Overcoming a slew of life’s liabilities, Robyn and Mark Jones built a $1.8 billion insurance kingdom on territory dominated by mom-and-pop shops.
, who, to the consternation of their families, got married when they were barely out of high school. Mark went to work driving trucks for Robyn’s father’s fertilizer business. Two years later he enrolled at the University of Alberta.
The gamble paid off: Mark landed a job at Bain after graduating in 1991, but his road warrior lifestyle all but made Robyn into a single mother. In 2002 the restless homemaker started flipping homes. She didn’t get very far, selling only three houses. Even more puzzling: Mark’s choice, in 2004, to quit Bain and join her in a Westlake, Texas, enterprise that now goes by the name
The Goosehead founders’ big insight was that these functions should be split. “It didn’t take us long to realize sales and service people are two different animals,” Robyn says. “We think of them as hunters and farmers.”Whither the American Dream? You'll find it in Denmark.
One of the first franchisees was Collin Phaup of Tyler, Texas, who signed on in 2012. In six years with Goosehead he has created a larger agency—1,800 policies worth $2.9 million in annual premiums—than his father did in 28 years with Farmers Insurance. “For the number of policies, I should really have six full-time customer service reps and an office manager to handle HR,” Phaup says. “At this point, I have myself and two producers, nobody else. Goosehead takes the rest off my plate.
You also don’t see growth like Goosehead’s. In the first quarter the corporate agency plus the 501 franchisees hauled in $147 million of premiums, up 45% from the year before. Net income almost doubled to $7.3 million. Since last year's public offering, Goosehead shares have more than quadrupled, giving the company a valuation of $1.8 billion. The Jones family owns 56% of it.
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