Business: IT services for companies.
HQ: Palm Beach Gardens; second office in Melbourne, Fla.
CEO: Adam Steinhoff
Employees: 28
Adam Steinhoff once tried working for someone else. It lasted a year.
“It became very apparent that I am a much better entrepreneur than an employee,” he quipped.
That one-year stint as a senior network engineer was 17 years ago, and since then, Steinhoff has built his own tech company, Dedicated IT, into a strong employer and tech player in Palm Beach County.
Adam Steinhoff, CEO @ Dedicated IT
Dedicated IT, based in Palm Beach Gardens, is an IT services company specializing in serving mid-sized companies. “Businesses with 100 to 500 employees do business with Dedicated IT because we are the best at turning around poorly performing IT departments and/or other IT services companies who are dropping the ball,” said Steinhoff, founder and CEO, during an interview in the hammock chairs at Palm Beach Tech, where he is vice chair of the board of directors.
Like Dedicated IT, Steinhoff was officially made in Palm Beach County. A geek all his life, Steinhoff started fixing other people’s computers as a teen. “My parents drove me to friends’ houses to fix their computers, and I would have to call them afterward to pick me up.”
Steinhoff attended college, but dropped out quickly because “everything they were teaching was obsolete.” Instead he acquired relevant certifications: Microsoft, Cisco, Citrix, NetApp, Nimble and others. That knowledge was supplemented with real-world experience – “many years of hard-learned and often expensive lessons,” he said.
Fast forward to today and Steinhoff hasn’t changed: “A lot of people tinker on cars and stuff – I like to tinker on businesses.”
Today, Dedicated IT has 28 employees and Steinhoff has plans to add 20 this year. Revenues have doubled in the past year, and the company has 167 clients in 40 states and three countries, Israel, France and the UK. In 2016, Dedicated IT merged with Medical IT Solutions in Melbourne, where it now has its second office.
“They are in high-growth mode typically, and they are frustrated and tired of technology problems. The guy they hired early on in the company isn’t cutting it any longer. That’s when we get the call.”
One of Steinhoff’s keys to success is “being cool with not being the smartest person in my company,” he said. “I have built a pretty successful company in Palm Beach County by hooking my buggy up to smart people.”
Part of the Dedicated IT team
During the hiring process, Dedicated IT looks for all of these specific values in candidates – optimism, relentlessness, charisma, passion and a thirst for growth, Steinhoff said.
Dedicated IT offers its employees unlimited vacation and no-questions- asked family personal leave, he said. “We work hard but have fun.”
Steinhoff advises aspiring entrepreneurs to subscribe to Audible and ask every person they respect what books they should be reading.
What books inspired Steinhoff? “How to Win Friends and Influence People is the bible of charisma. Be Obsessed or Be Average by Grant Cardone gave you permission to be obsessive about what you are passionate about. Traction by Gino Wickman is good for companies that are closing in one the million dollar revenue mark and are trying to turn a big little business into a little big business.”
Dedicated IT’s goal for 2018 is to spend more time with its best clients to figure out how its service can be even better, Steinhoff said. Within five years, Steinhoff hopes to have 20 national accounts with offices in 10 states or more and annual revenue of at least $20 million.