Although Evosus Software, a business management software company headquartered in Vancouver, doesn’t serve every industry, the company is the number one business software program in three very “niche” industries, according to Evosus President and CEO Dan McManus.
Evosus provides their business management software to businesses in the hot tub industry, the swimming pool industry and the hearth/fireplace industry.
“That means if you have a pool store or a hearth/fireplace shop and you’re not on Evosus software, you want to be,” McManus said. “These industries are really complex in their inventory, sales, etc. A lot of these guys end up on five different software programs, we tell them to put everything on one piece of software with Evosus.”
Evosus, which just celebrated 17 years in business, also recently just held their fifth User Conference, Evosus Engage!, in August. McManus said this year’s conference had about 200 attendees from all over North America. The conference was held over two days at the Hilton in Vancouver, and showcased the theme “Go Big,” focusing on teaching clients how to scale up their business.
“We have clients that have gone from $100,000 in sales to $2 million in sales,” McManus said. “We have one company in the hearth industry that has gone from $2 million to $10 million in sales. If your company is able to get on one program, it allows you to go big and scale up your business; you need to have a platform like Evosus. This year’s conference was the best conference we’ve had yet, it was very well received. Looking ahead, we’re aiming to start holding a regional conference in the Northwest.”
McManus said he originally joined Evosus back when the company had one single customer – Oregon Hot Tub.
“Three boot-strapping entrepreneurs got it (the company) up and running, they built up the software for a couple of years,” McManus said. “Oregon Hot Tub was our very first customer. At this point now we have 32 employees, we’re growing about 30 percent year over year, we’re debt free, we’re profitable and we’re homegrown here in Vancouver.”
Although McManus said they originally incorporated the company in Portland, they quickly after incorporated in Washington. Their office is now currently located in the Hazel Dell area of Vancouver.
After starting out with Oregon Hot Tub as their first and only customer, McManus said that Evosus has grown to a point where “if they’re a player in these industries (hot tub, pool, hearth), they’re on Evosus.”
“Aqua Quip, Olympic Hot Tub; on the East Coast, New England Spas,” McManus said. “In the hearth industry, Napoleon Grills … if they’re top dogs in these industries, they’re on Evosus.”
Software in general is an industry that continues to gain ground and grow in the Clark County area.
“Software is one of the top five industry sectors with the biggest opportunity for growth in the region as identified in CREDC’s Economic Development Plan,” said Max Ault, interim president of the Columbia River Economic Development Council (CREDC). “The success of software companies like Evosus continue to strengthen the software ecosystem — propelling the economic vitality of Clark County. Software sector jobs are critical to our economy as these occupations are among the highest income earners in Clark County, with an average salary of $102,545. As we look at future growth, data points to over 100 new potential job openings in Clark County each year for the next decade.”
The biggest change in the software industry that McManus said Evosus has been experiencing recently is the “mammoth change as the world moves to the cloud.”
“The classic way it’s been for years is that it wasn’t just the software – you have to buy the server, the hardware, etc.,” McManus said. “Nobody wants to buy that anymore. People want to log in to a browser and go. We’re right in the middle of the change; moving to the cloud is the biggest industry change. As we move to the cloud, it also opens up new market opportunities for us.”
Although Evosus hasn’t yet completely moved to the cloud, McManus said they currently offer a kind of “hybrid solution.”
“For those who don’t want to buy the server, we offer a hosted solution where we take care of all that,” he said. “Where we’re going over the next couple of years, we’ll be giving our clients an option where they can pull up a Chrome browser, log in and go. We want to move everyone to a full-on web cloud experience.”
