Eight years ago, Willy and Jabbok Schlacks attended Columbia Startup Weekend with a plan to make it easier for construction companies to access a digital database of available equipment to rent or track internal assets.
Their vision won and laid the basis for the founding of Columbia-based EquipmentShare a year later, which now boasts more than 80 locations throughout the U.S. and more than 2,700 employees.
EquipmentShare is a Startup Weekend success story.
“We were really excited to see that (business) support happen in the local community,” Willy Schlacks said about Startup Weekend, adding they now are glad to support the event and foster local entrepreneurship.
More:A new tech business in 54 hours? It’s possible with Columbia Startup Weekend
This year’s Startup Weekend started Friday and was set to conclude Sunday, with another award given to help boost another Missouri-based technology firm.
Startup Weekend returned after a two-year hiatus thanks to Scale, a venture capital and business accelerator also co-founded by the Schlacks brothers, along with Jai Malik, and under operation by Brett Calhoun.
EquipmentShare served as a major sponsor of Startup Weekend and provided its Bull Run Drive corporate office as the location of the weekend event.
A vision for EquipmentShare
The Schlacks brothers are well-versed in the business world having started several companies. They got an early start in the construction industry, Willy Schlacks said.
“We have been building companies since we were in our early teens. They were in the construction, service-based, technology-based, e-commerce, real estate, food service. All over the map,” he said.
The StartupWeekend success has led EquipmentShare to be valued at more than $1 billion.
In the construction industry there was no standardized platform in which to have real-time tracking of construction assets, Schlacks said. This included people, supplies and equipment. That was the impetus for creating.
There were previous attempts to accomplish inventory tracking using other forms of software, but without standardization, they were unsuccessful. This was the goal of EquipmentShare — to standardize the process.
“We wanted to build a platform and first and foremost create a digitization of the (construction) environment,” Schlacks said. “If you can have a digital replica of inventory, then it really starts to unlock opportunity around measurement and improvement of productivity.”
The brothers wanted people to be able to digitize inventories, regardless of business, and make them visible through a platform so other people and companies could see what was available.
“The power of being able to get access to that data is really impactful to companies when they are dealing with fleets of hundreds of thousands of machines they own and rent. To be able to see it all on one dashboard is impactful,” Schlacks said.
A tech platform is developed
EquipmentShare now has a technology platform known as T3 to help not only the company but other construction firms know what inventory of equipment is available for use.
While T3 came after EquipmentShare’s founding and after its success at Startup Weekend, the groundwork was laid for its development because of the weekend event.
“At the same time, we have a very sizable (equipment) distribution business, and that leverages our technology platform. We really are able to give a holistic experience to our customers,” Schlacks said. “It’s all connected. Every asset from EquipmentShare is connected within our distribution network.”
So if a customer rents from EquipmentShare, the company handles logistics of providing that asset and service of that asset. All of this is connected to EquipmentShare’s T3 platform, allowing customers to see what is available.
T3 connects assets, or equipment, people and materials, and “provides the workflows to really enter the modern era and manage a business within a modern digital platform,” Schlacks said.
The success of EquipmentShare is down to its people, he added.
“There are phenomenal individuals who are making things happen every day. That is fun to see,” Schlacks said, noting the work continues.
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