In the late 1980s, Mary LaMeres-Pomin and Lyle Martin had a small, successful residential real estate office in Reno, Nevada; mostly working referrals and repeat customers. Around that time, large franchise offices and "mega-brokers" started to emerge and increase in popularity. Consumers believed that bigger meant better. Mary and Lyle realized they needed a competitive advantage if they were going to compete successfully with the "big boys." After witnessing the success of discount companies in other industries, they came up with a premise: If you charge home sellers less, you should be able to do enough volume to make up for the lower fees. They were right! And Assist-2-Sell was born.