Welcome back to How I Launched This! This week, Stephanie Wong (@stephr_wong) and Jenny Brown (@jbrojbrojbro) are joined by Justin Behar, the CEO of Trax. Trax is a cloud-based analytics software company that uses the power of machine learning and proprietary technologies to digitize retail for enhanced customer experiences and more effective goods management.

Justin is no stranger to tech, having spent the last 25 years in Silicon Valley founding and expanding various companies. At Trax, Justin has held various leadership roles and recently was named CEO. Trax technology is able to help stores analyze inventory, product placement, some shopping behaviors, and more to make recommendations for how a company could maximize sales and customer satisfaction. Images of store interiors are uploaded and analyzed, providing tons of data from more than a million retail outlets. Justin walks us through an example of this process of shelf monitoring and data analysis, explaining how the system can help measure things like advertising campaign effectiveness, stock issues, and more. From manufacturing to the retail shelf, Trax offers important product feedback via the Trax dashboard to help companies operate more efficiently. 

All companies face challenges, and Justin details some of the obstacles Trax has overcome. Situations like new packaging may seem benign but can lead to bad data if not handled properly. Trax's sophisticated machine learning system compensates for this and other stock issues. 

Later, Justin offers insights into Trax data management now and into the future. We hear more about his journey to the CEO position and how he hopes to continue the positive trajectory Trax has been on. 

Episode Links:
Trax
Trax Video

This week on How I Launched This: A SaaS Story, Carter Morgan (@carterthecomic) is joined by Instana co-founder, Mirko Novakovic. Instana helps companies build thoughtful cloud-native applications and services with their powerful observability and application performance monitoring solutions.

Mirko is no stranger to the founder's chair. Previously, he started and grew several companies and his passion for solving difficult technological issues led to Instana. Instana optimizes cloud native applications and identifies problems and other areas that could be adjusted for better performance. The fullay automated solution can analyze and help adjust applications for any size project.

We talk about the Instana journey from it’s German roots to sales around the world. Including how Mirko discovered this pain point in development and the growth of Instana to what it is today. He details their work with Dick's Sporting Goods, monitoring billions of live requests. We touch on 2020's effects on Instana and how the established company culture created a safe space for continued company growth and workforce diversity. It's the people you hire that decide the success of your company, Mirko tells us, offering advice for creating a positive company environment.

Instana will continue to harness the power of AI, Mirko says, explaining why it's important for companies to take advantage of this technology and how Instana has begun to do so. We wrap up the show with a look at the Google-Instana partnership and Mirko offers advice to other company CEOs.

Episode Links:
Instana
Play with Instana
Try Instana

Carter Morgan (@carterthecomic) and Jenny Brown (@jbrojbrojbro) host this week's episode of How I Launched This: A SaaS Story! They're talking with Scott Radner, VP of Advanced Technology at MEDITECH, an Electronic Healthcare Records (EHR) company improving the healthcare of patients since 1969.

In his 30 years with MEDITECH, Scott has seen technology develop from magnetic tapes to advanced cloud-based software capable of securely storing and managing health records. MEDITECH now also offers other software support that empowers care providers to do their jobs effectively. In rural areas this can be especially important, and Scott gives us examples of how MEDITECH's hybrid cloud system is making lives better. 

Later, Scott details the technology behind running such mission critical software. With a company culture that supports education and learning, MEDITECH's employees were able to easily overcome obstacles as they first built and now expand MEDITECH, Scott tells us. We talk about how COVID-19 has affected the company and how he sees the healthcare space changing in the future.

Scott describes the iterations of MEDITECH and the advantages of moving to a mostly cloud-based system and offers advice for other companies looking to join the cloud.

Episode Links:
MEDITECH Website
MEDITECH Blog