Dean Mitchell (Zastro)

Dean Mitchell is the President of Zastro, a NetSuite consulting services company with over 15 years of experience implementing NetSuite for businesses.

Raised in Maple Grove, Minnesota, after high school Mitchell went to Hamline University to study Business Administration before later enrolling at the University of Minnesota to earn an MBA.

From there, Mitchell was hired by Burroughs, a computer company, to be a systems analyst, a position that entailed Mitchell leaving the Twin Cities and relocating to Detroit.

“We developed software that would allow our employees to make contributions to their 401(k), and we also developed a payroll system that would serve 120,000 employees,” Mitchell says of his first foray into Corporate America.  

During Mitchell’s stint with Burroughs, the company merged with another technology conglomerate and became a $10 billion enterprise, but on a more personal level, this is when Mitchell was first exposed to NetSuite and how key data acquisition could help scale a business.

At the time, Mitchell didn’t know just how much of a factor NetSuite would eventually have in his career, and he later transferred within the company and moved from Detroit to San Jose, landing in Silicon Valley, where daily technological innovation is routine.

“We had a plant there that built PCs and servers, and I was part of the team that master-scheduled the factory, which included ensuring that we were aligning our supply and our demand,” Mitchell says of his job responsibilities in northern California.

Shifting to the West Coast taught him a lot about technology and business, but he was also a small player in a gigantic market, and when a recruiter for a digital projector company called InFocus (formerly Proxima), out of San Diego, later approached him about becoming their Director of Materials, he had no reservations about once again switching jobs.

“It was an opportunity to go be a bigger fish in a smaller pond, and the weather in San Diego didn’t sound so bad,” Mitchell says with a chuckle.

During his time with InFocus, Mitchell traveled to Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, and Norway to meet with partners, trips that helped forge critical business relationships for his new employer, but also clued Mitchell in to how to run a successful company of his own.

Therefore, it should come as little surprise that a few years later, Mitchell co-founded Mendtronix, an IT repair services company that became the world’s largest projector manufacturer.

“We were fixing 5,000 projectors a year,” Mitchell says, but Mendtronix was still missing out on crucial data that could have further increased their revenue.

For context, like many businesses, they had been using QuickBooks, but that popular accounting software couldn’t match his company’s growth, so Mitchell began searching for alternative solutions that would make his company run more efficiently.

Which is how he was reintroduced to NetSuite and all it could do to help businesses thrive.

“What NetSuite did was it allowed us to address all of those deficiencies that we had seen in QuickBooks,” Mitchell says.

“Using NetSuite’s tools, we were able to build things like an inspection record to document the efficiency of a certain product. We could customize a lot of different things and refine our processes to make our business run better.”

After implementing NetSuite and devising new strategies, the thousands of dollars Mitchell invested in the software quickly looked like a bargain when Mendtronix’s online sales soared from zero to $1 million.

“Because of NetSuite, we didn’t have to add any people or inventory. Instead, we were simply able to capture key data and then capitalize on it,” Mitchell explains.

Four years later, Mitchell and his business partner were approached by an outside firm who wanted to purchase Mendtronix, and even though Mitchell hadn’t initially thought of selling his company, he did, which helps explain how he eventually moved back to Minnesota and started Zastro, a company that today helps other businesses experience the same type of success that Mendtronix did years ago.

“We give companies the information they need to make better decisions,” Mitchell says of Zastro’s mission, which, in combination with NetSuite technology, helps business owners spend more time doing what they’re good at, and simultaneously save serious capital.

“Most small business owners are either the salesperson or the product person. They are not IT, operations, or accounting, but they need those functions to work really well so that they can focus on what they’re good at, which is why, as companies grow to the point where they need new infrastructure, NetSuite is a great product.”

With over 15 years of experience working directly with clients, Mitchell and his team at Zastro are experts when it comes to understanding the minutiae of NetSuite, and how to incorporate the reputed software into a company so that it generates significant profits.

Mitchell says that the businesses who benefit the most from NetSuite are ones who are growing and looking for a tool that can streamline their processes and capture valuable data insights, but it should be noted that the NetSuite software is not cheap.

Companies investing in NetSuite can expect to spend at least $10,000 to get fully onboarded, meaning that ideally a company is producing anywhere from $5 million-$30 million in revenue in order to justify their investment.

At the same time, if a company is doing substantially more than $30 million in annual revenue, Mitchell and Zastro’s services may not appeal to them.

“It’s not that we’re not capable of helping those types of companies, but if a company is in the $100-$200 million range, then Zastro may look small to them,” Mitchell says.

Not that he is in a hurry to reverse that perception, mainly because he understands the unique value proposition that Zastro brings to its customers.

“The consultants at our firm who are giving demos to clients, are the same people who are going to install the software and be around in five years when our clients need additional help,” Mitchell mentions.

“That level of continuity is attractive to a lot of our clients, especially because they may not get that level of service when they work with other firms who have high turnover.”

Looking ahead, Mitchell doesn’t anticipate that Zastro will ever grow to the level where they can help clients in all different industries.

At present, their clientele consists primarily of companies in food manufacturing and creative lighting, two niches he and his team have dominated because they leverage current client performance with NetSuite to showcase to prospective clients just how powerful the implemented software can be.

That being said, Mitchell has made concerted efforts over the last twelve months to slowly expand the presence of Zastro, but he is also careful not to compromise his company’s core values in order to do so.

“Five years from now, we could have 20 employees. We’re not looking to get super large. In many ways, we are looking for comfortably managed growth,” the Maple Grove native says.

“My employees aren’t working 60 hours a week. They’re coming here because they enjoy it and are getting rewarded for the value they bring. We try to have big-company benefits as a small company, and our focus is more on how we can help our clients, rather than trying to quickly scale our operations and become a massive company.” QS

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