At Start Co., our most important asset is our people, especially the teams embarking on the Summer Accelerator. This week will be our first edition of Founder Spotlight, a weekly blog post highlighting the 2018 teams, their businesses and their dynamic lives outside of the Start Co. Lab.
For our first Founder Spotlight, we will take a deep dive into the life of Marterrious McClain. Marterrious is the co-founder of SecondKeys, which is looking to streamline the process of filing maintenance requests for rental properties by designing a web and mobile maintenance management system that allows for efficiency and transparency.
I sat down with Marterrious to learn more about Second Keys and his time in Memphis.
Jonah Baer: What led you to creating your company Second Keys?
Marterrious McClain: If you’ve ever been a renter, you know how difficult it is to contact your landlord or maintenance personnel about getting something fixed in your apartment. If you’ve ever been a property manager, then I’m sure you understand how difficult it is to keep up or manage everything that comes in. Between me and my partner, Amber, we were trying to fix our own problem. We always had an issue with the places we were renting where we tried to contact them and they wouldn’t answer their own phone or they would contact us 3 days later and not send someone out until 2 weeks later. We were really trying to scratch our own itch. Even now, we’ve been staying here for 3 weeks, and our oven is still broken. We’re living our problem and looking to find a solution for it.
JB: How did you wind up in the Launch Delta program at Start Co.?
MM: Facebook. My partner Amber, she is the CEO, got me on board to this idea. It wasn’t even 10 minutes of her explaining and I said I would help her turn this into a reality. She applied to it and I didn’t necessarily believe that we would get too far in the selection process mostly because we were still in our early stages of development. She sat down for an hour and a half with ServiceMaster and then set up another meeting a couple days later. There was a panel of people throwing questions at her. She must have done a tremendous job or else we wouldn’t be here today. I’m forever grateful that she did, though.
JB: How did you and Amber meet?
MM:We met at the University of Mississippi searching for apartments because our current situations were already busted. I was looking myself and going through a billboard that was in the student union, and she was sitting there scrolling through a pamphlet that had student options too. We were both going through this at the same time. Every time I thought I found an apartment, she would chime in – this complete stranger – that she wouldn’t live at that particular place. We became really good friends from that experience. You make your best friends out of struggle.
JB: How do you think being in the army for 5 years prepared you for the life of being an entrepreneur now?
MM: Two of the biggest things are long hours, sometimes 4 hours of sleep. That’s just the way it is, if you get any sleep at all. Secondly, it’s dedication. You have to be dedicated to what you’re doing, believe in your cause to see the end result. A lot of times in the army, especially if you’re a low rank soldier, you don’t necessarily get to see the results of what you’re doing quickly. Those don’t come to light days, months, or years after the fact. Those are the skills that I’ve learned through the army that have definitely applied here but they’ve applied to almost every other aspect of my life too.
JB: What is your superpower?
MM: My analytical skills. If given a topic or a problem, I can break it down and give you processes faster than most people. Everyone here is an expert in their own field. Given the time and the resources, I can get to where I need to be. My other super power is similar to the slogan here “Never Stop.” I’ll keep going until somebody forces me out of what I’m doing. I just keep going.
JB: If you could gift someone 3 comic books, what would you give them?
MM: Independent Comic: I Hate Fairyland
DC Comic: Static Shock
Marvel Comic: Rise of the Black Panther
JB: You told us on the first day at Start Co. that you’ve broken 27 bones. What is the craziest bone-break you’ve had?
MM: When I was a child, we were bad kids really. We riding around on 4-wheelers on an open field. I know this now as an adult but there is always a stray stump somewhere inside of an open field that you never see. I got thrown off the 4-wheeler, and it was really no fun.
Another time with my last motorcycle, I was on the way to work from a mid-term when I was an undergrad at Ole Miss. I was getting onto the highway when someone had clipped the back of my tired and I rolled on the highway under my bike. I broke both bones in my right arm, my right wrist, 3 fingers, my elbow on my left arm, one bone in my left arm, 3 ribs, and a collar bone. And then I came back to work the next day while typing with 3 fingers all day. I always say if I didn’t have bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.
JB: What are your hobbies outside of running your business?
MM: When it comes to working out, I’m a boxer. I mostly train at HIIT Fitness in Oxford, Mississippi. I really enjoy artwork and drawing. I designed my own tattoos. I also love comic books. In fact, I’m currently trying to draw and write my own in my free time. Drawing is kind of like a creative vice for me. If I’m stressed out or just trying to relax, I use one of those 2 things: boxing or drawing. I also really enjoy music and I was a drummer in high school. I was in a band in high school called Tape Ghosts, where we played mostly rock and Indie.
JB: How do you envision Second Keys in the future?
MM: I want it to be a billion-dollar company. Everyone has a dream. We just want it to be successful. Our original road map had us going really slow compared to what the accelerator is putting us through. It’s teaching us to do more faster. We’re at points we didn’t even think we would be at yet. We’re hoping we can use that same energy and same mobility to get somewhere very successful in the next 2-3 years. I think we have a really good chance and a really good business model.
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Marterrious is 25 years old and was born in Oxford, Mississippi to a large family. He has two degrees, one from Cochise in Arizona for Intelligence and a Bachelor’s Degree from Ole Miss for Criminal Justice and Homeland Security with a minor in computer science. Along with this, Marterrious was in the army for 5 years as an Intelligence Analyst. Furthermore, he was also a security manager for a hospital for over 2 years and a QA engineer for a business software company for over 3 years.
By Jonah Baer