Company Overview:
Eric Schneider is Founder and Co-CEO of AKKO, a U.S. startup offering device protection plans for individuals and businesses.
Their flagship “Everything Protected” plan covers personal items against damage and theft.
For businesses, they provide customizable insurance solutions across various industries, including embedded plans for resellers. In April 2024, AKKO acquired Upsie, enhancing support for channel partners.
Their offerings are backed by an “A” Rated insurer, ensuring reliability in coverage.
Can you tell us a little about your background before starting Akko?
Before AKKO, my career spanned several worlds—engineering, consulting, investing, and startup incubation.
I started out as a jet engine engineer at General Electric through their Edison Engineering Leadership Program, before moving into management and strategy consulting at L.E.K. Consulting. While at L.E.K., I took the GMAT and realized how many students lack access to quality test prep.
That inspired me to found Grad Mentors, a nonprofit offering free GMAT and GRE mentoring to students from underserved backgrounds.
It was my first real taste of entrepreneurship, and it showed me how powerful it can be to build something from scratch that helps people. After that, I attended Harvard Business School and joined 25madison, a NYC-based venture studio.
There, I had the opportunity to work with and invest in early-stage startups—experiences that ultimately led me to co-found AKKO.
What inspired you to become a founder, and how did you identify the need for your product/service in the market?
I enjoy solving real problems and building high-performing teams to tackle them. The idea for AKKO came from my co-founder Jared’s frustrating experience trying to repair a damaged laptop. I’d had similar pain with phone insurance: confusing terms, hidden “gotchas,” and a slow, outdated claims process.
As we dug deeper, we realized consumers weren’t the only ones frustrated—resellers and partners lacked modern, reliable ways to offer protection at key points in the customer journey.
Those relying on legacy providers were stuck with inflexible products and poor user experiences that reflected badly on their brand. We saw an opportunity to fix all of that—with tech, transparency, and a better platform.
How did you start your company? What were the first steps you took to get it off the ground?
We launched by partnering with a small insurance carrier to test our product DTC and gather early data. That allowed us to iterate on coverage, UX, and claims experience.
We secured reviews from tech publishers, recruited a nationwide network of local repair shops, and prioritized high-quality in-person repair options over clunky mail-in processes.
At the same time, we interviewed industry players—particularly those underserved by existing solutions—to understand their needs. That shaped our go-to-market strategy, targeting B2B2C partners that couldn’t launch or scale protection programs with incumbent providers.
What innovations or unique features set your company apart from others in the industry?
AKKO is a fully modern platform built from the ground up to serve both end users and distribution partners. We offer:
A fully digital, mostly automated claims process that’s earned us the highest ratings in the industry.
A modular platform that’s configurable across verticals—MVNOs, OEMs, retailers, ISPs, fintechs, education, and enterprise.
A massive distributed repair network: 1,500+ vetted local shops, 1,500+ additional retail outlets (Apple, CPR, etc.), and multiple depots offering fulfillment, logistics, and bulk repair services.
Fraud prevention tools via AI-enhanced image/video verification, device tracking, and location tech.
We’re not centralized around our own repair facilities—we’re a dynamic network that routes claims efficiently to the best option per device, geography, and use case.
What has been the most effective strategy for scaling your business?
A few main strategies have driven our growth:
- Hiring experienced industry leaders across key verticals to lead channel-specific growth. Their deep expertise has helped us move quickly, build trust, and tailor our approach for each market.
- Building our consumer brand early to validate the product and optimize the customer experience. That brand foundation gave us credibility, helping partners feel confident that AKKO could be a seamless and high-quality extension of their own offerings.
- Prioritizing configurability and flexibility at scale—enabling us to truly align with our reseller partners’ goals. Our modular platform allows us to tailor coverage, claims flows, and integrations to meet the specific needs of each partner. We treat resellers as core customers, designing with their business objectives in mind.
- Leveraging a tech-forward, API-first approach to partner enablement. We’ve built flexible systems that integrate easily into existing partner stacks—whether that’s embedding protection in device checkouts, automating claims, or powering full white-labeled storefronts. This infrastructure allows us to support modern distribution at scale, while keeping the experience frictionless.
All of this is grounded in ongoing feedback from both consumers and partners, which has guided our development and led to expansion into verticals like education.
Looking ahead, what are your goals for the future of your company?
Ultimately, our goal is to continue providing immense value to our partners and their customers—while moving faster and building better than the few legacy incumbents in our space.
The electronic insurance market is large, growing, and still underserved. There’s a significant opportunity to both expand the market and take share—both of which we’re doing today.
We’re seeing strong growth across B2B(2C) channels, and increasing demand from business and education end-users, where modern, scalable protection solutions are still hard to find.
We’ve also received interest in international licensing of our platform, which we see as a powerful way to extend our reach and bring our industry-leading user experience and infrastructure to new markets around the world.
