As anyone who’s ever started or seriously contemplated starting their own business knows the going can be tough, particularly in the beginning. However, the roots of entrepreneurship run deep in Oliver Keeling’s family — his father teaches on the subject at Iowa State University, and several relatives own and operate their own businesses. U.S. Air Force and Army veteran Keeling said he was fortunate to have this strong support system when he left the large national security company where he’d grown comfortable in his role as a local technician and founded Astra Security LLC in July 2013.
In just over a year in business, Astra Security has grown tremendously, particularly since March, Keeling says. That’s when the company abandoned its previous customer management, billing, payment processing and inventory system — multiple systems, actually — and implemented AlarmBiller, a Web-based management software solution designed to streamline invoicing, payment processing and work order management for security dealers of any size.