The Birth of Atlantis Partners
You may have heard a company boast some version of “what do Apple, Microsoft, and (my company) have in common?” Wait for it… “the business started in a garage.” It’s a testament the fact that scrappy, driven entrepreneurs are now revered – perhaps more than MBA’s and CEO’s who slowly worked up the ranks of large corporations.
Started in a garage? Great, but what separates the successful companies from the thousands that probably ended in a garage also? Vision, determination, and a need in the market for a new way of doing things. It’s the results that count, and tell the story, whether in the larger tech world or in pro AV. At the end of the day, no matter how smart and how driven an entrepreneur is, it’s the need in the marketplace that forms the vision that launches a great company. That’s what powered and drove Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and the elite company founders (including those at Verrex) who started by doing, modestly and small at first, before challenging the status quo of the established, bigger entities by showing true leadership in their industries.
Atlantis Partners was founded that way. How exactly? It all starts with the engineering DNA of the company’s founder, Frank Papayianis, and creating a solid technical foundation for the challenges, and successes, to come – including transformation from regional success to having offices and workforce nationally.
“In the early 90’s, I was a newly minted EE – electrical engineering degree – and the first job of my career was with an AV integrator, Verrex – a portent of things to come,” explained Frank. “I was a junior project engineer, then quickly moved up to project engineer. But the key thing, that really lays the groundwork for the rest of the story, was the engineering mindset that drove me. Starting from the sales side, or the management side is fine for many, but the value proposition of what Atlantis Partners does today, is grounded in engineering: you only position yourself or your company as a leader and get that “trusted advisor and trusted provider” status in the AV world, if you’ve proved your AV design and engineering chops all along the way.”
Indeed, Frank honed those skills in the field and at the AV design desk, and moved on to the next great integrator, ACE Audio Visual, as a sales engineer. A sales engineer is of course one of the most important roles in the AV world, because sales – in any industry – can so easily sidetrack into just trying to sell products/services that may or may not be tailored to the customer’s exact needs. In AV, the sales engineer is all about knowing so much about design and installation challenges, and about the AV gear itself, that he or she is the champion, the steward of doing it right. Not selling whatever is the most convenient or the most profitable but working with the client to really “engineer” the sale and the job itself to achieve the best and most cost-efficient outcome.
And indeed, that role, as well experience as an independent AV design consultant after ACE Audio Visual,, was perfect preparation for Frank starting his own new company, yes, from his home at first, and it’s telling that his first customers for Atlantis Partners were both Verrex, and ACE Audio Visual,. Talk about “trusted advisor” status.
“Again, I can’t stress enough that I came from the engineering side,” said Frank. “That is a big difference. I can look at the bill of material for an AV job, and say: this won’t work, or this needs changing.”
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It’s telling that among the first customers
for Atlantis Partners were both Verrex, and TRITECH.
…talk about “trusted advisor” status.
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In about 2008, Frank shifted the emphasis of the company more toward providing technicians for AV installation, and less design consulting – even as Frank himself was still in high demand for his engineering services.
The end of the story? “The market decides” is an apt description. Frank’s deep experience and deep technical knowledge of AV systems positioned the company to fill the bigger void and need in the AV market: the need for top-notch, experienced AV installation technicians. Because getting installation done right, on time and on budget, cannot be done on paper. It’s where the rubber meets the road, in AV. And the best possible combination of resources to meet the need for AV installers at the highest level is: an engineering mind, to run the business of providing great AV techs.
“I know what works, and what doesn’t, in AV,” Frank commented. “Engineering first, rules our approach.”
And that engineering-first mindset, is indeed at the heart of all those visionary founders of our great tech companies. Companies that were not spun off from other big companies, or invented by MBA’s with more VC cash than experience or vision. That’s what makes the AV industry a such a great and vibrant industry – we still thrive on the vision, hard work, and hands-on experience of people like Frank Papayianis. The company has now grown, with offices and resources on the East and West coast – to serve AV integration customers that are themselves expanding to a more national footprint, and also to serve smaller and/or more regional integrators. But the vision – and the engineering DNA – hasn’t changed.