2023 MUST HAVE TECH TOOLS

Justin Silva says he’s always been at the intersection of blue-collar work and hightech, so it’s no wonder that his brand-new invention has been such a hit with the landscaping industry.

Back in 2017, he was helping a friend get his fleet connected, but all the solution providers he found were trying to lock him into a three-year contract and make him pay for hardware up front. Not knowing a lot about GPS tracking, Justin started doing his own research and discovered there really wasn’t a good provider that offered an easy-to-use system with good software and flexible service at a good price.

“So I decided to start my own,” he says. “We spent a couple of years in research and development building the hardware, platform and all the applications.”

Then, in 2019, Momentum IoT was born. For those non-techies, IoT stands for the “Internet of Things,” which are items with sensors, software and other technology that connect and exchange data over the Internet.

Justin Silva holding a Toolie

Momentum’s first product was a telematic system for work trucks.

“There’s a real value in spending $15 a month to track an asset that’s worth $20,000 and above,” says Justin. “We started with one customer and now have 3,500. We really struck a chord with companies, especially landscaping and construction companies.”

He realized there also had to be value in tracking smaller assets, like weed -eaters and lawnmowers. So, earlier this year, he invented and built the Toolie, a low-cost, bluetooth-enabled tracking device described as a “Fitbit for tools.” After the initial announcement, the technology sold out in three hours.

"There’s some value in knowing where your equipment is, but there’s even more value in knowing what that equipment is actually doing on the job site."

“The Toolie not only keeps equipment from getting lost or left behind on job sites, it allows us to show the customer a range of data, like who’s the most productive employee, who are the time thieves and what job sites create the best margins.”

Justin says the technology has been especially helpful in the landscaping sector, where 90 percent of the job site is represented by a moving engine and where crews visit multiple jobs each day. “The data has been incredible and offers much more than a dot on a map,” he explains.

When Justin worked in construction, he saw that expensive rented equipment often sat unused at a job site, and he witnessed idle workers delaying the project while adding to the cost. The Toolie can help solve both these issues by measuring the engine run time.

“There aren’t great ways to measure time theft except for having a field supervisor, but with multiple crews at multiple job sites, they can only be one place at a time,” Justin says. “But the Toolie allows you to see everything all at once 24/7 from anywhere in the world.”

The Toolie also separates the best employees from the slackers. “A landscaping or construction company can see that employee one is logging 30 percent more engine hours than employee two, and if they both do the same thing, there’s a problem there,” Justin says.

The data might indicate that the employee is stealing time or perhaps the employee needs more training to work smarter and more efficiently. Other insights can increase the quality of the job. For instance, if an employee on a construction site always runs the shop vac last to clean up, the supervisor knows if that critical step was missed. In addition, companies can use the data to make more accurate estimates.

“If you’re a landscaping company and you’re doing the same maintenance work for a client each week, it becomes very predictable,” he says. “We can help assess and optimize the productivity of these job sites.”

Momentum is currently developing data logs and algorithms that show how long a crew typically takes at a standard job site.

“On the Momentum dashboard, it will display a progress bar and calculated estimated time until the crew is done,” Justin explains. “When a customer calls and asks when the crew can get to the next job site, the dispatcher has real information at their fingertips.”

Justin says he looks forward to growing the business and getting more feedback from the landscaping industry.

"We’re just going to keep solving problems."

For more information, visit www.momentumiot.com. There is no minimum order, no hardware cost and no long-term contract. Packages start at $15/month.