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Meet Jason Girdner and Scarlet Mick of TECOBI in Castle Rock

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Jason Girdner, Scarlet Mick.

Jason, Scarlet, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Jason has been in the automotive business as a vendor for coming up on 19 years. He started in 2001 as a salesman selling loan-by-phone hotlines (lead generating toll free numbers), before most dealerships even had a website to capture leads. Since dedicating himself to many lead generation products over 19 years. In 2010, Jason built his first lead generation product for auto dealers and Facebook. It was a gaming application that was put behind a (“like” gate) to generate likes and capture email addresses for auto dealers to market to. TECOBI is the third attempt at trying to help dealerships sell cars on Facebook.

When we started TECOBI in February of 2016, Jason was ready to throw in the towel on Facebook, and actually built our text messaging solution around direct mail. One of our clients convinced him to look at the new Lead Generation ads and begged him to build a text message solution around that. He honestly didn’t want to because he felt like he wasted much of his life trying to find a way for car dealers to sell cars on Facebook. Jason forced himself to look into it more.

Jason launched the integration the day after labor day in 2016. He was sitting in the home office when the first customer hit the system. It was a person wanting to talk about buying a RAM truck. Five minutes later the next lead, five minutes later the next lead and so on. Jason had to call Scarlet (his wife) into the office to help text message these customers. That rapidly grew and they had to get into an office in December of 2016 and start hiring staff.

Since that day it has been full speed ahead. They did have a huge learning curve about a year into it and lost almost all of their clients. They had to do some digging to find a solution, so Jason went out on the road for a year and traveled to each dealership client that we had remaining, while Scarlet ran what was left of the office. And… Boom, figured it out, and the growth began once again. They are now at almost 70 employees at the Castle Rock office.

Scarlet comes from the Healthcare field and was a Surgical Technologist for almost 14 years and dove into the automotive industry with Jason’s guidance in 2013.

Jason and Scarlet have both come from broken homes and have had to overcome a lot in their lifetimes. Learning to lean on one another, and the sheer determination to change their childrens futures, has been a big factor in their success. Breaking the chains that ran deep in their families of poverty, abuse and drugs, has been a goal of theirs for quite some time. They love being able to change the lives of their family, employees, as well as their community. We are blessed to be able to give back to others in ways that would not have been possible without the TECOBI team.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It definitely has not been a smooth road. But, that is to be expected when you go from 0-100mph, right? We have had a tremendous amount of learning curves. Learning to run a business with no guidance from anyone but ourselves was a big challenge. Google is your friend in these cases. Scarlet has a Surgical Technology certificate and some college and Jason was a 10th grade high school drop-out. So the odds were against them. With five kids at home, we couldn’t quit! We swung for the fences! Anything is possible, if you put your mind to it and commit 100%! Don’t let anyone tell you different.

Learning to grow a company at a fast pace has been a challenge. First, it was hiring the right people for the job. Then being able to purchase equipment for them to be successful. From job training to how to properly interview people (yes, there is a proper way, lol who would have thought), it never gets easier. You just learn to adapt.

Now we are faced with running out of space and need to find a bigger office. There are always growing pains along the way, just at different levels. I remember taking out a $20,000 loan to start the business and thinking, how the heck are we going to pay this back?! Those loans turning into quarter of a million dollar loans. Now we are talking to the city about a building of our own! Again, a growing pain, just another form of it.

We both knew what we were against, we knew it wasn’t going to be easy. You just get to a point where you are either committed or you’re not. For us, there was no turning back. We both had blind faith, that no matter what, God would provide and lead us in the right direction. And he has, every step of the way.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
TECOBI is a text messaging, lead generation software company. We specialize in the automotive space by using text message to help communicate at a massive level. We also create Facebook Ads for our clients to help them generate customers. We have serviced other verticals as well, like gyms, real estate and solar companies. We are known for our innovative text messaging platform that is changing (growing) almost daily. Our goal is to have a seamless CRM that is powerful yet easily manageable. Clients waste several hours on repetitive and useless tasks. With our CRM they can better utilize their skills and time where necessary.

There is a lot to be proud of! Our team is really the most amazing part of it. It is a family. The culture at the office is welcoming and overall fun! We have multiple team building meetings during the week, we provide and open forum to share and talk about feelings or obstacles without judgement. This has been another goal of ours. Now if Scarlet could get the office structured with a putt putt golf course, rock wall, go carts, a basketball court, a cafeteria and some other cool things, we would be set! We try to give back to our team and show appreciation by providing daily snacks, lunch every other Friday, and massages, just to name a few things. We strive to be one of the best employers in Castle Rock.

What sets us apart, the culture for one. We truly love our team. It has taken a lot to get where we are. Not everyone is going to be a good fit, and that is okay. We keep that in mind when it comes to the environment, the moral and what our dreams and goals are of the company. We want our team to invest in us, just as we have them.

Our software is one of a kind. There is no one in our space that has done what we have, as fast as we have. With the dedication from our team, we will change the automotive industry.

What were you like growing up?
Jason loved taking things apart and rebuilding them. From tv’s to computers, he did it. He even built an engine in his Mustang. He has always been innovative and was one to think outside of the box.

Scarlet’s interests has always been helping animals and people since she was a kid.

Pricing:

Starts at $995-up

Contact Info:

Image Credit:
Gabe Costales

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