Featured Founder: David Mauerer of Convee

Welcome to our Featured Founder series, where you’ll meet startup founders from Tampa-St. Petersburg who are building and scaling their ventures to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges. We interviewed David Mauerer of Convee, an app that makes returns convenient.

What were you doing previously and what inspired you to launch your company?

I was working at Teamwork Commerce that built retail software for mid-market/enterprise brands. Did that for over a decade! On my way to work each day, my wife would ask me to drop off the returns each day. I hated doing it, it was so time-consuming and just annoying. I wanted a driver to just come to my doorstep and do it for me

What pain point is your company solving? What gets you excited to go to work every day?

Name the biggest challenge you faced in the process of launching the company. How did you overcome it?

I think it was a leap to quit my job and do this on my own. It’s been eye-opening but I think I made the right decision (I guess we’ll find out)! In the end, I had to scratch that itch.

Where do you see your company headed next?

Give us a tactical piece of advice that you’d share with another founder just starting out.

Do as many user interviews before building your product, also figure out a solid distribution strategy early. We have achieved decent word-of-mouth but it lacks true virality in that the user’s friends don’t download/use the app immediately (that’s partly due to our product). Also, use your friends/connections/anyone to put your idea through its paces with real $.

Why Tampa Bay?