Founder Shield

New York
Founded: 2012
Employees: 17

The frustrations of buying insurance for their startup sparked the next venture for entrepreneurs Benji Markoff and Mark Davis. Joined by lawyer Carl Niedbala, the trio of insurance novices co-founded a brokerage that specializes in new ventures.

“Our goal is to be relevant on a digital landscape,” Niedbala says. Targeting startups nationwide, the firm’s website is optimized to show up for various internet searches, and allows visiting entrepreneurs to choose one of three customizable packages: Bootstrapper, Venturer or Premier.

Founder Shield’s tech team developed a proprietary platform—Broker Buddha—to onboard clients. It’s now white labeled for sale to other brokers.

BENJAMIN ZEITZ, SENIOR TECHNOLOGY ANALYST

Time management is always the biggest challenge for producers. Automation via technology has allowed our operations team to maximize efficiency. We use a custom build of Salesforce that’s integrated with Broker Buddha to track leads and opportunities. A tool called Streak really helps with email inbox management, while Wunderlist helps with simple to-do lists and works across devices. Our digital purchasing experience allows sales and lead-generation efforts to operate efficiently. We are also relaunching our client-facing portal on a new version of Broker Buddha that will give clients access to a ton of new features.

The platform SeamlessDocs for e-signatures will be integrated into the new version of Broker Buddha. It’s a big investment beyond any financial cost in the form of development and project management hours, but it will be worth it. 

CARL NIEDBALA, COO

Technology is massively important and may be the major differentiator for brokerages in the future. In an era of one-click ordering and two-day free shipping, people expect a digital purchase experience. We saw a need to create a new commercial insurance purchasing experience and went for it. It definitely takes time to learn the procedural side of insurance, and it’s challenging to learn the culture—both how traditional insurance works and where we envision it going over the next decade. But we love tackling challenging risks that other brokerages tend to steer clear of.

We have a special key person insurance program. It’s a no-underwriting product designed specifically for the venture-backed startup community and backed by Lloyd’s. We also have a captive to write special small group health and benefits programs for companies.

We want to keep building. While Founder Shield is our first brokerage, we’ve also launched brokerages in the real estate and cannabis spaces, with new verticals road-mapped for the near future.

CHRISTINA CONWAY, OPERATIONS ASSOCIATE

We work with startup companies across all different industries and models—B2B and B2C companies, from jewelry shops in Harlem to drone delivery companies. We pride ourselves on our responsiveness and our ability to communicate with our clients in whatever way fits their busy schedule. When a prospective client submits underwriting information via our Broker Buddha portal, a producer follows up immediately with a call to establish the relationship. We communicate via email and phone, but our producers often travel to visit clients in their home cities as well. 

We have a “work hard, play hard” mentality, with free-flowing sick leave and vacation days. We know how to celebrate our achievements, and we enjoy our team dinners, retreats and other outings. While we work remotely from time to time—it’s not uncommon for our team members to hit their goals from the slopes or the beach—we also think it’s pretty important to spend time with each other face to face as much as possible to foster internal relationships and teamwork across departments.