(Europe) Paul McCarthy, Snapfix Co-founder, CEO and Chairman, speaks with Marc Johnson, Founder of TeamCentral, in a video interview about Snapfix as a platform, its business, the company’s plans to leverage data, and the challenges of building the platform.

Snapfix is a platform for managing and maintaining buildings that combines photos, tags, and messaging. According to McCarthy, the company decided to focus on hospitality businesses like hotels, where teams can communicate effectively using pictures of areas that require attention. Through two photos, the location is communicated to the maintenance and management teams, who can then prioritize and progress the project, he explains.

McCarthy says that his interest in founding Snapfix stemmed from his background in enterprise software development and managing commercial and residential buildings as part of a family business. He notes that the primary motivators included the number of smartphone users and the increasing power of smartphones.

He adds that the product is driven by simplicity — which is difficult to achieve – and that the company wants to only focus on what people will use.

McCarthy envisions Snapfix’s future as a data analytics company that captures and analyzes data to provide more value to customers. He adds that every customer typically has an established system, and Snapfix is designed using APIs to pull relevant information. It aims to do its job irrespective of the front end.

McCarthy cites the realization that the traffic light is the global symbol of teamwork as his first "aha" moment for the company. The second was hearing end-user feedback from a hotel staff member who could communicate efficiently despite not having English as a first language.

In terms of usability, he says, the platform is more of a network solution like WhatsApp or Telegram. It is designed to be scalable from a one-person operation up to tens of thousands of users. The product roadmap focuses on task management, a building punch-list system, and an asset management module.

The implementation process involves a demo, a trial, and onboarding, which can take less than an hour or a few months, depending on the level of integration.

Sharing advice for entrepreneurs, McCarthy mentions the following:

• A lot depends on the team.
• If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not learning fast enough.

He also reveals that Snapfix has worked with a virtual global team since the beginning. The software development team is based in India, the sales and marketing teams are in Ireland, and the company will soon have a team in Argentina.

McCarthy visualizes a future where people with smartphones equal smart buildings, there is no need for rewiring or heavy systems, and everything is in the cloud.

CDO Magazine appreciates Paul McCarthy for sharing his insights and data success stories with our global community.