Frontline Insights: David Boice from Team Velocity Shares Business Wisdom

Self-made and innovative, David is a pioneer in auto industry technology. Throughout his impressive career, he has owned numerous companies in the automotive, tech, RV, marine and real estate sectors. Boice co-founded two of the largest tech and consulting companies (AutoMark and CyberCar) in the automotive trade, with an enterprise value of $200 million. He co-founded his first technology company, AutoMark, with his father at 22, selling in 2000 as part of one of the largest technology transactions in the automotive industry. In 2008, he broke through a challenging economy and co-founded Team Velocity, a leading marketing technology provider serving the automotive industry.

We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company

David Boice: I founded my first company, AutoMark, at 22, and have spent my entire career in the retail automotive space. My partners and I built some of the first websites for car dealers back in the dotcom boom in the 90’s, bringing dealer inventory online for the first time. Over the last 30 years, the industry has seen hundreds of new technologies enter the industry, but over time, this has created a fragmented system of siloed solutions that don’t work together. Most car dealers partner with dozens of vendors to execute various aspects of their retailing strategy: one company to build their website, another for digital advertising, someone else for email marketing, and a slew of providers for online chat, digital retailing, service scheduling, and more. The challenge is that while these companies excel in their individual areas, their technologies aren’t integrated, resulting in conflicting messaging, a fragmented view of the customer journey, and a poor shopping experience for the customer. At Team Velocity, we’ve developed Apollo, an AI-powered customer experience platform that integrates all major retailing strategies into a unified system. Apollo manages the dealer’s website and key applications—such as chat, digital retailing, credit pre-qualification, and service scheduling. It also automates digital advertising campaigns and handles targeted marketing activities, ensuring a cohesive and efficient experience for both dealers and customers. Plus, because everything is completely integrated, Apollo can connect every touchpoint in the entire customer journey. It’s the fastest-growth technology in the industry, currently utilized by more than 20 OEMs and nearly 2000 dealerships in the US.

If you were in an elevator with Warren Buffett, how would you describe your company, your services or products? What makes your company different from others? What is your company’s biggest strength?

David Boice: Hi Mr. Buffett. I heard you currently still drive your 2014 Cadillac XTS – my guess is that’s because you’d probably rather go to the dentist than a car dealership. My company solved that and helps make the car buying process way easier. You have an Amazon Prime account, right? If you’re like me you probably love how easy it is to shop and buy things quickly. Amazon knows your purchase history and makes personalized recommendations. My company brings this level of convenience and personalization to the car buying and servicing experience.

Quiet quitting, The Great Resignation, is an ongoing trend causing many businesses to struggle to keep talent engaged and motivated. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued, and misunderstood in the workplace. In your experience, what keeps employees happy? And how are you adapting to the current shift we see?

David Boice: The transition to remote work during and after Covid has significantly impacted work culture and employer-employee relationships. We were fortunate to have 15 years to build an exceptional culture based on a concept we call “TEAMS”. Teamwork, Empowerment, Accountability, Mutual Respect and Service are at the heart of everything we do. This culture was deeply indoctrinated in our organization pre-Covid and has allowed us to thrive in a remote environment better than I had ever imagined. We have no turnover on our management team and a below-average turnover rate compared to others in our industry. While most companies’ culture is surface-level, our management team lives, eats and breathes the TEAMS mantra and it has become a ripple effect throughout our entire organization.

Online business keeps on surging higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for the year to come and how are you capitalizing on the tidal wave?

David Boice: Consumer expectations are higher than ever before. They expect businesses to know them better, help them faster, and astonish them everywhere. According to Google, 95% of consumers conduct online research during the car buying process and most begin their shopping process online before ever visiting a dealership. Historically, consumers distrust car dealerships, mainly because they feel like they aren’t going to get a fair price, so online shopping is key in the customer journey. If we look at online retailers like Carvana, where their stock is soaring in the last year, it’s safe to assume that online vehicle retailing is here to stay. We are capitalizing on the tidal wave by investing in new development projects that improve online sales transactions. AI offers countless opportunities to remove friction in the car-buying and servicing processes and we have an ambitious product roadmap to support growing customer demands.

Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as THE real challenge right now?

David Boice: Team Velocity has quickly become the fastest-growing technology provider in the industry. In 2023, we saw 81% growth in website adoption and are growing at a rate that will double the size of our business over the next 2 years. Scaling a business growing as rapidly as ours can be challenging if you don’t have the right support model in place so we continue to invest in our operations to ensure we maintain our impressive retention rate. We recently opened a bi-lingual Level 1 support center in El Paso, Texas that will soon become home to 60 new associates.

In your experience, what tends to be the most underestimated part of running a company? Can you share an example?

David Boice: Threats to data and security. When you are a tech company housing significant amounts of PII for your customers, you are under constant threats of cyber attacks. The best example is the recent CDK outage which shut down half the industry for almost a month costing dealers significant losses in revenue.

On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?

David Boice: If I had any business superpower, it would be superspeed. Technology advancements happen rapidly, especially with how far AI has come in the last 2 years. One of the things I love most about our company is the passion and tenacity of our product team to push the limits of what’s possible and continue to innovate. But, building a new product doesn’t happen overnight. Development is the number one thing we invest in, and I am always impressed with our team’s speed to market, but there is so much more we want to do to support our clients and their business goals.

What does “success” in 2024 mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision

David Boice: Success in 2024 would be for us to finish the second half of the year with the same trajectory as the first half of the year. We have two major partnership contracts that we are in the process of securing that will be of tremendous value to our dealer customers. One of my favorite principles of our TEAMS core values is the “S”, which stands for “Serve”. Success is being able to continue serving our dealers with the best technology and support possible. When our dealers win, we win, and we are releasing some impressive new solutions this fall that will reinforce the power of an integrated platform.

Source: ValiantCEO