You’ll be working with Richard.
Palmetto Software is run by Richard Stanton, a Charleston-area entrepreneur who has been building and operating businesses since the 1990s.
Richard started doing business online in 1997, when eCommerce was still in its infancy. Since then he has built companies across software, eCommerce, importing and physical products.
That includes two software companies, one of which grew to more than a million customers, as well as two import and product businesses. The companies he founded were ultimately acquired, and his businesses have appeared on the Inc. 500 six times.
But the experience that matters most to Palmetto Software isn’t building technology. It’s running businesses.
Background
- Building businesses and doing business online since 1997, as an early eCommerce operator.
- Founded and built two software companies. One grew to more than a million customers.
- Built two import and physical-product businesses.
- Companies across software, eCommerce and products — all ultimately acquired.
- Six-time Inc. 500.
- More than 25 years building and operating businesses day to day.
Software experience. Business-operator perspective.
For more than 25 years, Richard has dealt with the same things other business owners deal with every day. Operations, logistics, sales, customer service, inventory, paperwork, information flow, and the systems that are supposed to connect all of them.
He knows what happens when information gets lost between employees. When a spreadsheet quietly becomes critical to the business. When the same paperwork gets handled twice. When customer service spends its day working around a system that doesn’t quite fit. When software almost does what you need, but leaves a gap right where it matters.
That shapes how we approach a new project.
We don’t start by asking what features you want in an app. We start by asking:
- What are your people actually trying to get done?
- Where does information get stuck?
- What gets entered twice?
- What still lives in a spreadsheet?
- What creates unnecessary phone calls or emails?
- What does everyone complain about?
- What takes far longer than it should?
Then we look at whether software can remove that friction.
Why Palmetto Software works this way
For years Richard kept ending up in the same conversation. A business owner would describe something in their company that drove them crazy, and it usually turned out software could fix it.
He did that for friends and other owners across a lot of different industries. Different businesses, same pattern.
Palmetto Software turns that into a focused business. Rather than asking owners to tell us what software they want, we ask them to show us what isn’t working. Then we figure out whether software can fix it.
It’s a better starting point. You know your industry and your workflow better than any outsider ever will. We know how businesses run underneath, and how to build the software. Neither half is enough on its own.
You know your industry. We understand business operations and software. That’s the partnership.
Personal, selective and hands-on
Palmetto Software deliberately works with a small number of Design Partners at a time. The work only succeeds if we’re genuinely in your business, watching how it runs.
You work directly with Richard throughout the process.
No layers of account managers. No handoffs. We come to your business and meet the people doing the work, because we’d rather see a workflow than have someone describe it in a requirements document.
We’re local, so that’s straightforward. We’re currently focused on Charleston and the surrounding Lowcountry, and being able to stand where the work happens is most of why this model works.