Why I Created AssetJay

Before AssetJay, I ran a smart home platform company. We built software that connected IoT devices (sensors, gateways, smart plugs, wall sockets) and at our peak we were about 25 people. We had a lot of hardware. Not just the usual laptops and screens, but hundreds of IoT devices across various stages of deployment. And we had essentially no idea what we owned.

The problem with not tracking anything

When I think back to it now, it's remarkable how little we knew about our own equipment. We didn't know who had which laptop, what type it was, how many screens someone was using, or what peripherals they had. On the office equipment side, this was messy but survivable. The real cost was on the IoT hardware.

We'd order duplicates of devices we already had, because nobody could tell you what was in stock. Sensors and gateways would be lying around the office, and there was no way to know whether something was deployed for a customer, being used for testing, or just sitting in a drawer after someone put it down and forgot about it.

We also had multiple laptops sitting in a cupboard at any given time. It was easier to buy a new one for a new hire than to figure out whether we had a usable spare. We probably did.

Spreadsheets work until they don't

I tried a spreadsheet several times, but couldn't make it stick. It was too much boring work, and there were always a bunch more pressing things to deal with, especially when people needed devices for testing.

A friend of mine runs a company of a similar size and tracks everything in an extensive Google Sheet. Multiple tabs, every device logged. It works for him because he loves to create systems. But it falls down if everything doesn't go through him. When he's away for a while, things that get bought don't end up in the list.

Spreadsheets for tracking only work as long as someone treats it like a part time job. I eventually wrote up why spreadsheets stop working for equipment tracking, if you want the longer version.

The things you didn't notice losing

When people left the company, we got the laptops and screens back. The big items are hard to miss. But chargers, mice, keyboards, peripherals... that stuff probably walked out the door a few times without anyone noticing. We didn't have a record of what each person had been given, so there was nothing to check against. I had no idea.

Solving a real problem

After that company, I wanted to build software again. When I was exploring ideas, I eventually came to this. Every company from a handful of employees up has this problem. But the tools out there are built for IT departments with dedicated staff and enterprise budgets. A 25-person company doesn't need a bunch of fancy systems. It needs a few equipment management basics done well.

What AssetJay is

AssetJay is equipment management for companies that don't have an IT department. The person doing the tracking is usually a founder, an office manager, or someone in ops (often the same person at smaller companies).

The idea is simple: log your equipment quickly, attach the receipts, know who has what, and get reminded before warranties expire. Adding an asset takes about 30 seconds. You can forward a purchase receipt by email and it gets parsed automatically. When someone leaves, you see everything assigned to them in one place.

I'm building it for the kind of team I used to run. Small enough that nobody's job title includes the word “IT”, but big enough that a spreadsheet stopped working several hires ago.