Today we’d like to introduce you to Joe Mecca.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Joe. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
While working for our family’s business back in late 2008, we got involved with a project where TXU Energy was looking to do something with mobile devices in their sponsorship space at the American Airlines Center. After months of bouncing different ideas around, my brother, Paul, and I threw out the idea of cell phone charging kiosks. They loved it and we made two custom phone charging kiosks for them and installed them in late 2009 (still in use today at the AAC). After that, we would go to games at the AAC and see how much the kiosks were getting used by people. The smartphone market was still fairly small in the USA at the time and so believing smartphones were going to be in everyone’s hands over the next few years, we thought that maybe cell phone charging stations could be a good business and we jumped in. We started with kiosks that offered phone charging and served advertising through a screen on the kiosk. After running with that for a little over a year, we decided that we did not like selling advertising and pivoted. We created a first-of-its-kind cell phone charging station (our M8 Charging Station) and went after two verticals, college campuses and car dealerships. The product was an immediate hit and we knew we were onto something. From there we grew our sales, our team, our product lines, and our client base and are still doing those things today!
Has it been a smooth road?
Ha…no, it has not been smooth at all! Our business has always been built around designing, manufacturing and selling our own products so we have always had to manage each of those areas and employ people to help us. People are definitely an extremely hard resource to manage. We have bootstrapped this whole thing, so between not always being able to afford talent and having high expectations of ourselves and our people, we have stumbled quite a bit.
Build, measure, learn has always been at the core of our management style and we have learned a lot about managing people, processes, and products. These struggles never go away. We are always looking to raise the bar and with that comes new challenges, whether that’s in sales, marketing, R&D, production, operations, or any other area of our business. But the journey is the reward and like any founder, we have great appreciation for the struggles and trials we have been through. Each of them has made us stronger and more prepared for the next one.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
KwikBoost designs, manufactures and sells mobile device charging and power solutions. We primarily focus on creating products for public spaces, places like a student union on a college campus, a waiting room at a hospital or a lobby at an office or hotel. KwikBoost is best known for products that are well made (here in the USA!), easy to use and maintain, and that power experiences. We like to say that KwikBoost products power the technology that connects us to the people, activities, and experiences we love. When I think about what makes me proud of our company, it’s the experiences that we provide. And when I talk about experiences I mean a few different things. The end-user experience (those people actually using our products) in that our products help people stay connected to family and friends when dealing with unexpected health events at a hospital or when they need call a friend to talk to while walking back from the campus library late at night or to get an Uber when they’ve been out on the town. The customer experience, all the way from their initial buying experience with us to how we service them after the fact and how we stay in touch and try to act as a technology partner for them. And last, but certainly not least, our employee’s experience. We have always tried to create an environment here at KwikBoost that people are excited to come to and where they want to get better every day and help those around them to get better. We have a saying around here…not many things get better every day, be one of them. We have probably sacrificed some growth because we want to develop our people and that takes time.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Dallas is an amazing city to start a business! Be it in tech or manufacturing or design or anything else. Dallas has a pretty reasonable cost of living, lots of attractions, great sports teams, access to capital, and a great talent pool. The city is centrally located in the country and is in growth mode right now. A ton of companies are relocating here and the economic environment is flourishing. I would definitely recommend looking at Dallas for someone starting out and would imagine there are very few other cities right now that offer the same types of opportunities that Dallas does.
Pricing:
- Stay & Charge – starting at $399
- Work & Charge – starting at $1,899
- Lock & Charge – starting at $2,799
- Roam & Charge – starting at $999
Contact Info:
- Address: KwikBoost
4819 Woodall St.
Dallas, TX 75247 - Website: www.kwikboost.com
- Phone: 800-676-4278
- Email: hello@kwikboost.com
- Instagram: htagram.com/kwikboost
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KwikBoost
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/kwikboost
Image Credit:
Ryan Calo’oy
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