Kevin Tawil

We were in it right away, but it was a room the size of a closet.

We gradually, over the next years, took more and more from the third party and created our own logistics center.

So that took a little over a year.

And then once we had the logistics center, we curved off a space and started repairing phones there.

It evolved over time, but really took about three or four years to get fully into it.

And then we just perfected it.

We scaled it and perfected it.

And ultimately, we had operations in Hong Kong.

We had operations in China.

Now we've consolidated them all in the Philippines, a lot of our logistics and repair operation.

Road Rescue got us in the game, and the Merrimack Group was really the main engine.

While we stayed in the roadside assistance business, it was clear that Hands Up Protection was the engine after a couple of years.

We intentionally diverted resources from it, time and attention, but that became competitive quickly as well.

Probably around the 2007, 2008 timeframe, the roadside assistance went away, but it's all been about cell phone insurance since 2001.

Do you know anything you remember about that?

There's always this debate on whether you do a dividend or a share repurchase.

And Irv was instrumental in our learning on this dimension.

It was a big part of the continental playbook over time.

It's almost always the right tool to use.

As long as you can value it fairly, it allows individual investors to make a decision.