[00:00:00] Anne Larson:
Hello and welcome to On the Fringe, the podcast where we explore the systems, technology, and people shaping the future of fringe benefit reporting. I'm Anne Larson, CEO of Corellian Software, the makers of EPR Live. And today we're kicking things off with our very first episode.
We wanted to create a space where we could share the perspectives we've gained from working with unions, contractors, and fund offices all across the country. Because while every area is different, the challenges they face are often surprisingly similar.
With me today is Ashley Bennett, our incredible Product Manager, who’s been with EPR Live since before Corellian — and we’ll explain how that’s possible. In this episode, we talk about why we started this podcast, the journey of how EPR Live came to be, and why relationships and storytelling matter so much in this industry. If you've ever wondered how SaaS software like EPR Live helps solve real-world problems for labor unions and contractors, or what it’s like to wear many hats in a small company trying to make a big difference, this episode is for you.
[00:01:12] Anne Larson:
This is our first episode. I'm Anne Larson, the CEO, and I'm here with Ashley Bennett.
[00:01:18] Ashley Bennett:
Hello, everyone.
[00:01:19] Anne Larson:
Ashley is our Product Manager. The hope for this podcast is that we can share our unique perspective on the industry as we see it — over our many clients, across the whole country. The similarities, the differences, and the problems they have to solve with regard to fringe benefit reporting.
[00:01:38] Ashley Bennett:
What are you hoping listeners get from the podcast?
[00:01:41] Anne Larson:
I hope listeners not just understand more about EPR Live — because it’s really not about EPR Live — but that they better understand the different relationships in our industry and how the different entities affect each other. And hopefully get some insights into their own work and ways they can make that better.
[00:02:02] Ashley Bennett:
I think a lot of our clients have the same challenges, and they try to solve them individually.
[00:02:09] Anne Larson:
Yeah, and we see everybody’s challenges, at least as it relates to benefit reporting.
[00:02:17] Ashley Bennett:
Even more than that, because EPR Live touches negotiations and it touches telling the story of the health of an area — are hours increasing, apprentice hours, the need to hire apprentices…
[00:02:37] Anne Larson:
The union member needs to have the benefits they're entitled to. The contractor hopefully avoids costly audits. The fund offices get the data faster, easier, more accurately. And our clients can control their data. Am I missing anyone?
[00:02:54] Ashley Bennett:
No. How did you come about starting this podcast?
[00:02:58] Anne Larson:
I belong to a peer group called SaaS Academy for SaaS software founders and CEOs, and they’ve been encouraging everyone to create content, including podcasts, for a while. And I… it was not even slightly penetrating my introverted shell. It was not going to happen.
Then we went to the IBEW 4th District meeting this summer for the first time. We’d never been to a meeting like that. We were invited by one of our third-party administrator partners. It really struck me how much relationships matter in the industry, and how much we need to be aware of that — and hopefully part of that conversation. Just being in places is important. It’s an uphill battle to get invited to those kinds of events. And we’re very small; we can’t do that many events. But it started me thinking about how we build relationships.
How do we understand all the different perspectives? We have very clear points of view. We understand the point of view of our clients. We understand the point of view of most of our users. But we still have questions like, why do some locals log into EPR Live all the time and other locals never log in, never want to see that data? And we just don’t know why. So working on relationships, that started me thinking with that mindset.
I went back to a SaaS Academy intensive where they were hammering home the importance of making a podcast — the opportunities it gives you, that you can share it with clients, users, everyone in the industry, and even prospective clients.
[00:04:54] Anne Larson:
There’s just a lot of utility there.
[00:04:56] Anne Larson:
I’m old enough to have known a time when there were no podcasts. And it seemed daunting to branch out into something so alien. But I made it a goal. In 2025, we’re going to put out at least two podcasts a month and stick with it. This is January 2nd.
[00:05:18] Ashley Bennett:
January 2nd.
[00:05:21] Anne Larson:
And we are recording our first podcast ever with this little setup in my office that we put together yesterday. Going back to why we do this podcast — we have four company values, and one of them is a growth mindset. At SaaS Academy this fall, after I had this illumination about relationships, I sat in that room and they were telling us to do podcasts, and it scared me. This is not my happy place.
But we have this value of having a growth mindset. So I had to sit with the fear and know that I could do this, and that it’s okay. It’s okay if it’s listened to by five people. We just need to get it out there, tell our story, and have it in the world for us. Plunging into a new area will lead to the next thing. We don’t have to know everything before we start. We're going to start it and see where it takes us.
[00:06:27] Ashley Bennett:
The story you just shared is one of the reasons I love working for this company. Growth mindset — and you truly live our values. You encourage all of us to live those as well. As a small company, we wear many hats, and you encourage us to expand and learn. I've always admired that in your leadership style.
[00:06:59] Anne Larson:
What is my leadership style?
[00:07:02] Ashley Bennett:
I see you as a person with strong values, and you live out those values in your life. That comes across in the company as well.
[00:07:14] Anne Larson:
Thank you. Warm fuzzies.
[00:07:17] Ashley Bennett:
So after this first episode, what can our listeners look forward to?
[00:07:22] Anne Larson:
We're hoping to have many of our clients, users, and partners on.
[00:07:29] Anne Larson:
To share their stories.
[00:07:30] Anne Larson:
We work with a lot of different unions, mostly IBEW and NECA. I want to talk about how EPR Live started, how it was made. I want to talk to clients in different areas of the country, with different experience levels. Some areas have used EPR Live for over a decade; others are brand new. We have partners — third-party administrators, payroll…
[00:07:58] Ashley Bennett:
Going back to what you said about unique perspectives — it sounds like we're bringing together our connections to share that perspective. And I think listeners will find that the people we talk to align with their own daily work, and they’ll see how other users or partner organizations use or benefit from EPR Live.
[00:08:37] Anne Larson:
Yeah. And my hope is that as people listen, they’ll feel inspired to request other guests or propose ideas and topics.
[00:08:58] Anne Larson:
Hey, this is Anne — cutting in for just a second.
[00:09:00] Anne Larson:
We're about halfway through the podcast.
[00:09:03] Anne Larson:
Thank you so much for listening. You might be wondering how to contact us with comments and ideas. You can email us at
[email protected]. We’ll have that in the show notes. Now back to the show.
[00:09:21] Anne Larson:
So, what do we know about the origins of EPR Live? Because neither of us were there.
[00:09:25] Ashley Bennett:
No. I know a big binder — the very first designs.
[00:09:34] Anne Larson:
Wow, that’s cool.
[00:09:36] Ashley Bennett:
I feel like it's more legend now.
[00:09:47] Anne Larson:
I was there when Kip got hired, but EPR Live already existed in some form. In its earliest form, I think…
[00:09:47] Ashley Bennett:
The gist is it was built by a local NECA and IBEW to make payroll reporting electronic — get off paper, make it faster and more accurate. That desire still lives in our vision today.
[00:10:07] Anne Larson:
The first contract with the local NECA chapter is 2006, but I think that was before it was online. It’s interesting how early this was in SaaS software. SaaS — software as a service — was created in 1999 by Salesforce. It was a very slow adoption.
[00:10:41] Ashley Bennett:
Yeah. The first one I remember is Netflix probably. And Office moving to 365.
[00:10:49] Anne Larson:
QuickBooks moved online — it used to be something you bought off the shelf.
[00:10:55] Ashley Bennett:
We were ahead of the trend.
[00:10:58] Anne Larson:
Yeah. It wasn’t well understood in 2006–2009. Around 2014 it became clear it was a great way to solve problems…
[00:11:14] Ashley Bennett:
…and to make technology cheaper for a broad number of users.
[00:11:19] Anne Larson:
Yes. And the benefits of SaaS became clear — always updated, accessible anywhere.
[00:11:26] Ashley Bennett:
You could communicate with other users. Remember sending a Word document…
[00:11:33] Anne Larson:
Yes.
[00:11:33] Ashley Bennett:
…and if they had an older version, you couldn’t send the new version. Compatibility was huge. I don’t remember “SaaS” being a common term until COVID.
[00:11:47] Anne Larson:
It was around, but not broadly understood. Now we have lots of “as-a-service” acronyms.
[00:12:06] Ashley Bennett:
So many acronyms.
[00:12:10] Anne Larson:
If you see “AAS,” it probably means “as a service.”
[00:12:15] Ashley Bennett:
It’s become a staple in the tech industry. And now companies exist to support SaaS administration. I think we’re the originals — who’s left?
[00:12:38] Anne Larson:
Well, you’ve been here the longest. To go back a bit — I said I was CEO of the company, which is confusing. EPR Live is the product. The company is Corellian — a Star Wars reference, by the way.
[00:13:06] Ashley Bennett:
Extra points if you knew that.
[00:13:08] Anne Larson:
A deep cut. The original company was Concero. They built EPR Live. The company had maybe 20–30 people.
[00:13:23] Ashley Bennett:
Probably 20.
[00:13:26] Anne Larson:
EPR Live had maybe four.
[00:13:26] Ashley Bennett:
Four.
[00:13:26] Anne Larson:
Kip was my late husband. He was hired in early 2007 to sell EPR Live. His old boss at a third-party administrator was hired to sell EPR Live and brought Kip in because he understood the industry and was technologically inclined. He'd worked on a similar product before. And he sold EPR Live everywhere. He didn't know he was such a good salesman — but he was.
Then you started about five years later, in 2012. What was it like to work at Concero?
[00:14:21] Ashley Bennett:
I don’t know if you know this, but I wasn’t going to work at Concero. I went to school for finance. I was big on “I’m going to be in finance.”
[00:14:33] Anne Larson:
Were you going to be a hedge fund manager? What kind of finance?
[00:14:36] Ashley Bennett:
College pushed that. Looking back, I do NOT have that personality. When I was interviewing, I was waiting on a callback from a bank when Kip hired me at Concero.
I worked two days and got the bank call — I got the job.
[00:14:58] Anne Larson:
Oh no.
[00:14:58] Ashley Bennett:
Sometimes things work out. I loved those two days. Meeting Kip was awesome. Hearing what the company did, who our clients were, where we were heading — it was exciting. So I turned down the bank job and stayed. Now I'm here 12 years later. I’ve grown a ton — started in support, now product manager. We’ve always focused on the user. What do they need? Why do they need a report? How can it be made better? It wasn't just “here are the steps.” We created deeper relationships.
Support played a big role in new features. And as Product Manager, I get to bring all the teams together around what we should build and why.
[00:17:17] Anne Larson:
Going back — Concero… the wheels started to come off. Not EPR Live, but the larger company.
[00:17:29] Ashley Bennett:
Correct. EPR Live was very siloed.
[00:17:33] Anne Larson:
Kip talked about wanting to buy EPR Live from Concero — which did happen. But before that, you left for a little bit. You kind of knew things were falling apart.
[00:17:47] Ashley Bennett:
My understanding is that you and Kip both lived your values. Things were falling apart. I was newly married. Kip sat me down and said things were falling apart. He couldn’t say you were going to buy it, but he said, “I have a plan, but just in case, do what you need to do.”
So I got hired by a company that set up Microsoft Dynamics.
[00:18:16] Anne Larson:
ERP — Enterprise Resource Planning. Not the same as EPR Live.
[00:18:38] Ashley Bennett:
Right. I went there and learned a lot, but the culture wasn’t the same. Very defined roles. I stared at a computer all day. Not a lot of collaboration. I was learning, though.
And then Kip called.
[00:19:17] Anne Larson:
We had bought EPR Live and started Corellian. I remember sitting down with Kip trying to think of a name. He wanted something that sounded like Concero so people wouldn’t be confused — because some clients still call us “the Concero system.” And he wanted a Star Wars reference that wasn’t too obvious. Not Boba Fett Software. So we found Corellian Software.
[00:20:07] Anne Larson:
That's it for today’s episode of On the Fringe. A huge thank you to Ashley Bennett for sharing her journey with us — from her first two days at EPR Live to helping shape the product we know today. Her story captures the heart of what we’re all about: growth, relationships, and solving real problems for real people.
If you enjoyed this conversation, make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you have ideas for topics or guests, we’d love to hear from you. Thanks again for listening. We’ve got incredible stories coming up from users, clients, and partners across the country, and we can’t wait to share them with you. See you next time.
