Meet the Team: Diane Lovine, Co-Founder of 99 Calls
Every company has a beginning, and the story behind 99 Calls starts with two entrepreneurs, a small cleaning business, an idea that worked, and a willingness to take a calculated risk.
For this edition of our Meet the Team series, we sat down with Diane Lovine, Co-Founder of 99 Calls, to talk about what came before 99 Calls, how the company got started, the challenges of entrepreneurship, and what has kept the company moving forward for more than 15 years.
Q: What were you doing before starting 99 Calls?
DIANE:
My first career was actually in occupational therapy. I worked in pediatrics and home care, including within the Boston school system.
After having my second child, I decided to pursue a goal I had always had: owning a business. I purchased a small window cleaning company in Boston that had two part-time employees. Over the years, I grew it into a commercial cleaning company with about 30 employees.
Eventually, I sold the company so Fred and I could go into business together and focus on what would become 99 Calls.
Q: What inspired you to make the switch to lead generation?
DIANE:
The biggest inspiration was seeing what lead generation did for my own cleaning company.
At the time, Fred was working with the marketing department of a print advertising company. He had learned a lot about building highly specific, location-focused web pages. He applied some of those strategies to my cleaning company's website.
This happened during an economic downturn, yet our small company grew by about 10% that year.
That made us realize we might have something.
We started testing the strategy with contractor friends. We built sites for a painter, a landscaper, and a carpet cleaner. We saw that the approach worked, so we kept going.
Q: What was one of the biggest challenges you faced when building 99 Calls?
DIANE:
It was the classic entrepreneurial challenge of trying to sustain yourself before the revenue starts coming in.
You've invested in an idea you believe you can grow, but growth takes time. You have to have patience, dig into your savings, and commit to making it work.
In the beginning, we were essentially giving our service away. We offered free trials because we needed to prove that what we were doing worked. For roughly the first six months, we had to build that customer base before we could really start getting paid for the service.
Watching your bank account go down during that period is scary, even when you know you've taken a calculated risk.
Q: What would people be surprised to learn about starting 99 Calls?
DIANE:
Neither Fred nor I came from a traditional marketing background.
I had experience building a business because of my cleaning company, but beyond that, so much of what we did was learned along the way.
Q: What has changed the most at 99 Calls?
DIANE:
Technology and innovation.
Looking back over 15-plus years, that's probably the one thing you can count on to continually change. We're always developing, adapting, and finding better ways to produce results.
What's interesting is that while the technology has changed dramatically, the core of the company really hasn't.
Taking care of our customers is still number one. Behind that is a group of incredibly smart, talented, and thoughtful people making everything happen. We've always had a strong core of quality people who believe in what we're doing and stick around.
Q: What have 99 Calls customers taught you?
DIANE:
They've taught me that contractors are rugged and resilient people.
They have the same hopes and ambitions as everyone else. They may simply have a different method of getting there.
Q: What have you learned from working with small business owners?
DIANE:
I've learned how fragile a small business can be during those first three or four years.
There are so many components that have to come together for a business to succeed.
You can have world-class skills in your trade, but you also have to understand your finances, determine where to invest in advertising, respond to leads, follow up with potential customers, and handle all the other pieces involved in actually running a company.
For a while, it's a very fragile ecosystem until you build the bones behind the business.
Q: Was there an early decision that had a bigger impact than you expected?
DIANE:
We decided early on not to seek venture capital.
We had opportunities, but we didn't want to give up control of the company or end up working for somebody else. That was the opposite of why we wanted to start a business in the first place.
We also decided that family would come first and that we would grow at a steady pace rather than feeling like we had to set the world on fire.
Could we have grown faster or made more money another way? Possibly. But we've been able to grow the business on our terms.
That family-first philosophy doesn't just apply to Fred and me. It's something we want for our employees and the entire team. Taking care of the people in your life while handling the work side has always been important to us.
Q: What has surprised you most about what 99 Calls has become?
DIANE:
The work family we've built.
I don't think I realized when we started how special that would become. We've had people stay with the business for many years, and when I look back at what we've built together, I think it's pretty amazing.
It's more than simply growing a company. We've built something together.
Q: Where do you see 99 Calls five years from now?
DIANE:
I see us continuing to adopt and automate technology at a very fast pace.
That's going to help us become more of an all-in-one solution for small businesses. We'll continue introducing technology that makes our processes flow better internally while helping our customers keep up with how quickly the digital landscape is changing.
Q: How would you describe your leadership style?
DIANE:
Collaborative.
I like having conversations and opening ideas up to a group because I think some of the best ideas happen organically.
From there, it's about giving people responsibility and ownership so those ideas actually turn into something.
Q: What's some of the best advice you've received as a business owner?
DIANE:
Respect what you know, but also recognize what you don't know.
Then trust the people who understand those areas better than you do and give them the opportunity to shine.
Q: What advice would you give someone thinking about starting a business?
DIANE:
Educate yourself as much as possible about what it actually takes to run a business before you start.
Being exceptionally good at your trade or skill isn't enough by itself. You need to understand the financial side, hiring, operations, marketing, and all the other components involved.
Get a realistic understanding of what's required and be prepared for it.
Q: One lesson you've learned along the way?
DIANE:
Be open to advice.
We've had people tell us we were doing things wrong, especially early on. You can immediately become defensive and push back, or you can listen more carefully and ask yourself whether there's merit to what they're saying.
Being open-minded doesn't mean every piece of advice is right. It means you're willing to consider it.
Q: Has your definition of success changed?
DIANE:
Absolutely.
When we first started, success was much more financially focused. We were younger, raising small children, and Fred and I had essentially put all of our eggs into one basket by going into business together.
There were a lot of questions: Is this going to work? Is it going to take off?
Today, success is much more about balance. It's about continuing to build the business while also recognizing and appreciating the other important aspects of life.
Q: Describe 99 Calls in three words.
DIANE:
Business growth experts.
Q: Looking back, what makes you most proud?
DIANE:
We've come a long way without straying from our foundation.
99 Calls has developed its own personality, and there's an integrity behind what we've built. We've changed, innovated, adopted new technology, and continued growing, but our core hasn't changed.
That's something I'm incredibly proud of.
Built to Grow, Without Losing the Foundation
Diane's story reflects much of what 99 Calls works to help its customers accomplish every day: building a business takes patience, resilience, adaptability, and a willingness to keep learning.
Technology will continue to change. Marketing will continue to evolve. The tools available to small businesses five years from now may look completely different from the ones available today.
But after more than 15 years, the philosophy behind 99 Calls remains remarkably consistent: take care of customers, invest in good people, stay open to new ideas, and help small businesses grow.
