Today we’d like to introduce you to Aaron Levy.
Aaron, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I grew up in the Midwood Neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. My parents immigrated from Tehran, Iran in 1979 when the Revolution came. My father was a high up in the Iranian military and he was in charge of procuring weapons throughout the world. So, when the revolution came. bye, bye. In NY, my father had a wholesale business for Persian Carpets. Had a warehouse right next to our house.
My parents and with my two older brothers and sisters moved to Brooklyn, I came along a few years later in 1984.
We were and are Jewish and kept the orthodox religion. I did well and school and graduated from Yeshivah of Flatbush Joel Braverman High School in 2002.
https://il.linkedin.com/in/aaron-levy-b37b3951
I was at the top of the class and got accepted to MIT in Cambridge, MA – the Boston area. Moved away from home for the first time. Graduated four years later while majoring in Computer Science.
Got a good job offer from IBM’s Boca Raton office. in the meantime, my older brother, Samuel had moved to Boca Raton from NY. So, it seemed like an easy decision.
For the next seven and a half years, I was part of a team developing and perfect Artificial Intelligence for IBM. Very interesting work. Very long hours. Very good pay, especially for me who has been a student for my entire life.
We were working on projects that years later, I see have become breakthroughs. Stuff that changes the lives of lots of people.
Just in the past six years, I was approached by my next door neighbor, David Rutstein, in Boca Raton to team up with him to create NAAIP.org. David was a former insurance agent who knew the insurance agent business. But this was primarily a technical project. I am the tech guy.
It seemed like a good idea. Create client-facing websites f0r agents with various bells, whistles, and tools to help them sell. From there, other opportunities would arise as we get a decent amount of users in our system. We would become wholesalers, recruiters of agents, a seller of leads to agents, etc. The key would be to build a good system that insurance agents would use.
I have been working on this system – www.naaip.org for the past five and a half years. We have achieved some success. 9,917 registered users as of today. It has been a bumpy road, but we are growing rapidly and are becoming a brand name for insurance agents in all 50 states.
From the start, we procured three million dollars from an investment company. But we are still a private company.
It is great being a boss. Still lots of hours, but great satisfaction knowing that we have created a platform that is helping so many people.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Not smooth at all. Creating game-changing high-quality technology that is given away tends to piss off companies that charge money for lesser quality. Lots of time and effort defending the system from hacking. As well, when we first got started it is safe to say that the quality of our product was not great. So, lots of attempts by competitors to harm us and our first users.
In the end, quality prevails. We decided to make the product free to the public at a very early stage. Even before the quality was up to standard. I guess that the was reason for lots of the issues. It may have been better to release to the public when everything is perfect. Time will tell. We picked up lots of users that are still with us today.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the NAAIP.org story. Tell us more about it.
www.naaip.org specializes in high-quality websites for insurance agents that we give to the agent. No cost, no obligations, no catches.
Quote engines for life insurance, Medicare and auto insurance are included in the website system.
These quote engines really help the usefulness of the site. Causing visitors to input their personal information.
We offer additional services to insurance agents, such as employment opportunities. Insurance companies come to us now. Since we have 9,900 registered agents. They need salespeople and the sales people that use our system need products to sell. In essence, we are a matchmaker.
We set up partnerships with over 100 insurance companies. I guess we have become a major player in this business, but it is really based on the good technology that we give to insurance agents.
Is there a specific memory from when you were younger that you really miss?
It was when my father took me to install a carpet at Derek Jeter’s house. Amazing house. I was and still am a big Yankees fan. That was special.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.naaip.org
- Phone: 800-770-0492
- Email: support@naaip.org
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