HomeCloud Technologies LLC Sprouts from Crozet

0
1626
Clayton Kenerson
Clayton Kenerson

A business aimed at helping people solve their home technology problems launched from a townhouse in Crozet last summer and now finds that demand for its help is causing it to expand rapidly.

“We want to help consumers with technology devices in their homes,” said Clayton Kenerson, a co-founder of HomeCloud Technologies LLC. “There are so many more now—not just computers or game consoles. Now there’s the ‘Internet of things.’ Normal-type things are getting connected to the Internet, like a toothbrush that reports to mom when a child brushes his teeth. Or your grandfather needs to take his medication and when the bottle gets opened relatives get notified. You buy four different brands of things and they are using different standards. They don’t always work together.

“Now we’re helping a lot of businesses too,” said Kenerson, so much so that they are thinking they may have to change their name. “We make house calls or at business offices, and we make hardware and software repairs. We can handle a lot of different problems.”

Raised in Tidewater, Kenerson is a College of William and Mary graduate who majored in finance and Chinese. He went to work for a company doing data analysis and began learning about technologies.

“We started with the idea last year and launched in July. We exceeded our six-month revenue goals and hiring didn’t turn out to be a problem. The business market has been better than we expected. It’s working out really well,” he said.

“We’re trying to solve the ‘geek squad problem’ [where a customer discovers he needs to get more than one expert to help with his trouble]. People call about one problem and then they bring up other ones. Our people can solve lots of problems at one time. We’re charging for time. While you have our person, they work on all your problems.

“We work on any make. We’re ‘vendor neutral.’ We help people with specific purchases they need to make and we give honest advice about what would work best. We have some vendor connections that allow us to offer discounts.

“Crozet is my roots now,” he said. “We’re trying to serve Crozet and Charlottesville and the surrounding area. We started with the idea that Crozet is the test market and now we’re studying how to expand. We’re looking for a general manager and we’re building a data management system for the company. We’re probably going to expand in the state when we think we can generate quality control.

“The most common problems we see are viruses and connectivity issues where the signal gets dropped. For business, we see data management issues, information being on a different platform than it needs to be to be integrated and for back-up security.

Subcontractors, including a programmer, handle most of the issues that arise with customers. “We’ve found great people. IT people usually don’t like marketing and getting business. We’re connecting the people with the problem to the problem solvers. Everyone’s happy.”

You can reach HomeCloud Technologies at 434-326-1997 or 434-326-3011.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here