Wingmate is inspiring people-driven companies to rethink CRM. Empowering everyone in their business to make sales and customer service a team sport.
Tell us about yourself?
Matt has always had a drive for entrepreneurship, building a profitable garment business in high school. After graduating from the University of Western Ontario, he started his career at the Royal Bank of Canada, but a small taste of the corporate world solidified his drive to run his own business. In April 2019, Matt took over Gopher Leads, a firm deemed dead by investors and rebranded it to Wingmate. Under his leadership, he bootstrapped the business from $0 to a ~$3mm in annual recurring revenue. Employing over 45 full-time staff and cash-flow positive, he also sits on the Tech Advisory board of the Service Council.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
If you have a natural entrepreneurial drive and passion or idea to match it, get started as soon as possible. It’s truly, hands-on experience that builds success, not a degree or accreditation. Every experience, whether a win or a loss, is something we can use to gain insight, build our business and, ultimately, ourselves.
What problem does your business solve?
Wingmate was launched to bridge the disconnect between Operations and Sales and help companies realize their full potential. We wanted companies to unite their teams to capture more leads and drive revenue on the frontlines of their business.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
Working in tandem with his business partner Louis Anagnostakos, Louis had experience using driver leads to build a recycling business, and it was this intuitive, on-the-ground practicality that helped us start Wingmate.
In the competitive market of business technology, we thought of military intelligence with homing pigeons bringing back information from the field. Wingmate is also evocative of air force tactical operations, where your wingmate or wingman has your back covered and is there to ensure that a pilot has an extra set of eyes. Similar to how groups of starlings move as one unit, organizations should do the same.
Wingmate is taking an old-school, organic approach to growing businesses with a simple, reliable, and robust platform. The company’s success has been driven by its focus on empowering clients, frontline staff, and field sales teams.
What is your magic sauce?
Simplicity and a customer-centric approach. So many software companies sell the dream but not the people to bring it to life. We focus on simplicity and adoption so that our clients can successfully utilize our software to drive timely and high-impact results.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
Wingmate will inspire every service-driven business to rethink CRM. We will be the CRM of choice for those looking for a simpler alternative that makes Sales and Service a team sport across their entire organization.
We currently have clients across North America and Australia. Our next goal is to build presence in the European markets.
Our position in the market as a Simple CRM and Lead generation tool exists to serve the largest industry; the service industry. Loads of these Firms have ERP systems but no tangible strategy to track and accelerate their prospecting efforts as a collaborative team.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
Growing awareness organically. In the face of fierce competition like SalesForce and Dynamics, sometimes it’s about getting to our customers first to save them time, money, and headaches. Given the competition’s large marketing budgets, sometimes they aren’t always the best fit, but they’re first to mind with our prospects. That’s why we are inspiring and often challenging organizations to rethink their definition of CRM.
How can people get involved?
Any company with vehicles on the road, i.e. a frontline service team, an outside sales team, etc., can benefit from Wingmate. Alternatively, those stuck prospecting in spreadsheets or sick of an overbuilt, overpriced, and under-utilized CRM should get in touch. If interested in learning more, visit www.wingmateapp.com or call 888-850-7190.