The Story Behind Asset Panda

Ask an entrepreneur why they started their business and you typically get one of two answers — they were solving a problem or have an idea they believe will change the world. 

They also will often tell you that they launched their business setting off in one direction, only to change course somewhere along the way.

All of these are true when it comes to the story of Asset Panda.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, the seed for the idea was actually planted while growing my previous company. Like almost every other business at the time, we had a long list of items we needed to track and manage. And the tool of choice was the spreadsheet. We had a spreadsheet for computers, a spreadsheet for accounts, a spreadsheet for almost anything you can think of. 

The biggest problem with this type of system was that only a few people out of hundreds of employees had access to these spreadsheets. Because of this we had to constantly depend on everyone to do their part in keeping our “spreadsheet updating team” current so we could quickly and accurately know the location of a computer, or when maintenance was due on a piece of equipment, whether a warranty had expired, and more. 

At best, it was a logistical and costly nightmare.

When it was time for an audit, I had to pull together a team for the task of accounting for everything that was on our spreadsheets. Without fail they would spend days searching for assets that would never be found. We often ended up writing off tens of thousands of dollars in assets because we just didn’t have a proper way to account for them.

Looking back, it’s frustrating to think about how much time, money and assets were lost due to this inefficiency. The only solace comes from knowing that we were not alone. This was a common problem for many companies at the time.

Fast forward a couple years. I had sold that business and after spending some time emptying out my bucket list, the entrepreneurial bug hit me again. I began to chart out the type of business I wanted to create. It had to be technology based. It had to be self-sustaining. It had to be scalable. It had to be something that would make a difference.

I remembered seeing a young man delivering propane tanks on a bicycle in India. I noticed that in contrast to his low-tech transportation, he had very high-tech communications — a cell phone. So I knew that it had to be mobile.

At about this same time, a seemingly unrelated tragedy struck a friend. A fire destroyed his house. 

While trying to negotiate with the insurance company, it became painfully clear that he had no record of all the items lost in the fire. That gave the insurance company the upper hand in the negotiations.

It struck me that this was a situation likely playing out for thousands, maybe even millions of people, on a daily basis. 

This was a problem that needed solving. The world needed an easy way to keep track of their assets — they needed an asset tracking system.

Right problem, wrong customer

The solution was a mobile platform that allowed individuals to create databases that could be easily customized to items they wanted to track and configured in the exact way they wanted to track them. We made it simple to search, update and manage their information from any device, anywhere, at any time. 

I launched Asset Panda in 2012 and it began to gain some traction. A high-profile super model signed on to keep track of her wardrobe and other valuables. We had other customers, but it wasn’t growing at the pace I was looking for. It didn’t take long before I began to realize that I may have overestimated the demand for consumers who wanted a sophisticated system to track their personal assets.

I faced a situation that almost every entrepreneur faces at some point in the early stages of launching a company, I couldn’t continue to follow the same path I had been following. I even considered shutting everything down and looking at the experience as a lesson learned.

It was during this period that I received a call from a police department in Tennessee. They were using Asset Panda to track their assets. They said they loved the program and were recommending it to others. This brought back memories of my previous company and the expensive lessons learned in managing our assets. 

I realized I had the right solution. I had just identified the wrong customer. 

I realized that the second most important asset a company has after its people is its equipment. I knew first hand how difficult it was to keep track of equipment and other assets. I also knew that Asset Panda could solve that problem. We immediately redirected our focus to the business community rather than private individuals, and demand took off.

New customers = new uses

As Asset Panda has grown, it has become increasingly clear that we have the potential to serve a much greater mission than only helping to track materials and inventory.

Companies ranging from Hollywood studios to music festivals and awards shows to zoos to schools to Fortune 500 companies are signing on daily. I am continually inspired by how each customer finds new and innovative ways to take advantage of Asset Panda's flexibility and ease of customization in a way that addresses their unique needs.

Today Asset Panda is used in thousands of different ways around the world. For example, we’re tracking the video game rotation schedule within Dave & Buster’s, alerting technicians when a game needs to be serviced or transferred to another store. We’re being used to track and manage everything from props for movie sets to awards at high profile award shows to bees and chickens on farms to laptops in local high schools.

The beauty of our system is that everyone and anyone in these companies can use it. Updates can be made immediately by the person using a piece of equipment, rather than waiting for the information to make its way back to headquarters and eventually be updated by those responsible for updating the system. 

Not only are efficiencies significantly improved, but the threat of issues such as theft or equipment downtime is greatly reduced.

Discovering a greater mission

The truly exciting part of this experience is I know that what we are doing is more than helping businesses track their assets. We have the potential to fulfill a much greater and more global mission. 

We’re helping the world work smarter.

I see a time when Asset Panda becomes a centralized hub for everything involved in tracking, managing and using assets. We’re creating a global community, where anyone — from an executive at Disney to a factory worker — can go to exchange ideas, tips, resources and more. 

In coming articles, I’ll spend time sharing more on my vision of the workplace of tomorrow as well as some of the more unique ways our customers are using Asset Panda to make their businesses work smarter. And many of these ideas, I am certain, you will find helpful in your own business.