Black Entrepreneur in North Carolina Says No Bias: Rod Brown, COO of OnceLogix (Part 2)

Sramana: Why did you give the advice to productize the software instead of selling it off?

Rod Brown: I felt that it could become a software solution that was used across the nation.

Sramana: When you made that statement what was your vision of what the product would become?

Rod Brown: The product was built for a very specific market so we knew who the customers were going to be. We were in North Carolina and we knew how many potential customers we could have in North Carolina, so we set that as our goal and initial vision.

We did have customers who had relationships in different states. Word of mouth spread outside of North Carolina very quickly. Now we are in 9 different states.

Sramana: What is the function of the software?

Rod Brown: It is a practice management tool for people who provide behavioral healthcare services. It could be for a behavioral therapist or a psychologist. It could be used by people who provide community-based mental health services.

It manages their entire practice. It keeps track of their progress notes, any assessments that they do, manages all their scheduling, and manages their client and patient records. We also keep track of all their staff records to include credentials and the certification and training that they must keep up with.

It is a web-based tool that manages their entire practice. We also have an iPad application in the App Store.

Sramana: What year was it when you had the meeting at the church?

Rod Brown: We met in early 2005. By August of 2005, we had launched the business.

Sramana: What was Trinity’s reaction to your point of view?

Rod Brown: What I said resonated with him because that is what he had been leaning towards. He knew that running the business would not be his area of expertise, but was confident that he could develop the software. My skillset aligned with running the business operations.

At that point, we brought in one more friend Ty McLaughlin, who was also a financial advisor. He was a good friend of ours. We basically followed the model of “If you can make it, we can sell it”. We let Trinity develop and build the software and Ty and I sold it. We created OnceLogix in August of 2005.

Sramana: Was there any financing involved when it came to getting the business launched?

Rod Brown: We bootstrapped the business. All three of us had our own full-time jobs and careers. We did this as a side project. We knew it was a side business. We worked some ungodly hours.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Black Entrepreneur in North Carolina Says No Bias: Rod Brown, COO of OnceLogix
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