Tracking The Progress of RoviTracker

Too many people get into “sexy” startups for the attention. They think that a landing page or pitch deck with phrases like “big data,” “internet of things” (IoT), or “the Uber of (blank)” will be what gets them funding and success. They forget that the fundamental point of building a business is to help people and to solve a problem. They forget that what governs a startup’s success is how well it can identify and remedy a pain point — not something as arbitrary as how quickly it reaches the unicorn mark.

With companies like RoviTracker, big data and IoT aren’t buzzwords, they’re descriptions. In fact, they’re added as an afterthought because the founders didn’t even think about those words when they started their companies — they were just a building a business.

“RoviTracker started out as a rental management platform, replacing the whiteboards that rental management companies were using,” says CEO Alain Eav. “Then we introduced a piece of hardware for our customers to install on their equipment, and with it we could track GPS location, towing speed, engine runtime, battery voltage, and more in real-time.”

Rather than screaming “I’m in a hot tech space!” Alain leaves it in the details and lets you read in between the lines. But come on. Installable hardware? Real-time tracking? We know what he’s really saying and in reality he knows it too.

“We’re in IoT, and it’s a very attractive space right now. It’s emerging and it’s going to have tons of disruption,” Alain says. “If somebody can not only gather a ton of data, but also turn it into something that gives you insights to make good decisions about your business, then that’s something special. That’s where we’re going with RoviTracker.”

Some of the best companies are created when someone has hands-on exposure to a specific problem and deigns to create a solution. Alain spent five years as GM and CIO at Mobilight, a 20-year-old company that manufactures mobile light towers for the mining industry. While he was there, he saw industry leaders using manual tracking methods for their equipment and he knew he could help them do it better.

“One of the first companies we worked with was Chevron. They had sites spanning 300 miles over southern California, and they wanted the ability to accurately capture metrics like engine runtime, fuel level, and GPS location,” says Alain. “They were sending technicians out to every single site every day to gather data from their equipment. It was a nightmare. They started with 24 of our devices on their light towers and a year later they were using 129, saving them tons of money. From that point on, we knew there was a huge need for this.”

Now, with a successful beta test under their belt and over 300 devices in the field, RoviTracker is poised to take on the entire heavy equipment rental industry. They didn’t get here by purposely riding on the coattails of the IoT or big data analytics trend either. Instead, they minded their own business and found the trend of their own accord, which is exactly how it should be.

Republished from Beehive Startups.