Search engines, smartphones and the countless applications available through new technology are all giving today’s emerging entrepreneurs the leverage they need to build their business.
But for people who don’t have any technological expertise, the way these programs and devices work is almost magical. Fortunately, one doesn’t need to be an expert or a magician to get started.
“People look at our software and it’s like we’ve invented fire sometimes,” says Swept CEO Michael Brown. Swept is a Halifax company whose software is changing the game in the cleaning industry.
“But, it’s more that the cleaning industry is so far behind, that simple technology solutions are just being gobbled up.”
Brown and his team have brought solutions for the problems plaguing the cleaning industry into one single program which has been specifically designed for the people who work in it.
Their cleaner management system is accessible to cleaning company owners, employees and clients through their mobile device. Swept uses a lot of pre-existing technology developed by larger companies, like Google, to surmount language barriers, track when employees arrive on-site, and ensure accountability between the company and its client.
Those functions are then built-in to the Swept software for a product made for its specific niche in the market. It takes some technical know-how to build software like Swept, so it’s strange to hear Brown say that he’s no techie.
“Matt is the technical one,” says Brown about Swept co-founder Matt Cooper. “If you told me a few years ago that I’d be the CEO of a tech company, I would not have believed you.”
In fact, Brown sees his lack of technical know-how as an advantage.
“I’m not technical. My customers are not. So, we’re selling to me,” he says. “You don’t build a bunch of gadgets that don’t matter to your customers just because they’re neat to you.”
Fortunately, there is technology already out there waiting for entrepreneurs to pick it up and put it to use. Google Translate, which has been built into the Swept software, lets clients and cleaners text each other in their language of preference.
“That’s the beautiful thing about technology today is that you can use stable and reliable technology that already exists to provide solutions to our customers’ problems.”
Since 2016, Swept has grown from a five-person team to having 30 working out of their offices in Volta Labs in Halifax.
“If you can dream it, you can build it,” says Laura Simpson, CEO of a company called Side Door, also based out of Volta.
“It’s such an overused phrase, but it’s really true these days. There are so many ways to use technology that is open-sourced, or you can match together different kinds of things. You don’t have to create something on your own.”
Side Door is an online booking and ticketing platform designed to match artists with individuals who are keen to turn their homes into performance venues. Before building the Side Door platform, Simpson and her co-founder Dan Mangan cobbled together what they needed with existing technology like PayPal, Shopify, Stripe and Google productivity tools.
“Now we have our own platform, but that was after quite a bit of testing with all these other platforms,” says Simpson who, like Brown, is not a technical founder. She says that her lack of experience working with software development was intimidating, but didn’t deter her.
“It’s a lot easier these days, even if you’re not a technical founder, to jump in and just explore all the different ways of getting it done,” she says. “You have to ask questions and be okay with feeling like you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Back at Swept, Brown echoes Simpson.
“Don’t be scared. If you have a good idea, then work and talk with people who you can surround yourself with, and who can help you get a viable product.”
