Josh Holstein identified a problem and wanted to solve it.
He knew there had to be a way to get information about a vehicle for sale without hearing a sales pitch.
Instead of responding to “for sale” signs with phone calls, what if potential buyers could receive vehicle data via text messages? The former Springfield policeman and pharmaceutical representative launched CellARide LLC in October 2010 with legal guidance from a business attorney he knew, Doug Fredrick.
“I knew a little about text marketing and the value of text marketing – how it’s a lead-capture tool and you can gain shopper insights through the use of it,” Holstein says. “I didn’t have the resources I have today. I had to craft in my own brain the steps to form a technology startup.”
The road he laid out was to take the idea, create a product, start a business, turn the business into a viable company and determine the exit strategy. An exit could be the sale of the company and the beginning of a new phase, or it could be retiring 50 years later pleased with what he brought to market. With that map in place, he began to seek advice from experts. An early recommendation from Allen Kunkel, director of the Jordan Valley Innovation Center, brought him to the The eFactory, a brand-new business incubator.
After putting together a prototype, he connected with CarFax Inc. founder Ewin Barnett III, who became an investor and recommended Holstein target the dealership space, which led to the creation of his CarInfoToGo product. Holstein put together a proof of concept by connecting with local dealers and seeing how the product worked for them. With Barnett’s help, Holstein secured a $50,000 investment from St. Louis-based tech accelerators Capital Innovators LLC, which led him to a Cleveland, Ohio-based marketing company and eventually a meeting with General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM). By 2014, Holstein had inked plans for a pilot project with GM before connecting with representatives of Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM).
“I thought I could do an inside sales process, work with some outside vendors to take it to the GM masses. I was kind of naive to think that would work,” he says. “We were too early for GM. We weren’t a ‘company’ yet. We didn’t have the structure we have today.”
Through a pilot project, Toyota put an internal advocate in place.
“That really got us the traction and validation we needed at an (original equipment manufacturer) level,” Holstein says.
Five years in, CellARide recently received a new round of funding – $100,000 from venture capital firm Mayhem Development Co. and an unnamed investor. Holstein’s team of three local employees – along with a full-time business developer overseas and three part-timers – is in talks with seven Fortune 500 companies.
He believes the business is well on its way to viability – or perhaps an exit from the startup phase via acquisition.
He says the assistance from attorney Fredrick – also a CellARide investor – and St. Louis law firm Khazaeli Wyrsch Stock LLC, accounting from Payroll Vault and insurance services from Todd Van Bokhoven of Weiss Insurance have allowed him to focus on meeting customer and contractual needs. The future is taking shape.
“It’s not just me anymore,” Holstein says.
Click here for Part I.
