Access Aligned: What Eight Conversations Added Up To

It started with a dropped bag of groceries. Juggling groceries, fishing for keys in a pocket, and the bag hits the ground. One question came out of that moment: why are we still using keys?

That question became GoKeyless.

We just wrapped Access Aligned, eight short videos on where the company came from and where access control is heading. Most are conversations between Mike Pennacchio, President of GoKeyless, and Darren Weinstein, Senior Sales Manager at dormakaba, who go back to the early days of the New York hardware and security industry, when they were competing against each other.

Watched back to back, they're all about the same three things.

Curiosity starts it

The founders were high school friends who never much loved the status quo. The dropped grocery bag wasn't a business plan. It was an obvious question nobody had bothered to ask.

Sometimes revolutions don't start in a lab.

Focus sustains it

Three years ago, 85% of GoKeyless revenue came from e-commerce box sales. Today, 77% of the business is project-based access control work. No revenue dip. No contraction.

"When I joined, they didn't want status quo. They wanted transformation."

But the mission never moved: make access control easier. Only the delivery model changed.

That same discipline shows up in how both companies think about smart buildings. Cameras, energy management, lighting, connectivity, the ecosystem keeps expanding. The lock is still where the experience starts.

"That's the handshake into the building, the beginning of the facility."

Relationships carry it

Mike and Darren were competitors first, back when everyone in the industry knew everyone. What stands out looking back isn't the rivalry. It's the respect.

That shaped how both of them sell now.

"Don't sell your product, ask what solution they're looking for."

In today's connected world, especially across multifamily housing and commercial real estate, customers aren't just buying hardware. They're trying to solve operational challenges:

• How do we simplify credential management?
• How do we improve building security?
• How do we scale across multiple properties?

Shared accountability and honest conversations get you a better system than pushing product ever will.

The bottom line

The full series

• In the Beginning: Access Control History
• Access Aligned: A Grocery Bag Disaster
• Access Aligned: Transformation in Action
• Access Aligned: Listening Over Selling
• Access Aligned: Resident Driven Technology
• Access Aligned: From Luxury to Expectation
• Access Aligned: Partnership Over Transaction
• Access Aligned: The Future of Access Control