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The three-person CarcodeSMS team won an Edmunds.com hackathon down in Santa Monica, Calif., earlier this month and took home the $20,000 grand prize after beating out 12 other competitors.

There’s plenty of room for innovation in the car-buying space, and one Seattle startup thinks it has a great solution.

Founded in 2011, CarcodeSMS gives car salespeople a phone number that helps them text and communicate with buyers more efficiently. The startup also offers an app that dealership staff can use to manage communication with customers and streamline the entire buying process from start to finish.

“By giving dealers a SMS-capable number to put on their mobile site and an app to respond to customers, we allow the customer to initiate a text conversation before ever going to the dealer lot and meeting a salesman,” said CEO and co-founder Nick Gorton, who grew up working at his family car dealership.

The three-person team just won an Edmunds.com hackathon down in Santa Monica, Calif., earlier this month and took home the $20,000 grand prize after beating out 12 other competitors.

We caught up with Gorton to learn more about CarcodeSMS for this installment of Startup Spotlight, a regular GeekWire feature.

Explain what you do so our parents can understand it: “We allow customers to initiate a SMS text conversation with a car dealership from the dealership’s mobile website.”

Inspiration hit us when: “We spend a lot of time out of the office and in dealerships. We were seeing customers and salesman texting frequently during the sales process but only after customers had been to the dealership and met a salesman.

By giving dealers a SMS-capable number to put on their mobile site and an app to respond to customers, we allow the customer to initiate a text conversation before ever going to the dealer lot and meeting a salesman.”

VC, Angel or Bootstrap: “Bootstrap. We have been blessed as a startup to have modest revenue from Day 1. This has allowed us to keep growing without the need for outside investment.”

CarcodeSMS CEO and co-founder Nick
CarcodeSMS CEO and co-founder Nick Gorton.

Our ‘secret sauce’ is: “The team. In any startup there are dozens of challenges that seem impossible at times or all at the same time. Having a great team that works well together, even when things seem dim, can make all the difference in breaking through the next challenge.”

The smartest move we’ve made so far: “We entered a hackathon that Edmunds.com was holding and took home the grand prize of $20,000! At the event we received some great press that has given us incredible momentum.”

The biggest mistake we’ve made so far: “Early in the company life we were selling directly to individual dealerships and that is very hard to scale. As we grow and learn, we have formed partnerships with existing platforms that dealers use and that has made scaling much more efficient.”

Would you rather have Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg or Bezos in your corner: “Bezos — the pace at which Amazon iterates is amazing and is an example for all startups.”

carcodesms22Our world domination strategy starts when: “Well, the strategy is in place. We will know it is working when we partner with a large automotive classified site like Edmunds.com or Autotrader.com to incorporate our SMS plugin into their mobile listings.”

Rivals should fear us because: “Our team’s intense focus on trying to solve one problem. Shopping for a car should be fun, but instead it kind of sucks for most people. The auto industry is a huge part of the U.S. economy but one that is probably underserved by tech startups.”

We are truly unique because: “We have a lot of experience in the auto industry and have a lot of love for it. There are not too many people who wake up thinking about how to make life easier for car salesman.”

The biggest hurdle we’ve overcome is: “Our team is distributed between Seattle and Ann Arbor. That distance requires the team to be extra organized and disciplined.”

What’s the one piece of advice you’d give to other entrepreneurs just starting out: “Seek great mentors that really understand your space. We have been blessed to get advice from some very smart entrepreneurs. However, the advice from the ones that are focused on the auto industry has been invaluable.”

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