Skip Stringfield of Routzy
Meet Skip Stringfield, President of
Routzy, a client relationship management app for iPads.
What is Routzy?
Routzy is the first of its kind client relationship management (CRM) mobile app designed exclusively for the Apple iPad. The functionality of Routzy is so robust that it does the work of more than 10 apps -- all in one elegant, intuitive, user-friendly tool. It’s an application that a mobile workforce, such as sales reps, direct sales professionals, business owners and many freelance professionals have embraced immediately.
Routzy integrates with iPad’s native email and calendar apps and gives mobile professionals the ability to create proposals and quotes, develop floor plans and drawings, automatically fill PDF documents with contact data, signature capture and photograph annotation. Some additional features of Routzy, include note taking and correspondence tracking functionality, alongside analytics, data report generation. Also, Routzy has built in Dropbox integration which means all data captured in the field is available in near real time on any device anywhere.
How did you come up with the idea?
We have been building software for the service industry for nearly 20 years. Our flagship product Smart Service is tightly coupled with QuickBooks, and it primarily focuses on "after the sale" scheduling, job management, work order dispatch and crew tracking. With this experience behind me, I wanted to create an app that would engage the pre-sale side. Every business has sales reps and Routzy is a perfect tool to give a sales rep a 100% mobile solution that they will love to use.
What was the biggest surprise in starting your business?
My biggest surprise in business was finding out that I had no sales, business or marketing abilities. I could write software but quickly realized I had no idea what to do with it once it was finished.
What are some of the advantages to doing business in Ohio?
Columbus and Ohio are great places to do business because of the people. I’ve had great success working with some extremely talented and hard working people. We don’t just sell software. We also provide ongoing support for our customers, so I need people that are willing and able to do a couple different roles, which might include online or phone customer support, creating webinars or conducting on-site training -- as well as creating elegant, intuitive software. I know I would not be a success without a strong team behind me.
Can you share a funny or amazing entrepreneurial experience with our readers?
After relocating from Knoxville, TN to Columbus a few years after graduating high school, I DJ-ed at WNCI. I was reading the local newspaper looking for another job and saw an ad searching for someone to do some local networking and I thought, “I can do that stuff.” So I went in and met with one of the original founders of ChemLawn. We hit if off very well.
About a month into my new job, the owner took me along to a conference in Atlanta. While there, many lawn care companies bought business lead generation machines and software. The software was unreasonably expensive. Well, after seeing what the software was and what it did I said, “I can build something like that.” So, he elected not to buy anything. We came back and I wrote the software. He sold it to all his lawn care contacts and made hundreds of thousands of dollars.
About a year later, there was another conference in town and he and his colleagues were asking, “Wouldn’t it be great if we had a computer program that we could run our services with?” And I said, “I can write that.” So we entered into a 50-50-business relationship. I was the developer and he was the sales guy. We grew that business to well over a million dollars. At one point we hired around 15 people.
A year or so later, I sold him my share of the company. I was 25 and it was an exciting couple years. I learned so much and really found my passion.
What inspires you?
I am at my best when I’m building things. I love to build software that people enjoy using.
What’s next for you?
Right now we are really focusing on our latest software release Routzy -- a total customer relationship management application for iPad. I had been thinking about developing a CRM mobile solution for quite awhile, but it just didn’t make sense until the iPad was released. Once the iPad came out, I knew it was time.