Kevin Hutchinson from MyTaskit: “In order to be successful, you need to be persistent!”
This month, CEO Today had the privilege to speak with Kevin Hutchinson – a serial entrepreneur and the CEO and Founder of MyTaskit – a work coordination platform targeting to the services industry. In his interview with us, Kevin tells us about founding MyTaskit, the achievements that followed and what it means to him to be recognised in CEO Today’s USA Awards.
How did the idea about MyTaskit come about?
The idea about MyTaskit came from my healthcare experience. Although my career began in the corporate world, I moved to the healthcare field in 1995. I worked with VHA Health Information Technologies for 5 years and after that, together with MedicaLogic, we built one of the first electronic medical records systems in the US that we sold to GE, as well as the first physician portal systems that we sold to WebMD. A few years later, I was involved in building the Nation’s E-Prescription Network – Surescripts, a company that connects all the pharmacies nationwide to coordinate care for patients.
These experiences in the healthcare sector made me think about the fact that there’s a lot of coordination work that needs to occur outside of healthcare. Thus, my team and I began looking at other markets and industries that were behind in technology adoption, the same way healthcare was when we first started. Our findings showed that the services industry altogether was almost identical to where healthcare was 10 years ago – a platform for coordinating work was non-existent.
This is how MyTaskit was born – I began working on figuring out how to build our coordination platform for the services industry, knowing that we would have to integrate it into the processes they already have in place, just like we did in the healthcare sector.
Can you remember what was the company’s first big milestone and how did you achieve it?
I’d say our first big milestone was the realisation that people started buying and using our product; thanking us for coming up with the concept that has now changed their lives and their work processes. Despite working very hard on a product before launching it, you never know whether it’s actually going to be successful before those early adopter businesses start showing interest in your work.
Therefore, I’d say that our first and biggest milestone was to see technicians who are very used to paper, work orders and time sheets, adapting to our platform and using their tablets or mobile phones in the field to actually coordinate work with their service managers.
How has the company grown in terms of operations and service offerings in the past five years?
When we started the company, it was only me and one other person working on the concept from a small office in Washington D.C. Today, our team has grown to 30 people, considering that we purposely have decided to stick to a being a small team. We devote a lot of attention to the product side and we work with a number of distribution partners and digital marketing specialists on the sales and marketing side.
In addition to our focus on the marine market, we are in the process of expanding into three more service markets – construction, property management and the industrial equipment market.
In light of this expansion, what lies on the horizon for you and MyTaskit and in the next year?
Well certainly expanding into these three additional markets would be our key focus over the next 12 months.
Another thing that we’re currently working on is deploying all three use cases that MyTaskit can offer. At this point, we’re only using our technician coordination use case. However, one of our main objectives for the future is to begin deploying MyTaskit’s subcontractor coordination use case, where a subcontractor works for the general contractor on the same platform, as well as the customer coordination use case, where our clients can coordinate work with their customers through the MyTaskit application.
What are some of the key challenges that you and your company are faced with?
I would say that the two biggest hurdles that we face are change and time.
One of the biggest challenge in our field is getting people to change their habits and the way they work. It is also tough to introduce our platform to companies which fear that introducing workflow and operational changes will take time and will slow the business down. However, these initial concerns that some of our clients have are very minor, when compared to all the array of advantages that the MyTaskit platform offers.
You were recently recognised in CEO Today’s USA Awards. What does the award mean to you?
As someone who’s devoted his career to innovation, I feel very honoured to receive this award. However, I’d like to point out that the award should go to my whole team, as they all work very hard to help me get MyTaskit where it is today and where I want it to be in the years to come.
If you could share one piece of advice with CEO Today’s readers, what would it be?
In order to be successful, you need to be persistent. MyTaskit is my fourth start-up and the one thing that setting up and running these four businesses has taught me is that you need to be persistent. It’s tough to be patient when things don’t look like they’re going to work out, but if you stay focused and committed to your goals, they usually do.
About MyTaskit
MyTaskit provides a subscription-based task management software for the general service
industry that is easy to use, fits with existing work processes, and saves time by simplifying and job tracking. It is the comprehensive solution boatyards and repair businesses need to work and communicate smarter and more efficiently. With it, service work is coordinated between staff, subcontractors and customers. Because it’s paperless, it’s far more accurate that traditional methods.
MyTaskit Pro has been a staple in the recreational boat market with over 1,000 service pro users and 50,000 registered boat owners, and the company made its international and commercial marine debut at the International WorkBoat Show, Nov. 29-Dec. 1, New Orleans. See the press release here – https://www.mytaskit.com/mytaskit-makes-commercial-marine-debut-at-workboat-show/. Additionally, MyTaskit is expanding into the construction, industrial equipment and property management industries with its MyTaskit Pro platform.
The platform is easy to use and runs on mobile devices. Customers request service and are kept up to date on project status through the app or web interface. Labor hours, comments, parts and materials used are added by techs in the field. Supervisors monitor work status in real-time. MyTaskit Pro integrates seamlessly with QuickBooks, so once a task is complete, an invoice is generated and automatically emailed to the customer, and the ledger is updated. MyTaskit Pro also integrates with DockMaster, the premier marine operations management platform.
MyTaskit Job-Tracking Features Include:
Voice-to-Text Notes (no more paper!)
Upload photos & video
Full service records history
Create service/maintenance programs
Notifications and reminders
Progress updates for customers
Time tracking, scheduling, and
parts/expense tracking
Auto-Syncing
And More!
100% ONLINE. SECURE.
MOBILE READY. FIELD READY.
MyTaskit
401 S. Dixie Highway, Suite 302
West Palm Beach, FL 33401
561.969.2882
