05.15.2023
Featured Founder: Fred Koehler of Ready Chapter 1
Welcome to our Featured Founder series, where you’ll meet startup founders from Tampa-St. Petersburg who are...
04.04.2023
Featured Founder: David Mauerer of Convee
Welcome to our Featured Founder series, where you’ll meet startup founders from Tampa-St. Petersburg who are building and scaling their ventures to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges. We interviewed David Mauerer of Convee, an app that makes returns convenient.
What were you doing previously and what inspired you to launch your company?
I was working at Teamwork Commerce that built retail software for mid-market/enterprise brands. Did that for over a decade! On my way to work each day, my wife would ask me to drop off the returns each day. I hated doing it, it was so time-consuming and just annoying. I wanted a driver to just come to my doorstep and do it for me
What pain point is your company solving? What gets you excited to go to work every day?
As a parent of two rascal toddlers, I know the challenges of being able to make it to the store. I wanted to build an app that made it convenient to return and convenient to get to the store. We have a long way to go but I get excited about helping people. From the returns standpoint, helping people spend time on the things they want to be doing. With local delivery that is just now launched, I want to help local brick-and-mortar stores leverage their inventory and fulfill their local customer’s needs.
Name the biggest challenge you faced in the process of launching the company. How did you overcome it?
I think it was a leap to quit my job and do this on my own. It’s been eye-opening but I think I made the right decision (I guess we’ll find out)! In the end, I had to scratch that itch.
Where do you see your company headed next?
It will be a milestone when we have 1000 users so that’s the next immediate goal, and then I want to launch Orlando. Not sure we’ll get to Orlando by the end of this year, but fingers crossed.
Give us a tactical piece of advice that you’d share with another founder just starting out.
Do as many user interviews before building your product, also figure out a solid distribution strategy early. We have achieved decent word-of-mouth but it lacks true virality in that the user’s friends don’t download/use the app immediately (that’s partly due to our product). Also, use your friends/connections/anyone to put your idea through its paces with real $.
Why Tampa Bay?
Getting in early on a growing market is always a good idea.