UTICA — Go Figure, a local tech startup that bills itself as the contractor’s mobile office, is using its recently won top prize in a key local business competition to boost its product development and marketing to take the fledgling business to the next level. Go Figure — which developed an iPad application that helps […]
UTICA — Go Figure, a local tech startup that bills itself as the contractor’s mobile office, is using its recently won top prize in a key local business competition to boost its product development and marketing to take the fledgling business to the next level.
Go Figure — which developed an iPad application that helps contractors measure, estimate, and create a construction or remodeling proposal onsite — won first place in the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Commercialization Academy Demo Day and IDEA NY (Innovation & Development Entrepreneurial Accelerator) business accelerator competition on March 21. It took home a prize of $200,000, which its leader says will come in handy in a couple different ways.
“We have two things that we need to start funding,” Justin Call, CEO of Go Figure, said in a news release issued by Griffiss Institute, which partnered with AFRL on the competition. “Our product development is slow because we can’t hire enough developers, because we don’t have enough money. This is going to change that. So, we are going to be able to rapidly accelerate our product development and our data business at the same time. The other thing we are doing is investing in marketing.”
In addition to using the prize money for research, development, and marketing, Call tells CNYBJ in an interview that the firm is also in contact with a number of venture capitalists about possible future investments into Go Figure.
In the contest that Go Figure won, six teams from the current AFRL Information Directorate Commercialization Academy pitched their startup ideas in cybersecurity, big data, information systems, and unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for $300,000 in total prize seed funding provided by the Innovation & Development Entrepreneurial Accelerator, known as IDEA NY Mohawk Valley.
The judges’ panel evaluated each startup based on such factors as: the ability of the business to affect the Mohawk Valley’s startup ecosystem and high-tech economy, the culture of innovation that has been created within the startup due to incorporating AFRL technology, the sustainability of the solution beyond the initial startup period and go-to market strategy, according to the Griffiss Institute release.
The startups were incubated by early-stage venture capital firm Wasabi Ventures, while embarking on an acceleration process to either build a sustainable startup, or enhance technology from an already existing startup, with Department of Defense intellectual property from the AFRL Information Directorate.
The company and the product
Go Figure is located in the Mohawk Valley Community College’s thINCubator (short for “the home for innovative new companies,” a business incubator and student accelerator located at 326 Broad St. in the Bagg’s Square East district of Utica. It seeks to help build startups and grow businesses in Central New York.
Go Figure has four part-time employees and Call, who works full time and also has a side job at his own consulting firm. Call didn’t provide a current revenue figure for the firm.
Call compares Go Figure’s iPad application to Amazon. “It is data and business intelligence driven,” he says. The application gathers information about the contractor’s clients and their home so contractors can quickly generate estimates and show the homeowners’ different product options based on their preferences.
Go Figure’s users are contractors. The company released a beta version of its product and used the input of contractors to revise the beta version into something more user friendly, Call says. “The next version will be completely different and will be based on everything learned from the first version.”
He continues, “The beta version was basic and not user friendly. We anticipate releasing the next version within a couple of months.”
In the new version, contractors will be able to give their clients’ a proposal within 10 minutes
“We are aiming to provide transparent and up-front pricing to the contractor so he knows what his costs will be before he starts,” says Call. “We want to differentiate ourselves from our competition.”
Call’s background
Meadows Construction Company of Newburyport, Massachusetts created Go Figure. In 2017, Meadows Construction hired Call to advance the application. Now they jointly own the company, he says.
Call earned his bachelor’s degree at Union College in Schenectady in 1997, according to his LinkedIn profile. He started his career working in the technology transfer office at the University at Buffalo. While there, he went back to school to earn a law degree and MBA from Buffalo.
From there, he went to work for Ropes & Gray, an international law firm, for five years. At Ropes & Gray, Call practiced property law until one of his clients, TravelClick, a technology provider to hotels, hired him. TravelClick’s principals sold that company for nearly $1 billion in 2014, but Call stayed on to do some consulting.
Call says working at TravelClick was instrumental to the work he does at Go Figure.