Jack Carrere
Prokeep Founder Jack Carrere on Distributor Sales Workflow, Order Capture, and Product-Led Growth
How Prokeep helps distributors move faster, miss fewer orders, and activate inside sales without adding complexity.
Jack Carrere explains how Prokeep helps distributors stop losing orders across email, text, phone, and even fax—by unifying inbound communication into a single workflow. He also shares why Prokeep’s new “Order Engine” matters, what it unlocks for inside sales teams, and the founder lessons that come from scaling a 100+ person company across a demanding industry.
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About This Episode
Distributors are still the operational backbone of construction and home services—but their workflows are often built around fragmented channels: phone calls, emails, personal texts, sticky notes, and, in some cases, fax. In this episode, Henry sits down with Jack Carrere, Founder and CEO of Prokeep, to break down how his team has spent the last decade turning that chaos into a unified system that helps distributor counters and inside sales teams work more efficiently.
Prokeep serves over 1,000 distributors with more than 40,000 active users who interact with millions of contractors. The platform consolidates inbound orders and requests into a centralized inbox so teams miss fewer opportunities, route work to the right person, and build a shared “system of record” instead of relying on what lives in someone’s head—or on sticky notes.
Jack also introduces Prokeep’s newest launch: the Order Engine. Built specifically for the distributor environment, it brings together workflows that don’t translate well from traditional CRMs and marketing tools. By integrating more closely with a distributor’s ERP, Order Engine reduces re-keying, speeds response times, and helps counter teams stay reactive while still driving proactive outreach in a way that feels natural to contractors.
Jack shares the entrepreneurial realities behind the growth—COVID-driven demand shifts, operational stress, and the mindset required to navigate non-linear progress. The throughline: build close to the customer, keep the workflow simple, and focus on improving how real work gets done.
Key Insights
Consolidate inbound channels into one workflow to reduce missed orders and internal bottlenecks.
Treat counter and inside sales as a growth lever—if you give them time back and the right prompts, they can drive incremental revenue.
Build for the environment you’re in: distributor workflows don’t map cleanly to Salesforce/HubSpot-style processes.
Create a “system of record” so institutional knowledge isn’t trapped in individual inboxes or personal devices.
ERP integration matters: eliminating duplicate entry speeds quotes and improves win rates.
The best early product feedback comes from staying close to frontline users and observing real behavior.
In crisis moments (like COVID), the winner is often the company that removes friction and increases throughput.
Venture funding should accelerate customer value—not distract from it.
Episode Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity and readability. Filler words and minor repetitions were removed, and formatting was adjusted to improve flow. The substance and intent of the conversation remain unchanged.
Henry Harrison:
Today we’re fortunate to have an entrepreneur on the Henry Harrison Podcast—Entrepreneurs and Finance.
We have Jack Carrere, founder and owner of Prokeep. He’s launching a new product, and we’re glad to have him here.
Welcome to the show, Jack.
Jack Carrere:
Hello, Henry. Thanks for having me.
Company Overview
Henry Harrison:
Let’s start with where you are right now. You’ve built a sizable organization—over 100 employees and contractors. You serve a large number of distributors, you’ve been doing this for about 10 years, and you’re launching a new product.
Tell us what Prokeep does and what’s new.
Jack Carrere:
We launched Prokeep a little over 10 years ago, which still feels surreal.
We have just over 100 employees across a couple of hubs—our headquarters in New Orleans, a hub in Portland, Oregon, and many remote team members we call “Prokeepers.”
We serve:
Over 1,000 distributors
40,000+ active users
More than 3 million contractors
If you walk into a distributor, there’s typically a retail area and a counter or inside sales team. We help them organize their day.
They receive orders from multiple channels:
Email
Text messages
Fax
We unify all of that into a central inbox, helping them:
Miss fewer orders
Respond faster
Stay organized
We also enable them to be proactive—sending messages that matter to contractors and customers.
Our new product is called Order Engine, designed to make counter teams more efficient and proactive. We launched it recently in Austin and have received strong feedback so far.
New Product: Order Engine
Henry Harrison:
Tell us about that response.
Jack Carrere:
The key innovation is bringing together all the fragmented workflows happening at the counter.
Other industries have tools like:
CRMs
Marketing automation
Sales pipeline systems
But those tools don’t translate well into distributor environments.
We’ve built something purpose-built—simple, intuitive, and designed for busy teams handling calls, inventory, and customer needs in real time.
Our goal is to be the “easy button” that brings everything together.
Order Engine is a major step toward our vision of becoming the front-of-house system for distributors.
Challenges Along the Way
Henry Harrison:
What challenges have you faced?
Jack Carrere:
One major moment was the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank—we were a customer, so we had to react quickly.
COVID was another turning point. At that time, we had about 20 employees and far fewer customers.
Stores were closing, but home services still needed to operate—HVAC systems still break.
Contractors relied heavily on distributors, but phone lines were overwhelmed with long wait times.
We became a relief valve by enabling:
Text-based communication
Parallel conversations instead of one call at a time
At the same time, we were learning how to run a remote company.
Those moments are stressful—but also rewarding when you’re solving real problems.
Competition & Differentiation
Henry Harrison:
What’s your competition?
Jack Carrere:
Sticky notes.
More broadly, it’s the fragmented way people communicate:
Phone
Email
Personal texting
Notes
We consolidate all of that into a single pane of glass—a unified inbox.
This creates:
Efficiency
Better workload distribution
Knowledge sharing across teams
We call it building collective intelligence—taking knowledge out of individual heads and turning it into a system.
With Order Engine, we also integrate with ERP systems to:
Match product availability
Generate quotes
Reduce manual entry
Speed matters—faster responses often win the order.
Customer Base
Henry Harrison:
Who is your target customer?
Jack Carrere:
Early on, we worked with anyone—even local distributors near New Orleans.
As the product matured, we began working with larger organizations like:
Ferguson
ABC Supply
PoolCorp
The platform scales well—from a single location to thousands.
Background & Education
Henry Harrison:
You studied engineering at Brown. Was that always your path?
Jack Carrere:
Brown was the best school I got into—that helped.
I studied mechanical engineering, drawn by interests in cars and motors.
After graduating, I went into consulting—working with companies like BNSF on optimizing cargo routes.
Engineering taught me how to:
Break down complex problems
Work in teams
Build solutions
I don’t remember calculus anymore, but I still use that problem-solving mindset.
AI & Data
Henry Harrison:
How is AI impacting your business?
Jack Carrere:
It’s a major accelerant.
We’ve processed over 80 million messages between distributors and contractors. That dataset gives us powerful insights.
We can:
Identify patterns
Recommend messaging strategies
Suggest timing and audiences for promotions
For example, if a manufacturer runs a campaign, we can help optimize:
Who receives it
When they receive it
How it’s worded
AI helps busy teams act more effectively without needing deep expertise.
Venture Capital
Henry Harrison:
When did you decide to raise capital?
Jack Carrere:
We bootstrapped for years.
In 2022 and 2024, we raised capital to accelerate our vision—becoming the front-of-house system for distributors.
That investment allowed us to:
Expand product development
Build Order Engine
Scale engineering
Even small gains—like helping teams generate one or two extra orders per week—can have a meaningful impact.
Investors
Henry Harrison:
Who are your investors?
Jack Carrere:
Seed round: Iron Spring Ventures and S3 Ventures (Austin)
Series A: Dalia Equity (San Francisco)
Founder Perspective
Henry Harrison:
Did you celebrate?
Jack Carrere:
A little—but then you realize the pressure is on.
During our seed round, it was Mardi Gras. I was signing documents on my phone and had to run home to get better reception.
Final Advice
Henry Harrison:
Anything you’d like to wrap up with?
Jack Carrere:
I’d encourage entrepreneurs to look for industries where technology adoption is lagging.
That’s where you can have an outsized impact.
Also, your first idea might not work. It might take:
The third idea
The fourth idea
Or the twentieth
The key is to keep learning and iterating.
Henry Harrison:
Well done on building your company and continuing to innovate. Great conversation—thank you.
Jack Carrere:
Thanks, Henry.
Henry Harrison:
Talk to you soon.
Connect with Jack Carrere
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