From humble beginnings to CCM industry leader, founder, Chris Rasmussen reflects on 25 years of Doxim.
On January 6th, 2000, Chris Rasmussen founded Interprise Solutions. The company that became Doxim was born out of a vision to develop and deliver software to help customers automate and digitize processes that enhance customer engagement.
Chris has since passed the torch to Doxim’s current Chief Executive Officer, Mike Hennessy, and remains a crucial member of the board. In this post, he was kind enough to share his experience, insights into the future of customer communications management, and what it feels like to reach this incredible milestone.
Early Days: The Challenges of a Changing World
In the late nineties, I saw an opportunity.
The dot-com era was an exciting time, especially for document processing. I knew I could provide a service people were interested in, needed, and willing to pay for. So, I founded Interprise Solutions, a company that offered innovative solutions for transforming traditional paper-based processes into digital ones.
An iteration of the Interprise Solutions logo.
It was the best of times and then the worst of times.
When the dot-com bubble burst, many businesses struggled. However, the demand for our services, involving the transformation of ink on paper into electronic documents, continued to be in demand. By July 2001, Interprise Solutions had successfully established itself, launching with customers live and in production.
But a few, short months later, the first twin tower fell on 9/11, and the world was forever changed.
The resulting economic downturn made it an almost insurmountable challenge for us. By the summer of 2022, we had expanded and contracted (in 2001, we had thirteen employees; by 2002, just three). We adapted to our circumstances and found a way to navigate to the other side.
By 2004, we had over one hundred clients and delivered electronic documents globally with our content management platform. We owe part of this success to focusing on smaller wealth management and community banking companies.
We had a major partner, Empress Digital, and an agreement with a few other businesses who sought our assistance in creating better documents. We delivered a high-quality product and service to these clients and gained access to broker channels, allowing us to continue moving upstream.
Our deliberate approach to building strong client relationships was the key to keeping the doors open. Building relationships with clients was not just a part of the job but a crucial aspect of our business that I deeply value to this day.
An early version of the Doxim logo.
These relationships saw us through to 2008 when we changed our name to Doxim, and then 2009, when we acquired Empress Digital. Since then, our growth trajectory has continued, with the expansion of our client base to thousands of customers and entry into other highly regulated industries like healthcare, utilities, and insurance.
Be the Chef, Cook, and Bottlewasher
I’ve personally never felt comfortable with ‘Chief Executive Officer’ (CEO) as a title. However, as the founder, I see myself as not just a leader but also a team player, working with others to achieve our goals.
Like my father always said, “You’ve got to be the chef, cook, and bottlewasher,” especially in the early days and years of running a business.
Back then, my role wasn’t confined to a single department. I had a hand in implementation and professional services and was a salesperson as much as a project manager. I’ve always had a natural talent for understanding and distilling what the client wanted and then whiteboarding and communicating the vision of what we needed to build to the team.
As Doxim grew, we acquired more companies, and I had to remove a few of my many hats to let others lead. It was challenging to delegate, at least at first, because I took such pride in getting out there and selling.
Unfortunately, no one drops a red flag to tell you when it’s time to delegate; it’s something that you’ll know when you see or feel it. It’s about finding the right chemistry in all areas of the business, which means most of our growth took multiple iterations to get right.
It was painful and challenging, as much as it was wonderful and exciting to have the opportunity to lead the business and see the moving parts that needed to align internally and externally for our growth.
The Moment that Changed Everything
The most pivotal moment for Doxim in the last twenty-five years was our acquisition of Digital Mailer in 2016.
We believed that the basic nature of small financial institutions in Canada was similar to that of the United States. We had seen the data files for years, and after acquiring Digital Mailer, it confirmed that what we were doing in Canada was applicable across the border. It greenlit an opportunity to expand into the United States, in a big way, and led to a series of acquisitions that transcended into the success we see today.
We’ve grown into serving million-dollar clients, and it’s exciting to see how gaining a significant foothold in the financial industry has enabled us to scale up the business.
Key Strategies: See a Problem? Run Toward It.
You’ll always find opportunities in life if you run toward a problem. If you’re in a position to do so, lean in because that’s where I found the opportunity to differentiate Doxim from the competition and carve out our path in the market.
Stay focused on the long game. We aren’t the largest firm, but our clients want us, the mid-sized firm because they like our service and appreciate that we uphold our commitments. If clients need to get in touch with their service representative, for example, they can do so quickly and efficiently.
This approach has made all the difference, paved the way for Doxim, and continues to do so today.
And always remember: do right by the client. Don’t ignore your teammates. Take the time to understand their challenges, even something as simple as, are they hungry? Feed them. It’s crucial to find ways to help and offer support.
The Future of Customer Communications Management is Bright
The way I see customer communications management (CCM) and digital transformation, we’re only in the third inning of a baseball game.
We’re just getting started.
Doxim started its journey at the highest level: as a digital transformation platform to help move data from physical to digital mediums. Today, we live in an omnichannel world with more channels than ever—and few channels ever ‘go away.’
We’ve got videos, apps, and more ways to send messages than ever before. The average person now sends no less than five or six text messages for day-to-day activities like confirming an appointment, and if we include the back-and-forth transactions, each needs to be created, managed, tracked, archived, and so on.
The opportunity in this space continues to grow. We need to do everything we did in the past but do more for the future, which means more channels, options, and solutions.
It’s also become impossible to ignore the cyber perspective because it has made it increasingly tougher to stay the best of the best in the industry. Our clients must protect their data. It’s our responsibility to help them achieve this at all costs.
As people age, they will invest in more financial products, gain assets, and potentially work with anywhere from eight to ten firms, with multiple accounts. It’s all electronic, and here’s where we can help people aggregate and manage their information from static and noise into streamlined communications.
We’ve got a long journey ahead, decades longer, and it’s a big world. As long as the economy grows, we can continue playing the game.
