Back40

Challenge

Dealerships lose significant time and productivity to fragmented, manual vehicle preparation workflows. Staff have no visibility into vehicle status, tasks aren’t prioritized, and the process of getting a vehicle from intake to sale is riddled with inefficiency. Back40 was founded to solve this — but translating that insight into a viable product required specialized expertise in both automotive dealer operations and modern platform architecture.

The additional constraint: integration with Dealertrack and other inventory systems that dealer operations depend on. Getting that right was non-negotiable for any serious market entry.

Approach

Started in a strategic advisory capacity, then took on a more active technical leadership role after Back40 secured funding from UB Cultivator. Worked closely with the founder to transform the initial concept into a complete product definition with clear scope, prioritized features, and a development plan that could be executed in a startup environment.

Designed cloud architecture with scalability across different dealership sizes and configurations, and led the technical team through delivery — keeping the focus on solving real operational problems rather than over-engineering for hypothetical scale.

Results

Delivered a working proof of concept in three months, integrated with dealership inventory systems, and under the initial budget. The platform converted loose manual processes into structured digital workflows — giving staff real-time visibility into vehicle status and task ownership.

“The technical leadership transformed our initial concept into a viable product with clear market value.” — Back40 Founder