus on that level of customer experience, whether that's a shipping notification or it's a very technical product-related question. It's right, it's still there. I mean, are there other principles that you see or advice that you give to others in this space, whether they're resellers, distributors, channel partners, just how to take those principles into their business?

SPEAKER_02 11:54

So I think everybody should have their secret sauce. And that can be, again, you can be the most knowledgeable, or you can be the fastest to respond, or you can be the greatest marketer, or whatever it is. Find your secret sauce, define it, document it, talk about it regularly. And then I'd also just like to kind of reinforce that I really believe that self-awareness is a huge key to success. So be sure to understand your talents and skills, the areas of development you have, where where you're strong, where you need to grow. And then as you're modeling your business, just be really cognizant of that and be really self-aware during that process.

Growth Over the Years

SPEAKER_00 12:31

Yeah. Well, I mean, that's that's critical to companies that want to grow and scale because you have to build the change. I mean, think about the amount of change. I guess that would be, you know, as you guys have changed the business, it's been the growth doesn't happen without evolving, right? And changing and bringing in new resources, changing the way that you're thinking, having the self-awareness to say, hey, probably need another set of hands. So talk about what is that, like as this grew, what were some of the things that, you know, that grew in the business besides just our building and yeah, I mean, I when I was been thinking about this, it's really everything.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

But again, building portfolio, size of our team, just our capabilities when it comes to those value-added offerings, pre-sale consultations, post-sale support, co-op marketing. We offer training programs. We've added connectivity services, we've added strategic financing programs, we've added a government procurement program. We're operating at a whole nother level now. We talk about operating with excellence systematically, procedurally, and even in the way we communicate here. So we were, again, I mean, you really talk about a story of being a baby and then basically evolving and growing into an adult. We are, we are definitely in full adulthood here at Get Wireless and looking forward to many years to come.

The Value of Relationships

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Yeah, it's there's definitely a maturity that we're seeing, I think, in the business and obviously when we have to produce revenue and making sure we're hitting our goals and and um, but also looking at it as we're still able to have that self-awareness that we can sit back and we're small enough to adapt and say, hey, this is an area we need to improve. This is something we need to add. We've added business units over the years, right? We've added an OEM practice to our business. We've added the connectivity practice to our business. We've been able to sit back and go, yeah, we're missing something. We're we need this. Um, what resources do we need to put in place? And um, I think that's a a big thing that a lot of companies are still trying to figure out is how do I, how do I learn to evolve and change and you know, still do the things that we do well without losing them in the change. Um, but I think that's what a lot of our customers see. And I think that's the relationships that we've built with them, which I think is the other foundation that we just want to talk a little bit about is we we build amazing relationships with our customers, I feel like. And I know we're probably biased in that. Um, but we we really, and this is part of the reason why we're doing this, is we want to have these conversations. We love the conversations that happen at our events, we love the conversations over a couple of cocktails with our customers. Um, we want to open this up to to speak to them, but talk a little bit about that, the relationship side of this, because there's so much interpersonal things that happen when you do business with people that you like and people you trust, which is the foundation of one of the things that we believe. Um, but talk a little bit about the relationships that you've made and how that's changed the business.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

Yeah, I mean, it's it's a lot of great business relationships, a lot of friendships that have developed out of these partnerships. Like I talk about, we we do some events where we call them boondoggles and we get out and we we talk a little bit of business, but we certainly have a lot of recreational time together and doing that relationship building. Like you said, people want to do business with folks they trust and they like. And we find that if you have deep, meaningful relationships, it's so much easier when you bring a proposal forward for a strategic plan or a growth proposal or a new program, or if you're just trying to problem solve an issue that's arisen by having those deep, meaningful relationships, it just makes those conversations and that entire process so much easier. It's critically important those relationships are to the success of any business.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

Yeah. And I mean, especially when you get into sometimes there's a hard conversation, right? We went through some challenges during, you know, different economic times. There's challenges that happen when vendors change their business model or their leadership, or we, you know, having those hard conversations are easier when we have these relationships that I think we could name a lot of them right off the top of our.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Well, it's amazing when we think about the first group of partners we approach to work with us when we transition to value-added distribution. The vast majority of those folks are still in business, still in this industry and joining us and participating for all of our events and some of the folks I have monthly or quarterly calls with year-round. So it is amazing. Those relationships, they really stick when you put time and effort into them. It's just like anything else professional relationships, personal relationships. They all take time and effort feeding and watering. And I think that's something we do well here at Get Wireless.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Yeah, and it's amazing. It's unfortunate that sometimes when people leave or move on, but they still make the time to message or keep in touch, and they may not be working for a vendor that we work with anymore. But I think that's a testament to it. As things change, people stay in contact. And you know, we know a lot of people stay in the industry too. So you never know where they're gonna end up.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

Nobody ever leaves wireless.

Message to our Current & Future Partners

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Nobody leaves this. They just, you know, get a different polo. But we love that because there's a lot of great people in this space and we do build relationships with them. And you also just never know because they could be your new teammate, they could be your new boss. That's right. So make sure you, you know, you're building those relationships. So I think what are the, you know, as we look at this content management that we're putting out there, um, this message to the current customers that we have or people that aren't working with us. What do you want them to retain about Get Wireless? And what are the key things that you want them to know as they look at either working with us or if they are working with us?

SPEAKER_02 18:10

Sure, absolutely. That we're gonna continue to adhere to our founding principles, customer service, customer support, delivering a delightful experience, that we really care about our partners, our vendors, our carrier partners, and our customers. We strive to have an amazing team culture here. That's super important. We talk about it in every single one of our executive meetings. And our evolution's not done. I mean, here we're doing a podcast. We we hadn't talked about this till about a couple months ago. And here we are for the podcast. We have standing AI calls now every single week because AI is going to be incorporated into the business. It has to be. We're gonna stay on top of that. But we're gonna continue to bring more value-added programs to the marketplace, and we're gonna continue to be a thought leader in in wireless and be what we like to think as is the top of the top of the pyramid when it comes to value-added distribution.

Closing Remarks

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Yeah, that's I mean, really that's that's where it is. And I think we we've also said that we we're gonna be large enough to be relevant. So those that aren't working with us, we want to make sure that we're having conversations if it makes sense, because we'll we are planning and continuing to grow and be a large player, but we're still staying true to those principles and staying. We also like to uh say that we plan to continue to be cool, right? We want to have fun, we want to build relationships, and we we definitely want to keep that culture. And, you know, that goes back to making sure that we're taking good care of our customers and our employees and everybody that we're working with. So I think that's the that's the get wireless story for anybody that hasn't seen it or heard it. Um, we we love to tell it. We think it's a great story for everybody that's in this business. But anybody that's kind of taken a small business and started it and made a made an investment and worked really hard to grow. Um, you can see that it can be successful. And it can also be um, it's the journey is never over. That's the the message, right? We're continuing to evolve every day and we want to hear what everybody else is doing out there. So we're gonna be bringing lots of people into the podcast that are going to uh share their stories. They're gonna tell, you know, what their backgrounds were. Um, and we'll bring all of that to everybody that is that is joining us today. So thank you for your time today.

SPEAKER_02 20:25

Thank you so much.