2017 proved to be an extraordinary year for Mingo. On the heels of an unprecedented 2016, that concluded with an Arch Grant Award from the city of St. Louis and the state of Missouri, Mingo saw a year filled with financial growth, internal expansion, and acclaim from the industrial space’s most prestigious institutions.
The year kicked off with a bang for Mingo by being featured in the AGC Manufacturing Analytics report as new emerging technology; something that brought further attention to our recently released— non-beta version — technology. This buzz likely contributed to the acquisition of additional customers that came on board at the beginning of the year.
Mingo Counts on Customers to Market Product
Mingo CEO, Bryan Sapot, has long claimed that Mingo customers will ultimately become the best marketers for the Mingo technology, and in Q2, Mingo customer, Versatech, released a comprehensive case study raving about the cost-savings and improvements in their business from leveraging the Mingo application; validating his opinion on the matter.
“We created this technology to help make our customers heroes. Mingo exists because we observed that a lot of manufacturing analytics projects ended up being expensive, lengthy, and ultimately didn’t deliver what everyone wanted or needed. Mingo is easy, affordable, and flexible enough for everyone out of the box; without additional software, hardware, or connections”, Sapot declared.
This philosophy is what led Mingo to turn customer feedback into new features that have already been implemented across all Mingo customers. “I believe the Versatech case study exemplifies why we made the technology. 100% adoption, fast implementation, and ROI they can measure in weeks, not months”.
Capital Equipment Manufacturers take a Shine to Mingo
This solution-focused approach helped Mingo secure the first capital equipment manufacturer as a customer. Capital equipment manufacturers had been an early target for Mingo; as they can benefit from using the Mingo application in a way that is different than discrete manufacturers, yet similar in approach.
“Everyone needs data from their machines. They need to know how they are working, see trends over time, and understand this data both historically and predictively. Capital equipment manufacturers need to see this for all of their machines running on customer floors; while discrete manufacturers need to see this for all of their machine cells and production lines”, Sapot shared.
Industrial Experts Want to Hear from CEO, Bryan Sapot
Sapot’s innovative approach and experience building popular new industry products led him on a tour of speaking engagements across many important manufacturing trade shows and conferences. In mid-2017, Sapot spoke at both Fabtech and Westec on the topics of OEE and the IoT; subjects he is known for helping to simplify and break down into practical applications. His presentations were featured by the events and included some of the highest turnouts for the entire conference.
Mingo Wins Again in 2017 (and Again, and Again)
However, this was just the beginning for Mingo in 2017. In the second half of the year, Mingo was chosen as a member of the highly competitive Ameren Accelerator – an accelerator program that delivers an investment to promising technologies for electric utilities and industrial companies.
As a part of the program, Mingo built a working machine learning prototype that offered significant value to the Ameren business as a means of analyzing and predicting critical event changes. This culminated in the fall of 2017 with Sapot presenting at Ameren’s Demo Day where he shared his experiences in the program and delivered some more information about the machine learning components added to the Mingo technology that could benefit Ameren in the future.
The burgeoning Mingo customer success and critical acclaim led to yet another major award in 2017. Mingo was presented with a cash award from the St. Louis Start-Up Connection for our innovative technology and continued growth.
Mingo also received an award and recognition St. Louis Chamber of Commerce and Southwest Airlines for our innovative business. That sent Mingo on a trip to TechCrunch Disrupt – the largest and one of the most prestigious start-up competitions in the world – hosted in Silicon Valley. CEO, Bryan Sapot, and a newly hired member of his engineering team attended the event and gained recognition as a hot commodity on the showroom floor.
On the Fast Track
Ultimately, Mingo closes 2017 the same way we opened it, by adding new manufacturing customers eager to leverage the technology inside their businesses. Just weeks before the calendar page would turn, Mingo secured one last final deal for the year. “We are finding that our technology is the most realistic and affordable step manufacturers can make towards a digital transformation, greater automation, and improved data quality. This realization is leading us towards what we will believe will be a very busy 2018”, Sapot claimed.
If that wasn’t enough, Mingo could lay claim to a 100% retention rate among existing customers at the close of 2017. Every Mingo customer has proven to be a lifetime customer throughout the company’s short tenure.
“I am hopeful this won’t change. I am thankful to be working with a lot of smart manufacturers that understand the need for our application. This means they get a lot of value out of it, so renewals have been a very easy process. I am confident this will speak volumes to all the prospective customers we are hoping to add in 2018. To this point, we haven’t even had to hire sales staff! I’d say that speaks to just how needed our technology really was”, Sapot finished.
To learn more about some of Mingo news in 2017, visit our press section. Additional inquiries can be submitted here. Lastly, if you’d like to learn more about Mingo as a potential solution, schedule a demo here.
