- BlackEnterprise.com’s Tech Startup of the Week highlights different tech entrepreneurs and the innovative companies they’ve built. At the end of each month, you, the reader, will have an opportunity to vote on your favorite company and give the startup a chance to appear in Black Enterprise Magazine or on Our World with Black Enterprise.
Who does that? Who fails a computer science class in college only to turn around and build a million dollar tech company? I mean really, who recruits more than 100 clients within the company’s first two years when competitors 10 years their senior barely have 20. Really? Who trounces the competition by using software as a service (years before it became a solid business tactic) by charging thousands of dollars less than their peers? OnceLogix that’s who.
The Winston-Salem, NC-based company provides custom, enterprise-level, web-based applications with a particular emphasis on building white-label solutions for the healthcare industry…right now. In the future, the company plans to expand their portfolio of B2B managed services software for the entertainment, sports, music, and meetings and conventions industries to name a few. Their breakout product, Sharenote, provides HIPPA-compliant security to simplify client care for behavioral health organizations. It fosters communication between doctors, uses pin numbers to add signatures to documentation in bulk, and helps create audit trails that could have never been done on paper.
The team, which consists of Trinity Manning, Rod Brown, and Tyrone McLaughlin was assembled by their pastor when Manning, a web designer and software developer, was offered $3 million for a web-based application he built in his spare time. The pastor held a meeting with some of the congregations top business men and women and asked them to help Manning decide if he should sell the product or start a business. In 2004, Manning, who despite earning a less than passing computer science grade at Wake Forest University, stumbled upon the idea to help a group home manage the notes that clinicians had to keep on patients.
“In the group home they
had to keep standard notes that they had to write on their clients. They had to do it every day, three times of day,†says Manning. “All of that paper was stacking up. People had to review, sign it, and make sure it was correct. The system helps them have access to that information pretty quickly.â€Already golf buddies with Manning, Brown, a 17-year veteran at Wachovia Securities, was the only one to follow up after the meeting designed to help Manning build a sustainable business and not just a part time hustle. Brown asked McLaughlin, a financial advisor with American Express Financial Advisors, to join the team.
Now, Sharenote is being used by some 200 practices; some that have 400 plus patients where doctors and administrators need to keep track of patient routines along with standard information like demographics, race, age, sex, and the zip codes of the communities that they serve.
OnceLogix was chosen as the first Tech Startup of Week because the team was not
only tech savvy, but they capitalized on healthcare reform and with hospitals, clinics, and private practices working to fully implement Obamacare by 2014, electronic medical records and billing software is about to literally blow up.Here are a few thoughts from the fellas on what solidified their success:
Brown – “What made us unique out the gate is we were a web-based system. It helped us a lot because in 2005 everyone else was desktop-based. The other advantage that we had was we were flat out stupid and ignorant when it came to this industry. It forced us to rely heavily on our clients. Every single function in the system was created because the client said, ‘I really wish I had this.’ It’s a niche market and they all needed the exact same thing. So they became our research department. Other products were created by people who were in the business for a long time. Those folks sat back in a room and said we know what people need. We knew how to create technology but we didn’t understand the needs of that space so our clients helped us a great deal with that.”
McLaughlin – We started off with SAAS at a time when it wasn’t a popular model. It allowed us to reach what we considered were the underserved market of practices that the larger technology companies weren’t going after. [Our competitor’s software] wasn’t affordable for them because they had huge cash outlays in the six-figure range, when medical practices could get started with Sharenote for under $1,000. It allowed those who didn’t have that type of technology available to them to use it and improve the way their practice operated.
Manning – In a three month span, we had signed up 40 providers. That was from hitting the road. We were like Sharenote vacuum cleaner salesman. We would be driving and see the name of a mental health company while driving by. We would hit the brakes and turn around.