Our story
Built from the truck, the kitchen table and the Monday meeting.
ONEREQ PRO wasn’t dreamed up by software people. It came out of 30+ years in the trades, from the attic in July to the owner’s chair, and one problem I couldn’t stop seeing.
I grew up in a family business.
My family’s business started in 1950. My father ran it on one rule, and he made sure I learned it early: take care of the customer first.
I was out on service calls at sixteen, the minute school let out. I learned the trade the way you learn it in a family business, by showing up, carrying the tools and watching how my father treated the person whose house we were standing in. Fix it right, be honest about the price, and leave them better off than you found them.
I also took software programming classes along the way. I didn’t know it then, but I was collecting the two halves of what I’d eventually build: the field and the code.
It started with a truck sitting still.
I was a service and sales manager at a company that needed to move faster. It wasn’t a bad company. It was a busy one, and busy companies leak time.
Every day I watched the same thing. A technician waiting on a part. A truck driving to the supply shop and back. Nobody sure which truck, or which shelf, actually had the equipment we needed. A requisition that took too long to file and even longer to answer. And between the office, the warehouse and the field, communication that was mostly phone calls and guesswork.
Each of those hours was paid for, and not one of them fixed anything for the homeowner. The customer was home waiting, the technician was frustrated, and the owner was paying for both.
I knew it wasn’t just us. Anyone who has run a service department has lived it. The hours disappear into parts runs, hunting for equipment and waiting on answers, and they disappear quietly, so nobody ever puts a line on the P&L for them.
That was the whole idea: cut the man-hours that go to waiting, get jobs done faster, get requisitions filed and answered faster, always know where the equipment is, and give the customer a better experience while we’re at it.
I’ve sat in every seat.
Over 30 years I worked through nearly every phase of the HVAC business, and later built and ran my own HVAC companies and a solar sales organization. That matters, because every one of these jobs sees a different half of the same problem.
- Service TechnicianThe attic in July. The callback nobody budgeted for. The part that isn’t on the truck.
- Comfort AdvisorThe kitchen table, and the proposal that has to close and then actually get built.
- Sales ManagerClose rates, ride-alongs and commission arguments.
- General ManagerDispatch, payroll, purchasing and the Monday numbers.
- OwnerHVAC companies, a solar sales organization, and the bottom line.
Along the way I became a sales trainer in both the HVAC and solar industries, teaching other people how to sit at a kitchen table and earn a customer’s trust. I was also ranked among the top comfort advisors and solar consultants in the country, which taught me what a customer actually needs to see before they say yes.
The technician feels the missing part. The advisor feels the slow quote. The manager feels the lost hours in the numbers. The owner pays for all of it. No single tool I tried treated those as one connected problem, because the people who wrote them had never worked in more than one of those seats.
My best marketing was a happy customer.
Over the years I built a large following of customers who were so satisfied that they sent me their friends, their neighbors and their family.
That didn’t happen by accident. It came from my father’s rule, taking care of the customer first, and then from doing the work to earn it again and again: smart marketing, staying in front of the people who already trusted me, and running contests that kept me and my team sharp and the referrals coming.
A referral is the cheapest, strongest sale in this business, and it only comes from a customer who felt looked after. That’s why marketing and contests are a real part of ONEREQ PRO, not an afterthought. See the Marketing Hub → See Contests →
“You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You can’t start with the technology and try to figure out where you’re going to sell it.”Steve Jobs, Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, 1997
That’s the order I built this in. I didn’t start with a feature list. I started with a technician standing at a supply counter and a homeowner waiting at home, and worked backwards from there.
How I thought about building it.
I looked hard at the best software already out there and kept what genuinely worked. Then I made it simpler for the contractor and better for the homeowner. Five rules came out of that, and they’re still how every screen gets decided.
Start with the hour that gets lost.
If a screen doesn’t save someone time or money, it doesn’t belong. The platform is built around the money and the hours, not around data entry.
One number, one definition.
Revenue, collections, margin and close rate each mean exactly one thing everywhere in the platform. Nothing is more corrosive in a company than two reports that disagree.
Never invent a number.
If a labor rate, a financing plan or a tax rate isn’t set, the platform leaves the figure off rather than showing a made-up one that looks real. Owners and homeowners both deserve numbers they can trust.
Show each person what they need, and no more.
Technicians see their work, their truck and their pay, but never what a part cost the company. Sales sees margin. Office sees what their job needs. Owners see everything.
The homeowner is part of the system.
A great contractor experience that leaves the homeowner in the dark is only half a platform. Customers get their own app, with their documents, their history and a clear way to pay.
So here’s what it does about the truck.
The problem I started with is still the heart of the platform. Here’s how each part of it is handled today.
Truck & warehouse inventory
Every truck has its own stock you can see and scan. Parts leave a truck through returns, transfers or the job they were used on, each with a record, so nothing quietly disappears.
See truck inventory →Requisitions that move
Requisitions go into a queue the office and warehouse can see and work, instead of living in someone’s phone or memory. They don’t have to be tied to a job, so you can file one for anything.
See the platform →Dispatch & communication
One view of the day across every tech and every job, plus a company feed and direct messages, so the office, warehouse and field aren’t playing phone tag.
See dispatch →HomeRex
The customer’s own app for iPhone and Android, included on every plan. Their documents, their history and a way to pay, in one place instead of a phone call.
See HomeRex →Rex Intelligence
The reports an owner, GM or sales manager actually needs on Monday morning, with every figure defined once so the numbers agree.
See the reports →ONEREQ PRO Field
The tech app for iPhone, iPad and Android, built to make the job easier, not to make a technician do paperwork.
See Field →
Why I’m telling you all this.
Because you shouldn’t trust software to run your company unless you know who built it and why. I’m not a software executive who studied the trades from a distance. I’m a contractor who spent a career losing hours to the same problems you do, and decided to fix them for good.
ONEREQ PRO is the system I wish I’d had in every one of those seats, built on the rule my father taught me: take care of the customer first. I built it for the technician, the advisor, the manager and the owner, and for the homeowner waiting on the other side of the door.
See it before you talk to us.
Click through the real screens: dispatch, Sales Advisor, truck inventory, Rex and more.
Watch the demos →