Our Approach

We started Coast in 2018 with you in mind. Since there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to how our customers operate their businesses, we set out to build a tool that was flexible enough to match your individual operations. The end result is an adaptable software that allows you to set up your maintenance management system your way.

With Coast, customization isn’t complicated. You can adapt our software as much or as little as you want to easily complement your internal processes. Not only is it easy to get your management system set up quickly, but it also makes implementation and team adoption a breeze since you can tailor the software to your company’s existing workflows and terminology. Plus, your company can easily scale with Coast since there are more adaptable fields and workflows to add as your business grows.

Designed to be intuitive, Coast looks and feels like an app you already use every day. Custom views let users create personalized dashboards to see which work orders need attention — all from a mobile device. User permissions gives managers control of what their team sees to keep it simple and straightforward. Adaptable workspaces allow you to develop workflows that match your business’ exact needs, whether that be tracking service contracts, damage claims or access to lockboxes. And all maintenance data is stored in one centralized location, making it easy for businesses to measure and improve their strategies.

In short, Coast adapts to you, not the other way around. That means you can focus on what matters most — keeping your operations running smoothly.

Our Story

Our Team

We are a smaller team — but a very experienced one that only continues to grow.

We have been lucky to surround ourselves with great individuals. Everyone on our team is exceptionally talented in their respective fields, and this statement extends to our advisors. From an operating perspective, each person has been at small startups and seen success (acquisitions) to building bigger companies.

Our Team:

  • Pascal Balthrop – Staff Software Engineer and previously senior web developer @ about.me and Broadly, formerly lead singer of Balthrop, Alabama
  • Jacob Evans – Sales Development Representative and previously BDR @ Promevo, a Google partner
  • Jessie Fetterling – Content Marketing Manager and previously Director of Editorial Operations @ Big Edition and Granite Media
  • Nathan Fitzsimmons – Staff Software Engineer and previously Staff Frontend Engineer @ Standard AI, Bevy and about.me
  • Kyle Hughes – Staff Software Engineer and previously Senior Engineer @ Robinhood and Amazon
  • Miwa Ikemiya – Co-founder and Chief Design Officer and previously Chief Design Officer @ Townsquared, Researcher @ Microsoft Research
  • Tanner James – Account Executive and previously Account Executive @ Podium, Sales Training Manager @ Sears Home Services
  • Reid Knight – Staff Software Engineer and previously Software Engineer @ Copper Banking, Stripe and Curalate
  • Rich Kong – Customer Success and previously Customer Success Executive @ Locad
  • Brian McCleerey – Sales Development Representative and previously Paralegal @ the Law Office of John Duggan, Sales Specialist @ Westside Bicycle
  • Aidan McEntee – Strategic Account Executive and previously Personal Trainer @ Chico Sports Club
  • Nicolas Musumeci – Sales Development Representative and previously Senior Sales Development Representative @ Workable
  • Torger Philosophos – Head of Sales and previously VP of Sales @ Way and Landing
  • Rohit Prakash – Co-founder and CEO and previously Co-founder and CEO @ Townsquared, MD/PhD @ Stanford
  • Zachary Sesti – Lead Architect and previously Chief Software Architect @ NS8, Chief Architect @ Onu, Software Development Engineer @ Amazon
  • Russell Taga – Head of Engineering and previously Engineering Director @ Fitbit, COO @ Coin (acquired by Fitbit), VP of Engineering @ HotelTonight (acquired by Airbnb)
  • Landon Tracy – Senior Sales Leader and previously Senior Sales Manager @ Limble CMMS
  • Sam Welch – Staff Software Engineer and previously Software Engineer @ Chewy, Facebook, Latch and Amazon
  • Warren Wu – Head of Growth and previously Growth Lead @ UpKeep
  • Joyce Young – Customer Success Manager and previously Community Manager @ Reedsy

Our Advisors:

  • Mike Sippey – Former VP Product at Twitter
  • Scott Cook – Founder of Intuit
Coast team - silly

Our Philosophy

We serve business owners, managers and their staff by bringing all of their maintenance operations into one place.

Imagine your favorite Italian restaurant. The team’s communication and maintenance information is scattered between group text message chains, spreadsheets and other single utility apps, making it frustrating for their employees to contact people and find information when they need it. Similar to Slack, we’ve become the nervous system for these types of businesses, but with one main difference: We’re focused on the desk-less workforce and SMB-centric tools through mobile. Using Coast, the employees at your favorite Italian restaurant can now easily share checklists, communicate and track equipment maintenance all in one place.

As for small businesses, we know them well. Our co-founders, Rohit Prakash and Miwa Ikemiya, spent years building hyper-local networks for small businesses at their previous company, Townsquared. They essentially built Coast to serve members of the Townsquared community because they listened to what customers were asking for.

As such, customer feedback is crucial to helping us succeed. Since our users depend on us for their daily operations, we always put their needs first. Customer feedback enters into our product roadmap in three main ways:

  1. Direct support chats (ongoing). Individual users can seamlessly report bugs, give feedback, request features and ask us questions. Everything they report is funneled to the appropriate avenue and helps us determine what new features or updates to prioritize.
  2. Live interviews and conversations (quarterly for engineers). We maintain close relationships with our customers, many of whom have helped shape our product from the beginning. Whether talking in person, through video or on the phone, we listen to their pain points, concerns and aspirations. We develop extreme empathy for our users and are always building things that will have the greatest impact on their daily lives.
  3. User testing (continuously running tests). We use UserTesting to source real people based on criteria we specify to answer questions as they interact with our prototypes. We quickly spin up tests, run A/B tests to get early impressions, flag usability issues and do market research through this tool. This helps us run through several product iterations before it gets into the development process.