Teaching, trading, technology: James Punderson proves there's many paths to success



James Punderson, CEO of Networks & More!



Island Heights, N.J.- I hit the road for this week’s blog article, which begins with the first interview in a two-part series with entrepreneur James Punderson, my father. Punderson is the current CEO of Network & More!, a privately-held educational technology company based in Island Heights, New Jersey. Punderson hasn’t worked for anyone else since 1974. 



The second-oldest of nine children in an Anglo-Irish-German Catholic family, Punderson is the only sibling to have entered the small business world. While attending the University of Notre Dame on his own dime (often hitch-hiking to get home for holidays), Punderson started United Student Services and solicited parents via mail selling fruit baskets during exam time. He made enough to pay a significant portion of his tuition as a senior and laid the groundwork for his professional journey. After leaving South Bend, Punderson went to graduate school at Bowling Green and worked as a teacher for a few years, then decided to take a shot at law school. 

“My second year in law school, I decided I wasn’t interested in being a lawyer,” Punderson said. “I was spending a lot of time handling my own investments, trading junk bonds. Various people asked me to manage their money, and in 1981 when there was a computer program to help do that, I bought my first computer from RadioShack.”

The budding entrepreneur formed an investment advisory company, James Punderson & Co., registered it with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) and set up shop. Without a background in trading, Punderson, the quiet kid from New Jersey, had been ditching the Ohio State law library while still in school and had been poring through investment books. His compensation from the business was one percent of the money under management per year. With several million dollars under management, overhead was low and Punderson’s business was profitable.

“We weren’t wildly lucrative, the principal source of income was still my own trading account,” Punderson said.

In 1988, Punderson formed a registered brokerage firm, which meant he could now hire a bond trader and could buy and sell on behalf of investors. This new company, VP Securities Inc., was formed with Punderson and a business partner. When his partner decided to leave in 1990, Punderson sold the business and moved on to his next venture.

During his stint with VP Securities, the business had a very profitable year. His partner bought six cars that year. Punderson invested it. It was that investment money that sustained him (and my family) for three years when he didn’t have any income from business while starting up his current operation, Networks & More!.

“In the final few years of the brokerage and investing advisory business, I learned about computer networking and picked up the skills and experience to set up and maintain networks, which was a growing field,” said Punderson.

There was increasing interest from schools, so Punderson decided to see if there was a business in advising schools on what technology they needed and how to set it up.

“I decided to get into the business of educational technology consulting," said Punderson. "Networks & More! got going sometime around 1994. The first big project was for the Bordentown Regional School District."

“They hired me and my company- which at the time was me, for a big project,” said Punderson. "I ended up hiring a few people to work on it and after that the calls started rolling in.”

My father has been known to softly lull family members to sleep at the dinner table by talking shop, so in order to keep you awake, I won’t get into the technical aspect of his business. However if you’re interested in learning about the nuts and the bolts of this business, just go to www.k12usa.com .

Evolving seems to be a key factor in Punderson’s business survival. 

“In 1999 we had seven people going out and driving all over N.J. providing schools with services,” said Punderson. "It quickly became a numbers game; the only way to make more money was to hire more people or charge more per hour or both. It was much like running an accounting or law firm. It’s a good way to get started in a business, but the growth potential is limited.”

Punderson experimented in writing software for schools, certain his business would need to change to keep up with the evolving needs of the educational world. He came up with the idea to offer software that ran on the internet, rather than software that needed to be installed by his employees at schools. It wasn’t a unique idea, but there was a growing niche in his industry for it.

“We sold access to the software on a subscription based plan,” said Punderson.

In 1999, Networks & More! generated 100% of their revenue by going out to schools. Today all revenue comes completely from internet-based services. Gradually, Punderson shifted the direction of the business to include programmers and tech-support employees. 

“It’s been great going all these years without having to answer to a third party…other than my wife of course,” Punderson said. 

Networks & More! officially reached adulthood with their 18th anniversary in 2012, and what seems so impressive is that Punderson has done it by his bootstraps. With a positive cash-flow and seven full-time staff members, it looks like ‘Pundy’, as his friends called him growing up, is trending in the right direction.  

However, it’s not all fancy monitors and wireless keyboards for Punderson and his staff.

Check back in next Sunday (3/11) for the second interview in this two-part series.