He and Sunil Patel started Tekmetric in 2016, and today, it’s become the preferred auto tech software in the auto repair industry.
Prasanth’s success prompted Authority Magazine to contact him for an interview on the formula for scaling success.
Below are just a few excerpts of Prasanth’s interview with Ken Babcock (CEO of Tango), along with bonus content for any entrepreneur seeking to scale their business.
Scaling with People
Let’s look at each component.
The Right People.
First, you have to have the team that serves your company the best.
At Tekmetric, we learned this the hard way. We had a phenomenal idea — but our first team wasn’t comprised of exactly all the people we needed.
And that meant we failed in the first round. It was disappointing, but we learned a valuable lesson, and the next round, we hired people based on the talents we knew we needed. It was the right move, and it set us in the right direction toward success. In fact, many of the team members from this second group are still with us today.
Tekmetric’s People Today: The Best Support in the Industry
Today, Tekmetric has a growing team of people working in various departments, such as customer support, sales, product development, and human resources.
Walk into our Houston headquarters, and you’ll see people from all backgrounds catching up on their week, discussing the next product update, or talking about the future of our company over a cup of coffee.
A large portion of our team works remotely. We have employees across the United States, including: </p><ul>
Cleveland, OH
Washington, DC
Denver, CO
San Diego, CA
But no matter where our team members are, one of the big things they have in common is that they’re passionate about providing Tekmetric’s customers with the best experience and support possible.
Our support team in particular is easy to get in touch with.
Customers don’t have to spend hours listening to annoying “waiting” music on the phone or anxiously sitting in front of their computers for a response to a support ticket.
The Tekmetric support team acts to get questions answered quickly and any issues resolved fast.
After all, auto tech software needs to move at the pace of the auto repair industry—fast—and support is an important part of that process.
Having the idea is great; getting it right as you grow is vital. You may not have the details fully fleshed out, but you must know what you want to do and the tools you need to get there.
I’ve always said, if you have a goal in mind, and you don’t know how to get there, then you’re doing something right.
If you do know how to get there, you’re not thinking big enough. Think long and hard about what you want your business to look like.
Once you figure out those initial steps and orient yourself in the right direction, you can think ahead to challenges like growing and scaling.
Tekmetric’s Direction Today: Driving the Auto Repair Industry Into the Future
The Tekmetric team keeps a close eye on what’s happening in the auto repair industry so that we can stay one step ahead when it comes to driving the auto repair industry into the future.
For example, Tekmetric listened to its customers’ desires for a true two-way texting feature, which enables shops and their customers to communicate more seamlessly than ever before.
Tekmetric also frequently adds to its list of integrations with industry-leading tools so that shop owners can set up workflows that work best for them.
And Tekmetric listens to what shop owners, technicians, and service advisors are saying, taking their feedback and suggestions into account.
We know that we cannot do this on our own, and respect the contributions of people throughout the industry.
Scaling Your Finances
As you scale your business, be intentional with your finances.
When you start making profit, don’t take that as a sign to relax financially. You need to find the right balance. The biggest thing at Tekmetric has been knowing when to expand and take on extra resources.
A lot of companies start with an idea, raise a ton of capital and try to build something gigantic, and they don’t move strategically.
Before you scale, look at your resources: are you using funding efficiently?
Are your people paid too little, or too much? I think about it like a car — I wouldn’t put it on the road with no gas or unaligned tires. The same applies to your company and its resources.
Tekmetric’s Finances Today: New Funding, New Horizons
As Prasanth told Authority Magazine, we’re always intentional about our finances. Ultimately, financial intentionality from the get-go is what enables us to get the right resources in place to offer shops auto tech software that doesn’t break the bank with astronomical pricing.
Part of our financial strategy includes securing funding. In December of 2021, we raised a fresh round of funding from Susquehanna Growth Equity (SGE).
We’re using our funding to scale by adding more people to our engineering and technical teams. We’re also going to enhance our product, so it continues to meet the needs of shops as the industry evolves.
We are grateful to connect with such excellent funding partners and the opportunity to fund our next stage of growth.
Preparing for Growth
Inevitably as you’re scaling your business, you’re going to hit a roadblock. Expect roadblocks. You have to be okay with this, and you need to be prepared to pivot, realign and take on a new plan.
That might mean a project takes another quarter, or that you lost a deal because you couldn’t deliver results.
For Tekmetric, sometimes a feature doesn’t go as planned or is released late. We might have a big enterprise client that’s upset with us because they’re not getting the results they want.
Having a stomach for those things and realigning as needed is crucial. Not everything goes perfectly as planned, and that’s part of the scaling journey.
Tekmetric’s Preparation Today: Work Hard, Play Hard
We’ve come a long way as a team since the early days of our business. Now that we have a large team, we’ve put an even greater focus on learning and training—both internally and externally.
We hold in-house product training sessions to make sure everyone across the company understands our auto tech software and the people we serve. Understanding the ins and outs of the software is what enables each member of the team to do their best work for our customers.
We also train people externally, encouraging them to get professional certifications in their fields.
We’re always on the lookout for the best talent. Our people and culture team actively seeks new talent to bring to Tekmetric.
By retaining and hiring people at the top of their game, we’re ready to pivot at a moment’s notice. If something doesn’t go as we expected, or we want to see something exist that doesn’t exist yet, we roll up our sleeves and build.
We work hard, but we play hard, too. Throwing some fun into the mix is a vital reason why we’re able to adapt and respond to challenges so well. Our weekly breakfasts are a popular tradition.
Every Wednesday, people at our Houston headquarters and San Angelo, TX office mingle and munch on whatever is on the menu (which can range from delicious donuts to breakfast tacos… after all, we’re in Texas! Breakfast tacos are a must).
People also hang out for lunches, happy hours, local events—they just want to connect with the people they work with each day.
Persistence During The Growing Pains
Finally, don’t stop challenging yourself and looking to build your business. Success is the result of a journey, not a result alone.
Being an entrepreneur is a journey, and it’s always evolving.
Your business is not a standstill component — it’s a growing entity that needs to be nurtured. It’s a journey that keeps growing and evolving, and it keeps getting nurtured.
You have to enjoy the process and create new goals to maintain your progress, even as you reach old goals.
Tekmetric’s Persistence Today: One Mile at a Time
Our philosophy is that good auto tech software needs to evolve with the times.
We didn’t just create a stagnant product that we sell to shop owners year after year. We’re always striving to iterate and innovate; we want our existing customers and the new shops we get in front of to have access to the best of the best features.
That’s not to say we haven’t hit some speed bumps along the way.
A few flat tires are a part of life. But we work through those challenges as a team because we have the end goal in sight: driving the auto repair industry forward one mile at a time so shop owners can provide world-class service to their customers and provide great lives to their team members.
Running any business is an art and a science. There are tons of daily and long-term decisions you have to make to continue growing your business.
As a shop owner, you have to make sure your employees and customers are happy, that repairs are efficiently getting through the door, and that your shop is profitable.
The Art of Running Your Business
Intuition and emotional intelligence are what make up the art of running your shop.
Your intuition will steer the split-second decisions you make when it comes to things like helping technicians work through a challenge, answering customer questions, exploring business opportunities, and networking with partners. Intuition can be a good thing—after all, it’s the culmination of the experiences you’ve had before. For example, the bad gut feeling you get about a potential business partner can save you from a world of frustration.
Your emotional intelligence is also a crucial part of running your business. As a leader, you have to be there for your team, which means knowing when someone is having an emotionally off day so you can help them work through the situation. Your emotional intelligence is a guiding compass for your team's emotional responses to each other and to customers.
Some days, you or your service advisors will run into customer challenges. Your service advisors will follow your lead, so if you use your emotional intelligence and show empathy and understanding when a customer is having a bad day, that positive example will rub off on your entire team. Your service advisors will show patience and grace in similar situations.
However, while intuition and emotional intelligence are valuable, you can’t rely on them alone. You also need to test your business decisions—your business “hypotheses,” if you will—with data so you can know whether or not you’re on the right path.
If your shop isn't using at least one mark up matrix to get the most out of your parts sales, then you might be leaving a lot of money on the table.
In fact, auto repair shops have an amazing opportunity to maximize their profit margin on parts sales in particular. Especially when you consider the tools available to support and simplify the entire process. Gone are the days of using pen and paper or busting out the calculators.
Cloud-based shop management systems have made it easier than ever to not only manage your shop, but really get the most value out of the work you're already doing.
Using a parts matrix in particular is one of the most important aspects in making sure your shop is profitable. By building streamlined process for marking up parts, shops can ensure grow your shop’s profit margin while staying fair to customers.
As a digital solution for auto repair shops, Tekmetric understands the importance of maintaining the highest security possible. Not only do we want to ensure that our customers receive full transparency anytime their vehicle is in the shop, but we also understand the value of keeping customer data protected and secure.
Last year, Tekmetric took our data security measures to the next level by achieving SOC 2 Type I compliance – and this year, we’ve stepped up our game to achieve SOC 2 Type II compliance. By earning both SOC 2 Type I and Type II compliances, we aim to continue promoting trust, transparency and security throughout the industry.
As a company that prioritizes innovative, reliable solutions, Tekmetric is proud to be among the first auto repair shop management solutions to receive SOC 2 Type I and II compliance. These certifications are awarded in accordance with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) standards for SOC for Service Organizations (SSAE 18).
What is SOC 2 Type II Compliance?
SOC 2 Type II compliance is awarded when a system meets five principles:
Security. SOC 2 Type II protects the system against any unauthorized access, ensuring customer data is only accessible to approved parties.
Availability. This allows for stronger capabilities in monitoring performance, disaster recovery and handling security incidents. For example, Tekmetric has many data centers across the country to promote better disaster recovery. If one center goes down, the others have backup data available, so shops can access their information without missing a beat.
Processing Integrity. This quality revolves around quality assurance and process monitoring. The information you process through the system must be complete, authorized and accurate.
Confidentiality. We recognize that our partner shops obtain many types of personal data from vehicle owners. SOC 2 Type II compliance assures you and the vehicle owners that visit your shop that their data remains confidential within your system.
Privacy. Above all, we want to make sure data is specifically used for its intended purpose. People value dependability, and this certification helps keep your shop’s data private according to the standards specified by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA).
What is SOC 2 Type I vs. Type II?
Type I: Describes how security and compliance controls are “designed” based on a specific point in time. For example as of March 31st, the organization conducts background checks and has job descriptions for roles and responsibilities.
Type II: Describes the “design and operating effectiveness over a period of time (audit period),” typically 6-12 months. This assessment shows the SOC 2 control implementation and operating effectiveness over that time period.
What Does It Mean for My Shop?
Security is a big concern in the modern auto repair industry – and with good reason. No one wants their data available to the whole world. With SOC 2 Type II compliance, we are able to keep any information that you put into Tekmetric secure, from your shop’s data to your customers’ information.
This happens without you needing to lift a finger. No need to track the last time you backed up your data or review who has access to your system! You can also assure your customers that their sensitive information is safe when they give it to you. They – and you – can sleep easier knowing the data is protected, and your shop management system meets top-tier industry standards to keep it that way.
Protecting Data in the Long-Term
At Tekmetric, we’re committed to driving positive change in the auto repair industry by promoting accessibility and transparency for both partner shops and the public. Achieving SOC 2 Type II compliance demonstrates that Tekmetric not only meets, but surpasses industry standards. We are committed to consistently measuring up on behalf of our customers, and data security is no exception to that rule.
By combining our leading shop management solution with top-class data security, we can better support you and your shop in protecting your data and your customers’ data – all without slowing your team down. Here’s to transparency, trust and reliability!
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)