By Allan Maurer
POMPANO BEACH, FL—ServusXchange wants to renovate the contracting industry by taking the paperwork still often done via yellow post-it notes and work orders tossed on the seat of pickup trucks into the digital realm. It’s a concept many have tried in a still fragmented market, but CEO and founder Brian Javeline believes he has found a route to success.
Back in the heady days of the Internet boom, a Research Triangle, NC company raised more than $107 million in one round attempting to create a company providing software connecting contractors, sub contractors and suppliers. It found gaining traction among technology-wary people in the industry impossible and died.
That did not stop other companies from trying to create such a system. In January, The Miami Herald, doing a story on the ServusXchange product, Myonline Toolbox, interviewed William Cobb, chairman of the electronic information systems committee at the Association of General Contractors of America. Cobb noted, “There is a ton of software out there already—certainly in the thousands of products.”
Intuit’s Quickbooks for Contractors and Timberline are currently the major players in the industry and likely to be formidable competition to anyone else in the space, although Cobb told the Herald,”There is no such thing as the Microsoft for the construction industry.”
So, just what secret sauce does Javeline think makes Myonline Toolbox different? The answer, he says, is the company’s target market: younger, already Web-savvy—or at least Web-familiar contractors, sub-contractors and suppliers.
Not your father’s software
Javeline tells TechJournal South, “I realized how many companies built their product on their concept of the industry. They can’t see that the world has transformed.” Javeline suggests that a plumber looking at Quickbook for Contractors might find it about the same experience a typical Windows user would have working with DOS.
The ServusXchange product is entirely based online, so users do not have to install additional hardware and it can be accessed from anywhere via mobile devices. It lets contractors schedule work, track projects, generate estimates, and print invoice, payment and other forms. It makes collaboration among subcontractors, suppliers and homeowners much simpler.
“We’re not targeting the entire industry. We’re targeting the 20-40 year-old crowd that has already embraced technology but just don’t have their business automated. We’re approaching the market with everything built for the small, mobile contractor. These are one to three person businesses with no automation to make them more efficient.”
Javeline says the company, which already has 110 customers, believes it can sell the product to 70,000 in five years. Current customers agree to pay $89 a month for the software-as-a-service, but the company refunds the money if they agree to answer a short (fewer than 10 questions) survey monthly. He says they’ve already fired a few companies for not completing the short survey.
“If I’m going to give this to you for you input, I need that input,” he says. “We want it to stay within our vision of being an easy-to-use, flexible, powerful tool.”
As an example of how his company’s product differs from competitors, Javeline points to how it handles a complaint contractors bring up about using software in their businesses.
The objection, which Javeline says he’s heard again and again, is that “they’re too busy to use software.” They’ll be working on a Windows-based machine and someone calls and interrupts with a problem that needs solving right away.
So they close what they’re doing on the computer and write on a yellow sticky note. “Walk into a contractor’s office and you’ll see them everywhere, it’s in their blood,” Javeline says.
His company’s patent-pending WorkFlow Queue system addresses that by making it a one-click operation to overlay a new screen while keeping a right hand list showing incompleted items. It allows a user to click back and forth between projects without ever losing data or an overall sense of everything that’s ongoing.
“So they never have to take out a pen,” Javeline says. “That’s just one of the many competitive distinctions you can’t find anywhere else because we listen to the customer,” he adds.
Javeline, 42, sold his interest in Investmentcafe.com, which he created several years ago, to pursue starting ServusXchange and its Myonline Toolbox product in 2005.
The 9-person company, founded with about $1.25 million from private investors, including Javeline, is seeking $2.25 million in venture backing.
“We need that money to hit our two-year game plan,” says Javeline.
For more information see: www.myonlinetoolbox.com
© 2007, TechJournal South. All rights reserved.
