Eric Schell

Eric Schell – How Customer Pain Points Can Reveal Your Next Big Opportunity

Eric Schell is the Co-founder and CEO of OneTap, a technology company that streamlines maintenance and repair requests for restaurants and other businesses. With more than a decade of experience in construction, real estate, and hands-on fieldwork, he focuses on making service faster, simpler, and more cost-effective for owners and technicians. Eric previously owned Nashville Maintenance Pros and The Nashville Flipper, a home flipping and maintenance company.

Here's a Glimpse of What You'll Learn

[1:43] How Eric Schell transitioned from construction and real estate investing to entrepreneurship
[8:02] Eric talks about identifying a major gap in the commercial maintenance process
[13:26] The challenge of scaling company culture and core values
[20:12] How Catalyst helped shape a major business decision
[24:30] Eric’s relationship-driven approach to winning new customers
[26:51] Improving customer adoption through data and technology
[29:40] The long-term vision for expanding OneTap beyond restaurants

In This Episode

Some of the strongest business ideas begin with repeatedly seeing the same problem from the front lines. When an inefficient process becomes so familiar that everyone accepts it as normal, what does it take to recognize the opportunity hiding inside it?

Construction and maintenance entrepreneur Eric Schell spent more than a decade working in the trades, renovating properties, and building a service business before noticing how difficult commercial maintenance had become for customers. What started with firsthand experience fixing problems grew into a deeper understanding of the delays, communication gaps, and unnecessary friction businesses faced when requesting repairs. Along the way, Eric learned to build confidence, hire when capacity became a constraint, and use peer feedback to make bigger decisions. He advises entrepreneurs to understand the problem firsthand, listen closely to customers, and commit once the opportunity has been validated.

In this episode of The Decision, Robert Hartline sits down with Eric Schell, Co-founder and CEO of OneTap, to discuss turning firsthand industry problems into a scalable business. Eric talks about identifying gaps in commercial maintenance, how Catalyst influenced a major business decision, and using customer data and technology to improve adoption.

Quotable Moments:

“I’ve had all these different ideas, but they’ve always kind of just feathered off.”
“I don’t want to have any regrets later on.”
“I have no idea what the perfect plan is to make this work.”
“So I picked some things and… threw them on a board and said, these are our core values.”
“You have peers there that are in the same situation that you are in.”

Action Steps:

Solve problems you understand firsthand: Direct experience with customer pain points helps you recognize opportunities that are practical, relevant, and worth pursuing.
Make communication a competitive advantage: Proactively keeping customers informed builds trust and can differentiate your business even in crowded industries.
Hire when capacity becomes the constraint: Bringing in support for administrative or operational work allows you to spend more time on the areas where you create the most value.
Commit fully once the opportunity is validated: Moving beyond divided attention can give a promising idea the focus and momentum it needs to grow.
Use customer behavior to improve adoption: Studying how people actually use your product helps reveal friction points and guides changes that make the experience easier.