In 1999, Mark worked in a job that utilized industrial sized paper fax machines. All the important intra-company information (with vendors & dealers) that needed to be documented were sent through fax.

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It drove Mark crazy because you could never tell which fax machine the papers were coming through. Information would get lost behind someone's desk or thrown away prematurely. Only the person who had the physical form had access to it, and had to be chased by anyone else who wanted access to the form. This meant that there was no way of tracking the progress from what was originally asked for and what was actually delivered. 

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"Information was static and perishable."

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So vendors would take any misunderstandings & lost information out on the customer service team and dealers would often end up yelling at the sales vice president. It was heart breaking.

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"We had to suck it up, saying 'The customer is always right'."

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In 2000, Mark decided to take advantage of the progress in the internet and helped develop what was essentially an electronic fax machine. Forms were stored on a web page instead of in piles of paper. This meant that information was captured in a normalized way & forms didn't go missing.

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"We thought that this was the solution to all our problems,

but something was wrong..."

 

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1. Even though you could e-mail forms, the context of the form wasn't captured. So there was a giant "notes" section.

2. The form was "read only" which meant long phone calls (that weren't documented) or back & forth e-mails (which got deleted after a while) to discuss changes.

3. There was no way of tracking the amendments that were made which meant the customers were angry to find out that the final product was different to their original request.

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"But the old programming meant we couldn't upgrade the system.

We needed a fresh approach"

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So in 2012 Mark set up his company around an app he developed which stood out because of it's unique ability to combine:

1. A centralized inbox - allowing for freeform collaboration on forms in a way that is documented 

2. Standardized information collection - giving context to all forms with a knowledge of who's in-charge at all times

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"Now everyone has the same version of the truth"

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Mark's clients who used the app saw a big drop in disagreements and errors; and an increased efficiency with their dealer & vendor orders. But the great thing was that it worked just as well to manage in-company processes as well.

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"It allows for the management of all communications a company does."

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