Twenty years on, Michael Pinsker is still a solutions-oriented entrepreneur. Founder and President of Docupace, Pinsker is reflective on the way his vision has helped businesses create digital transformation for the past two decades. To move confidently into the future, Pinsker firmly believes that the past holds important insights and lessons. After all, “you cannot really know where you are going if you do not know where you came from.”, as Pinsker often recites. In celebration of Docupace’s twentieth anniversary, Pinsker offers a window into his thoughts and hopes for what the next twenty years have in store.
Reflecting on Docupace’s Origin
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, Pinsker saw an opportunity. Always looking for ways to make a positive difference in the business realm, Pinsker recognized that the burgeoning internet and digital revolution would drastically change how work got done. Specifically, workplace efficiency stood on the precipice of a major shift as communication, organization, and production services migrated onto digital spaces. Pinsker came from a background of enterprise software developers and implementors and realized that many small to mid-size companies lacked the resources and technical know-how to keep pace with the staggering amount of technological changes that were happening around them. Pinsker wanted to help.
For Pinsker, the question centered on how he could best craft a solution that helped these businesses in a scalable and cost-effective way. Also, for the first time in his career, he could use advancements in technology to create a completely web-based product. Pinsker focused on security, structure, and data management of the vast amounts of paperwork that accompanied those operations. Although it seems somewhat incredible twenty years later, most workers in the early 2000s literally relied on printed paper that easily could get lost, crumpled, or thrown away in a bustling office environment. Instead, Pinsker saw a future where documents could be brought online and housed on web-based platforms. From there, he developed categorization systems that allowed for the easy storage and retrieval of key documents and coupled that with enterprise-grade workflow capabilities to streamline operational processes.
As Docupace grew, Pinsker quite quickly recognized that his fledgling business could run into a scale problem. Rather than trying to solve for all workflow and document-related processes in businesses, Pinsker decided to zero in on the particular needs of specific industries. Since Docupace already had an existing customer base of wealth management firms and financial advisors, it became a fairly natural transition for the brand to focus almost exclusively on developing solutions for the financial sector. It’s been there ever since.
Docupace’s Noteworthy Accomplishments
Looking back at Docupace’s history, Pinsker identifies a couple of accomplishments that he is most proud of achieving. His goal when starting out was to create a sustainable business model that could last beyond the typical five to seven year lifespan of startups. From his perspective looking back, Docupace did just that.
Although workplaces, in general, look very different than they did in the aughts, Docupace has managed to stay relevant and customer-oriented. One piece of that stability came from Docupace’s constant pursuit of product improvement. Initially, the Docupace platform presented a sort of “cookie-cutter” solution to businesses. However, as time went on, the team adapted its processes and offered more customization options for its clients. As a result, Docupace managed to stay “a little ahead of the curve” when it came to addressing industry changes.
Another accomplishment Pinsker is proud of is Docupace’s commitment to innovation. Clients in the wealth management sector have an ever-evolving list of needs fueled by technological advancements and financial regulations. Docupace has managed to fulfill these needs by creating a collaborative and innovative workplace environment. Pinsker particularly points out Docupace’s ability to attract and retain talented employees. For him, an emphasis on people, processes, and product has been the underlying driver behind Docupace’s long-term success. Although processes and products always need some form of tweaking and adjusting, Pinsker cites the longevity of many team members that have grown with the business as it evolved and worked alongside him for years as a huge boon to the company. The growth of the Docupace “family,” as Pinsker calls it, speaks to the company’s culture and overall business health.
Here’s to the Next 20 Years
As he did twenty years ago, Pinsker sees a bright future for Docupace. Over the next ten to twenty years, Pinsker believes that Docupace has the ability to scale to a much larger level than it is at currently. The market for digital solutions remains stronger than ever, and Docupace has street cred within the wealth management industry that it didn’t have as a new business starting out.
At both the product and organizational level, Pinsker believes that Docupace has the potential to grow and expand into existing and new vertical markets. Developing relationships with the right financial partners and building a solid team of employees to lead the next generation of the product has also put Docupace on a powerful growth trajectory. Pinsker is not hesitant to say that he thinks Docupace can become a multi-billion dollar enterprise by its forty-year mark. After all, Pinsker didn’t start Docupace by dreaming small.
The fact that Docupace even made it to its twenty-year mark is no small feat, and Pinsker points out that the vast majority of businesses fail before even getting close. The tenacity and invention that drove Docupace to its current milestone will get it to its next one. With his work family behind him, Pinsker isn’t afraid of the future. In fact, he looks forward to it. After all, it’s what solutions-oriented people, entrepreneurs— and companies — do.
