Alumni focus: William (Bill) Pittman

March 23, 2012

Think starting a business at home is impossible? Think again. William (Bill) Pittman (shown left) is proof that hard work and dedication can bring success to entrepreneurs. Over Pittman’s career, he has successful started up several businesses from his own home. He built the companies and then sold them to other leading companies of the industry. Admitting that his parents weren’t extremely happy with him when it all began, Pittman agrees he didn’t always know he would own his own business.

Pittman graduated from the University of South Florida in 1985 with a degree in chemical engineering. Always interested in science, he struggled to find just the right subject to focus on. Landing a co-op job early on in his college career helped him decide on this major. “USF has a co-op program,” said Pittman. “I started co-oping as a chemist in a chemical plant with chemical engineers and realized- ‘hey, I can do this.’”

After graduating, Pittman worked as a chemical engineer for a couple of years. He was writing software programs when he decided to start his own business. “When I got into business for myself I had a technical background,” said Pittman. “I realized you could create the greatest product in the world, but if you didn’t know how to run it, market it and sell it- it was going to be difficult.”

Thus, Pittman decided to go back to school to get his master’s in business administration. “Because I had an engineering degree, I never took any business classes. I had to retake all the leveling courses,” said Pittman. “I was running a business during the day and going to class at night.”  It would take five years at Georgia Southern University until Pittman graduated with his MBA in 1997.

Over that time, Pittman worked to build up his business, GO Software, Inc. in Savannah, Ga. The company was built around a personal computer (PC) based electronic payment processing software. “When the Internet came around, I was able to leverage the business into an electronic payment processing on the Internet,” said Pittman. He wrote PCCharge, the first Windows based electronic payment solution to process credit card, debit cards and check transactions direct to the payment processors.

What originally started out as Pittman’s single man operation in his bonus room grew to be a 50 employee office staff. GO Software was growing at 100 percent a year and Pittman began raising venture capital. He worked to build GO Software into a highly profitable company before selling it in 1999. “I ended up selling the company to ShowNow.com in Seattle, Wash.,” said Pittman. “That’s what originally brought me out to Seattle.”

Pittman’s PCCharge grew to become the industry standard PC based payment processing software. It is now sold by VeriFone Systems Inc., one of today’s leading companies in payment processing.

After Pittman sold his first business, he decided to start another in 2001 “I basically said if I can take everything I’ve learned to date and I could do it all over again, what would I do?” said Pittman. “I created the next generation payment processing technology.” Pittman co-founded TPI Software, LLC which enabled payments to be easily processed on any device from any location. He worked to build SmartPayments Server which is now used by major payment processors. Pittman ended up selling TPI to Hypercom Corporation, another leading company in payment processing.

Pittman would go on to work for Hypercom as Vice President of Payment Solutions Group before once again starting another company. He started SoundPOS, LLC in 2009 as a way for small business to use a PC based checkout for their transactions. In 2010, the company was transitioned to a private investment firm and Pittman shifted his focus to Amazon.com.  As Senior Manager of Product Management he worked with Global Payments Product Services.

Today, Pittman works as Vice President of Product at a company called Total Merchant Services (TMS).TMS is designed to help provide solutions to merchants who need to accept credit cards for payment of their goods and services. Pittman has helped TMS become one of the leaders in the merchant services industry. “My plans are to stay with TMS as long as things are exciting and interesting,” said Pittman.

For aspiring entrepreneurs, Pittman gives the advice of being a man of your word. “One of the things I have learned is that you have to do what you say you’re going to do,” said Pittman. “If you tell people the company is going to do this and then you don’t deliver, people lose faith in you. It is all about being true to your word.” Pittman agrees this is one of the key factors of success.

Pittman has also always been a constant believer in taking advantages of opportunities. “You always need to keep your eyes open, so you can take advantage of opportunities that present themselves,” said Pittman. “Have a plan but find a way to maximize opportunities as they come along.”

Pittman will be at Georgia Southern University on April 9 to speak at the William A. Freeman Memorial Lecture Series. His lecture is entitled “Become an Entrepreneur: Anyone Can Do It” and will be given in the Nessmith-Lane Assembly Hall at 5:30p.m. Sponsored by the Center for Entrepreneurial Learning and Leadership, the lecture is open and free to the public.