The very beginning
The story of SwipeTrack is very much a family story. SwipeTrack began with a family and grew into a company family organically. In 2011, Fred was working in his family’s bingo business when they realized they needed a way to speed up inventory tracking and daily reports in the highly state-regulated charitable bingo industry. They wanted to do so in a user-friendly way with sleek UI/IX and easy to train software and hardware solutions. They searched for a solution that would combine software and hardware and could not find it.
Around the same time, Fred was diagnosed with cancer and had to stay in bed during his treatment. He decided to use that time to code his own software and he did just that. He kicked cancer, created a customized a management system called B7, and added his own application to the App Store, called SwipeTrack Browser.
When the time came to order the hardware, and put Fred’s new software to use, they encountered another problem. Though Fred and Melanie only needed three scanners, the minimal order was 100 units so, suddenly, they had 97 items for sale.
A simple website was created and the scanners were sold within a week. Rinse, repeat. Another 100 scanners went up on the website and they sold again. The SwipeTrack Browser was a big hit in the App Store due to its ease of use and competitive price and suddenly SwipeTrack was a fully integrated hardware and software business solution.
How to Train a Dragon Grow a Small Business
The following year, Melanie and Fred worked from their home and spent most of the year installing software on the hardware they sold (kitting) and customizing the applications for different clients (white labeling). Suddenly this small company found itself doing business with big names like Disney Park & Resorts and AAA. Obviously, they were doing something right.
In 2013, it was time to grow the company and the first three employees joined the family. SwipeTrack moved out of their house into an office and B7 was completely rewritten. New developers were hired to focus exclusively on the SwipeTrack Browser, Batcher and other applications offered in the App Store.
The small team worked like a family. Everybody helped each other out and everybody did everything. There were no titles and no roles. People that are today’s directors of different departments worked together on kitting and shipping packages.
While new clients were discovering SwipeTrack, the team found itself unable to fulfill all the requests and that led to welcoming several new members of the family. Even though SwipeTrack still did not have official departments at this moment, in 2015 we can see the roots that make our Mobility and Technology departments today.
Finally, SwipeTrack outgrew its office space and it was time for some big decisions. A building was purchased at 8026 Vantage Drive and it became the permanent home for SwipeTrack. You can find us there today in Suite 200 if you want to stop by and say hello!
If you build it, they will come
Owning one’s own space means one can move things around, tear down walls and build new ones and this is just what SwipeTrack needed. During 2016 and 2017, the company doubled in size, as new opportunities brought the need for more employees.
Building a successful family means finding a ballance between working hard and playing hard and we believe the success of our team lies in the ability to do both. Our Thanksgiving Lunches now host in-house Magic The Gathering Tournaments. Friday is a popular day to test out a new board game or card game during the lunch break. And when someone has a problem, the whole team comes together to find a solution.
Today SwipeTrack is a complete business solution for other companies. We handle any kind of IT need a business might have. If it cannot be solved in-house, we have partnerships with businesses that offer complementary products and services. We know that the days are short and time flies by quickly, which is why we are here. We are here to help you in this technology renaissance – to find your solutions.
