Dispatch Efficiency, Drive Service and Track Results with FoundOPs
Today's featured member, FoundOps, is the easiest and most efficient way to run a field service company.
FoundOPS is a revolutionary new approach to managing your field service company. In one, easy to use cloud based system, we've incorporated GPS technician tracking, drag and drop dispatching, and intuitive customer management.
What inspired you to start your company?
The beliefs that:
1) The majority of field service in this country is conducted by small, hard-working companies. (Your plumber is most likely a small business, not McDonald's Plumbing.)
2) Small field service companies possess significant opportunities for process optimization that can increase profit margins and decrease pain. (Typically, these opportunities are proportionatly greater then those at large corporations although they can be ignored due to hyperbolic discounting and status quo bias).
3) Providing small field service companies with a custom developed operations application empowers them with resources and levels the playing field with large corporations. (However, the model of custom development is inefficient and unsustainable.)
Tell us something unique about you and your co-founder(s)?
We are Indiana imports, (New Jersey, Virginia, Chicago).
We met in our fraternity.
We dropped out of Purdue to start FoundOPS.
What problem does your product or service solve?
Small field service company operations:
1) Maintaining a client database that included contact information, service history, and service schedules/agreements.
2) A dispatching console that can organize team members, resources, and jobs into optimized routes.
3) Mobile applications on which field team members can receive and record job information while reporting their location and status back to the office.
4) Integration with accounting software to automate the invoicing process.
What are your startup's three biggest challenges to growth?
1) Balancing fundraising with company building. While interdependent, one always seems to be getting in the way of the other.
2) Crossing the chasm - we sell a technical product to a non-technical audience. Although we designed the application to be intuitive, our sales team still does a lot of hand holding.
3) Staying lean. The premise of lean development- getting your product to market early was the easy part. The difficult part is remaining lean as the feature requests from customers begin to pour in.
How has Startup America helped you overcome these challenges to growth?
1) Information community to help overcome technical and business road blocks
2) Networking/mentoring opportunities
What Startup America Member Benefits have you used?
I have been involved in our region (Indiana)
What is the startup culture like in your City/State?
Indiana is certainly a startup community on the rise. The flourishing tech ecosystem in Indianapolis is pouring over into the other major cities in Indiana, including our home, West Lafayette. Our city has tremendous potential as a startup hot bed due to the concentration of resources, talents, and energy at Purdue.
Learn More about FoundOPs:
Startup America Member since January 2012
Region: Indiana
Web: http://www.foundops.com/
Twitter: @FoundOps
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/FoundOPS
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