How Alex Rogers Cut His Hair & His Losses & Built a Big MSP

ARRC Technology spent much of the 1990s building custom PCs for  local customers in Bakersfield, Calif. Then CompUSA, CostCo and other massive retailers moved in with low-cost PCs that threatened to destroy ARRC’s profit margins. Did ARRC die? Hardly. CEO Alex Rogers has spent the past 20 years continually evolving his business model… his wardrobe… and his hairstyles. The VAR Guy found a rare video to prove it. Take a look.

First, a little background: Instead of competing on PC prices back in the 1990s, ARRC transformed into an MSP and an industry educator. The company’s CharTec Academy this week attracted about 130 aspiring and established managed services providers who want to know more about sales, marketing and business management.

Have You Seen This? 

During a visit to the academy, The VAR Guy stumbled onto this video of ARRC television commercials through the years. The video is a time capsule of sorts, highlighting how ARRC evolved from pure system builder and break-fix specialist into an MSP.

Alex and ARRC Today 

So how is ARRC Technology doing today? The company is ranked among the world’s top 501 MSPs, and revenues are marching toward $14 million this year. An investment from ConnectWise Capital also allowed ARRC to drive additional growth in recent years. Pretty darn impressive.

Oh, and by the way: ARRC still builds PCs for customers. The twist: Rogers wraps the PCs into managed services and hardware as a service (HaaS) agreements — generating higher margins and monthly recurring revenues from all that hardware.

And when it comes to aging well, Rogers has retained far more hair than The VAR Guy.