{"id":8234,"date":"2021-12-16T20:14:15","date_gmt":"2021-12-16T20:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ecm.eng.auburn.edu\/wp\/emag\/?p=8234"},"modified":"2022-03-29T13:15:29","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T13:15:29","slug":"convenient-convenience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ecm.eng.auburn.edu\/wp\/emag\/?p=8234","title":{"rendered":"Convenient Convenience"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Mechanical engineering seniors Mit Patel<\/a> and Daniel Mazur<\/a> walked across the stage in December. They don\u2019t have anything lined up. They haven\u2019t received any offers. They\u2019re not even in the job market.<\/span><\/p>\n

They\u2019re adding to it with SwiftSku<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, the company the childhood friends started as a big data solution for non-franchised convenience stores currently has 16 full-time employees \u2014 half in product development, half in sales and support. That\u2019s what a few million in funding and prize money will do for you.<\/span><\/p>\n

In April, after four days of elevator pitches and three finalist rounds, the judges of the 21st Rice Business Plan Competition, the largest and richest student startup competition in the world, deemed SwiftSku the best out of 54 participating companies. It was the first time an Auburn University team has swept the awards at the global competition, through which entrepreneurs have raised more than $3 billion \u2014 nearly half a million of which went to Mazur and Patel.<\/span><\/p>\n

SwiftSku won the $350,000 GOOSE Capital Investment Grand Prize, $50,000 Business Angel Minority Association Investment Prize, $25,000 RG Advisory Partners\u2019 CFO Consulting Prize, $25,000 Tiger Cage Competition, the digital category of the Mercury Fund Elevator Pitch Competition, $10,000 Baker Botts\u2019 prize and third place in the Anbarci Family People\u2019s Choice Awards.<\/span><\/p>\n

Add that to the investment haul earned earlier this year through Y Combinator, a world-renowned startup accelerator that has helped launch companies such as Airbnb, DoorDash and Dropbox, and the 2017 Hoover High School graduates now boast $3.2 million in funding for a company not even two years old.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Mit Patel demonstrates the advantage of SwiftSku on a Verifone Ruby2 Point-of-Sale system.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The idea for SwiftSku first came to Patel in 2019. His parents had worked in the convenience store industry for years. He\u2019d spent plenty of long afternoons after school alongside them. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI noticed a lot of inefficiencies and the potential to save countless hours by using technology to optimize their manual processes,\u201d Patel said. \u201cI reached out to Daniel and said, \u2018There are all these different problems going on and we\u2019ve got the skillset to fix them for people.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Operating out of an office inside Auburn University\u2019s New Venture Accelerator stocked with enough energy drinks and protein shakes to fuel a football team, SwiftSku now serves more than 400 stores by offering a centralized hub to analyze scan data from customer purchases, a customer loyalty program and business analytics. The platform also offers a solution to problems plaguing point-of-sale data tracking in the U.S. <\/span><\/p>\n

Despite independent convenience stores \u2014 or C-stores as they\u2019re commonly known \u2014 making up one-third of American retail commerce, transaction data is deleted after 90 days, forcing owners at the end of each workday to print lengthy summary reports that frequently reach 15 feet or longer. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWith our solution, this priceless transaction data that represents 3.1% of America\u2019s GDP is preserved,\u201d Patel said. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe help owners manage their stores with our back-office solution that lets them manage their inventory, price book and even remotely manage their fuel pumps.”<\/span><\/p>\n

And they can do it all in the palm of their hand \u2014 that, Mazur said, is what gets them. Case in point: the latest National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) Show. Held in early October in Chicago\u2019s massive McCormick Center, the huge annual C-store industry event features everything from full-sized demos of the latest car wash technology to unreleased energy drinks. <\/span><\/p>\n

Anything and everything that you\u2019ll soon start seeing at a 7-Eleven, Speedway or a Kwik Trip was on prominent display, promoted with signs, with models, with mascots. <\/span><\/p>\n

The SwiftSku guys just brought their phones.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Mechanical engineering seniors Daniel Mazur (left) and Mit Patel pose with the mascot
for Sour Patch Kids candy at the 2021 NACS (National Association of Convenience Stores)
Show. The childhood friends co-founded SwiftSku in 2019.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cYeah, we would tell owners a little bit about what we can offer,\u201d Mazur said, \u201cbut when we show them the mobile app interface on our phone, and how many complicated things that they can do without a computer \u2014 well, for them, that\u2019s the biggest thing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The multilingual thing doesn\u2019t hurt, either. <\/span><\/p>\n

Part of how the company bridges data gaps between brands, retailers and consumers is by bridging language barriers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of the 153,000 convenience stores in the United States, 96,000 are independently owned; of those, 93% are operated by Indian immigrants, such as Patel\u2019s parents. <\/span><\/p>\n

Patel and Mazur, both first-generation Americans (Mazur\u2019s parents emigrated from Ukraine) developed SwiftSku to serve this majority by providing customer support in Hindi, Gujarati and English.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHaving things explained in their native language is also another huge selling point,\u201d said Patel, whose computer monitor bears a note reading \u201cI AM OBSESSED WITH CUSTOMER SATISFACTION.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The note on Mazur\u2019s monitor? <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI AM OBSESSED WITH GROWTH,\u201d it reads.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNow that our fundraising is over, we\u2019re excited to continue building solutions for mom and pop shops, empowering them to compete against the Goliath chains of the industry,\u201d Mazur said.<\/span><\/p>\n