Sometimes, one simple decision can shake a company's entire foundation.
For Eagan-based
JumpTech, that moment came about a year ago, when the company decided to move its applications to a mobile platform.
The firm's software for inventory management and proof of delivery was turned into JumpPOD, an app for iPhone and Android that allows anyone with those devices to track deliveries, accept signatures, and do performance reporting.
Since its release about four months ago, the company gets several phone calls per day for orders, says JumpTech CEO John Freund: "This caught us a little off guard, the popularity of JumpPOD. We've had to accommodate for such sudden growth."
The 11-member firm is likely to double its employee size over the next few months, he adds, and is moving soon to new, larger office space down the street from its existing offices.
Fortunately, Freund has been on the fast-growth track before, when a company he co-founded zoomed upward before it was sold. Now, he uses that experience to make sure that he keeps JumpTech on the right path.
"It's a balancing act, because you fight so hard to get customers excited and buy the app, but you have to make sure that you can deliver when they come to order," says Freund. "That's why we're making sure that we're hiring resources now."
Technology companies in particular can be challenged by such a turn in fortunes, he adds, and many overreact to growth by staffing up quickly. Then, if sales don't come through as projected, they need to downsize. Freund says, "The way to prevent that is to focus on what you're delivering, as opposed to what you're selling. Here, we're doing that, and growing organically as a result."
Source: John Freund, JumpTech
Writer: Elizabeth Millard