Austin Bond
Founder, RetailGenie
I grew a Bedzzz Express franchise to 28 stores before I sold the business. Along the way I lived every operational headache this industry produces: the Sunday-night commission spreadsheets, the "where's my delivery?" calls stacking up at the front desk, the sale that slipped because the software couldn't keep up with the conversation happening on the floor.
The software we ran those stores on was built decades ago, priced by quote, and changed only when a consultant billed for it. Every year I told myself somebody would build the modern version. Nobody did. So after I exited the stores, I built it myself.
RetailGenie is the system I wished I'd had on my own floors: describe a sale in plain English and the invoice writes itself, stock reserves, the delivery schedules, and the customer gets a tracking link that keeps them off your phone lines. Commissions accrue automatically. The whole thing runs in a browser and costs a published price of $249 per store, per month, because I still remember what it felt like to budget against a quote.
The honest part
RetailGenie is new. We're in our pilot phase, which means no long list of reference customers yet. I'd rather tell you that here than have you discover it in a sales call. What early retailers get instead: a pilot rate locked for life, a founder who answers the phone, and a bring-your-own-accounts model (Helcim for payments, Twilio for texting, QuickBooks for the books) that means the accounts your business depends on stay yours no matter what happens to us. Month-to-month, full data export, no lock-in.