JJUMPP began less than two years ago inside a small office at Sleepy Ridge Golf Course in Orem, UT. This sounds like the best startup life — code a little in the morning, practice putting in the early afternoon, answer emails after lunch, play 18 holes in late afternoon, rinse, repeat. People talk about work/life balance all the time and it doesn't get more balanced than staggering software creation with six-iron blasts.
Based on the evidence I have, however, the employees of JJUMPP have spent too much time working and less time golfing. Which is good for business and growth — Arthur Ventures has agreed to invest $3 million in JJUMPP, now nearly 50 employees working out of a new Thanksgiving Point office — but isn't ideal for fielding four-person scramble teams. You can't win them all, I guess.
“If I’m a small business owner, I hire a marketing agency because I don’t know how to do additional marketing," said Chad Ingram, founder and CEO of JJUMPP. "And because I don’t know how to do it, even though I’ve hired an agency, I have no idea what they are doing. So I thought of creating software that allows business owners to do it themselves. Or if they do hire somebody else, they know what they are doing.”
Prior to JJUMPP, Ingram had started an online marketing agency that focused on SEO and paid advertising. After selling his shares in the company, Ingram wanted to create a marketing platform for small business owners that would help them take control of their online image. Rather than building a platform with hundreds of features but little applicable value, JJUMPP began by concentrating solely on features that small business owners would use.
“We look at what is essential to a small business owner and focus on building that, as opposed to going very deep in any one vertical,” said Ingram. “It allows you to take control of your online presence and let you know what the general sentiment of your business is online.”
JJUMPP's platform is comprised of four different branches: reviews, social media, listing/distribution/publication, and data/analytics. The funding from Arthur Ventures will help to expand their offerings and continue growing, something Ingram envisions happening sooner rather than later.
“In the next year we want to triple our sales, triple our customer base, and really invest in the product while making the best possible user experience,” said Ingram.
