This Founder Grew His Fleet Tracking Startup 2,000% In 3 Years
Hi, I’m Adam, a co-founder of One Step GPS. We are a fleet tracking software company that offers a high-quality tracking platform for a fraction of the cost
We help business owners keep tabs on their employees once they are outside of the office.
Help them ensure they are where they should be, doing what they are doing at all times. Our solution increases efficiency, improves customer satisfaction, and saves companies money. Time and time again, our solution pays for itself.
We also have tools for fleet safety, driver scoring, maintenance, and more. All of this tie together to form a perfect symphony that is played through our website or iPhone & Android apps.
I’m currently working on making this the greatest GPS tracking company that ever existed.
What's your backstory and how did you get into entrepreneurship?
Before this, I had started another business in insurance. I learned about the insurance business by working for others, and I realized how much better an insurance company could be. When I reached a ceiling on the amount of income I could make as an employee, I realized I could do the same thing myself, but much better. I got started and it was a total success. We outperformed every agency of our size in the state of California until I sold the company.
A couple of years later, I was approached by the other founders of One Step GPS who told me their idea and how they wanted to make an impact on the industry, and I was all in.
This vision for One Step GPS started out of necessity. The other founders were using a similar solution for one of their other businesses when the tracking company they were using had a two-week outage, and they couldn’t get a hold of anyone in customer service. Shortly after that, they had to repurchase all of the tracking equipment which was only a year old because the technology was outdated. Due to the expensive contract this company roped them into and the “cancelation clauses”, it was less expensive to pay for all new equipment and installations than to find a better company.
A lot of that history has helped to build up our corporate DNA, and our obsession with customer service. Needless to say, we don’t offer contracts and constantly aim to have the best customer satisfaction, by not being like the other companies in this industry.
Take us through your entrepreneurial journey. How did you go from day 1 to today?
We built it from the ground up, figuring out how to build something that worked for our own needs and then building out from there into something that would work for other companies. We kept the idea of focusing on customer service and satisfaction as the number 1 priority.
We listened to our customers, we added a ton of features. What helped us the most is we listened, we built reports, custom dashboards, alerts, added features to devices and so much more, all because we listened. It has earned us a lot of faithful customers.
It also doesn't hurt that our product rocks, is very reliable and easy to use.
In the beginning, it was just a few good programmers and a couple of sales/support staff and it just kept growing. We now work with over 15,000 companies and those numbers are growing like crazy every day.
We believe in customer service, and in making our clients happy above all else. This has worked out very well for us having grown over 2,000% over the last 4 years.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
We’re doing well, we have morphed from the “new kids on the block” back in 2016, to an established and major player in the industry today. We constantly get ranked as one of the top companies because of our customer service.
We even made No. 199 on the Inc 5000 list for 2021. And the future looks even bigger and brighter.
We are continuing to focus on expanding and reaching companies with fleets small and large. They need to know that there are better options than overpaying with “big name” companies and getting stuck in expensive contracts.
Success is not built overnight. As long as you are committed and have the mindset to persevere and overcome the obstacles and put in the time, which could be several years, then go for it. It is worth it.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
Quite a few things.
Mostly, our company growth has been smooth, with no big disasters. We have always had backup plans and people motivated to solve problems when they arise. Always having backup plans, in a way, ensured we never had issues.
I can’t stress how important it is to inspect. Things are most often not quite what they seem. When you get a report from someone that something isn’t working, replication and patterns are more important than just diving in on every issue or anomaly, the amount of time saved by finding patterns is unreal.
The next thing I learned is how to handle employees. I found guiding them is so much better than “punishing” them by writing a report or getting angry. People perform better when they are encouraged and helped and like where they work.
If you have good people, who are team players, take initiative and are invested in the success, and are rewarded for stellar production, that is the best way to succeed.
Lastly, I have repeatedly learned that sometimes going the extra mile to make the customer happy pays off in the end. You never know what can come out of that little bit of extra care and, when it comes down to it, reviews are important. When someone is happy with the product, they will talk about it and share it with others.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
We originally used WooCommerce for sales and billing but then developed our billing system that met our needs better. It was more expensive in the short term but better in the long run.
We use a CRM, web chat program to help our customers. But our favorite tool is Slack, we use it all the time. Staying connected and communicating with your team is extremely important, especially nowadays.
We also use Teams, Zoom, Jira for our programmers, AWS cloud services, and some other stuff.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
I’d say How I Built This and My First Million. Both are inspiring and give great information. I try to read more, but as things have continued to take off, I find I’m busier than ever.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
Just do it! And the other piece of advice is, “look, don’t listen.” Super important to inspect things and see for yourself what’s happening. And, of course, hard work. You have to put in the effort, but it pays off.
Also, the estimation of what it takes has to be there, in the beginning, I started with 60-70 hour weeks. You almost need to work harder AND smarter than everyone else to succeed - but once you start growing and can hire other great people to help pick up the slack, it starts to become easier.
Success is not built overnight. As long as you are committed and have the mindset to persevere and overcome the obstacles and put in the time, which could be several years, then go for it. It is worth it.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
We are always looking to hire good programmers, sales & support personnel for our local office in southern California.
You can find listings on Zip Recruiter and you can check out our hiring page on our website.
Where can we go to learn more?
I mean, we give a ton of great information on our website Website.
You can also find us on Linkedin, Facebook, Instagramand Twitter.
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