Two entrepreneurs walk into a gelato shop …

After they sold their last business to Charles Schwab, Mark Calhoun and James Starcev did what a lot of technology entrepreneurs do: They opened a gelato shop at the mall.

But that was only Step One in a much larger plan. Starcev and Calhoun wanted to learn the retail business so they could create a better software solution for mom-and-pop stores and small franchises.

The result is PerfectCube, an online platform that allows small retailers to easily track their performance and even forecast the near future. In the space of a few minutes, users can get a read on sales, inventory levels and other important metrics. PerfectCube can assess what hours of the day have the highest sales and which individual products sold fastest, not just today, but last week, last month and last year.

The Bright Side of Rainy Days

That information can be a game-changer. If store owners can tell that business will pick up over the next few weeks, they can increase staffing levels to take full advantage.

“The ability to see, at a glance, what’s been happening and anticipate what will happen has been huge,” Calhoun said.

Take their store at Oak Park Mall, for example. Using analytics, Calhoun and Starcev were able to see that rainy weather actually helped their sales because the bad weather drove people indoors.

The idea for PerfectCube grew out of the duo’s success with Etelligent, a company that helped investment advisers manage huge amounts of data.

Starcev and Calhoun could see a similar opportunity in the retail sector. Other companies sell analytics services for retailers, but those are geared more toward larger operations that encompass hundreds of locations. And they tend to be more complicated than what a small business owner, pressed for time, can learn to use.

“What we’re wanting to create is something that’s very simple,” Starcev said.

PerfectCube can be employed in practically every type of store, but Starcev and Calhoun have focused more on restaurants and coffee shops because, thanks to the gelato shop, they have more experience with that type of business.

How KC Has Changed for Startups

So far, PerfectCube has raised $400,000 in early money, not counting the money that Calhoun and Starcev have put in. It’s also been accepted into Digital Sandbox KC, a program that provides proof-of-concept resources and advice to young companies.

Starting a business today in Kansas City is completely different from when they created Etelligent, the two founders said.

Sure, they still endure the ups and downs of startup life—extended periods of doubt and hard work punctuated by brief moments of euphoria—but there’s a much larger community of startup founders now. Fifteen years ago, there was no 1 Million Cups, no Digital Sandbox KC.

“There was really no support community,” Starcev said. “There weren’t a lot of tools.”

Right now, PerfectCube is being tested by a series of smaller retailers, and those early users have good things to say about PerfectCube and what it can do for them.

“There’s all sort of value that can be brought with good use of data analytics,” said Starcev.