Driven by the fundamental skills and passion necessary to leverage new levels of business success, Shannon Scott began exploring the fintech and financial incentive space at the age of 19 and has built and sold over 15 companies ever since. Shannon’s self-proclaimed mission is “Proving the person who told me ‘You will never amount to anything’ wrong, 1 business at a time”. His latest venture is Trak Capital, an HR tech investment firm with ownership in growth-oriented, innovative companies operating in the HR, fintech, and compliance sectors which he founded in 2022.
Acclaimed as an industry leader in entrepreneurship, he was selected as one of Top 100 Magazine’s 2022 list of “Top Innovators & Entrepreneurs.
About Trak Capital
Trak Capital is an HR tech investment firm that owns a series of best-in-class technologies in tax credit processing, ACA compliance, unemployment claims, verifications, and i9. Trak Capital drives growth initiatives, implements best practices, and invests in personnel and automation to accelerate earnings and support companies in realizing their full potential.
Trak Capital has footprints in several locations- Birmingham, Alabama, Nashville, Tennessee, and New Orleans.
A disruptive HR compliance platform, that for the first time empowers companies to achieve compliance through a centralized platform features an SSO (single sign-on) experience and an MDM (Master Data Model) Trak Capital identifies, strengthens, and scales best-of-breed technologies and service lines by leveraging the firm’s industry expertise and proven strategic and operational capabilities.
Best-in-class offerings
“We are innovators and acquirers to ensure our customer base truly receives a best-in-class experience and product.”
The Team of Trak Capital is trained to recognize phenomenal technologies, like Unemployment Tracker and SyncStream. After purchasing these technologies, they nurture them into an even greater level of performance. The team also resolves gaps in the market through innovation and disruptive transformation.
“Our entire corporate mission centers on utilizing digital technologies to improve compliance. In our tax credit business, Oncentive is a primary example of the power of technology and automation.” shares Shannon. Traditionally known as a cost structure, the entire digitalization of tax credit processing has turned HR into a profitability center. Trak’s tax credit program has been designed to offset the customer’s hiring costs through tax credit eligibility through a myriad of tax credit opportunities.
Committed to sustainability, Trak Capital is focused on digitization to remove paper from HR processes, which is beneficial to business processes and operational procedures and has a tremendous impact on the environment.
"Listen and read. Find mentors, people smarter than you, who know more than you. Don’t feel intimidated by them. Ask questions. Someone smarter than you in a room is an opportunity for you to grow and learn, not a threat."
Business Vision
Shannon’s path to success evolved naturally. “You start working hard and believe in what you are doing.”
Explaining why he elected to stay in the fintech and financial incentive space he says, “I believe in being exceptionally knowledgeable about one thing versus building disjointed knowledge and experiences.”
He envisions his role in the company as an enabler of his team. “My primary responsibility is to be the core support system for my Executive team. We can accomplish so much more if I am the wind at their backs, instead of trying to always lead everyone on every initiative. My daily role is to create the stage for them to lead in their respective areas…You need to have enough confidence in yourself to believe in yourself, but enough humility to allow people who know better than you to take the reins when appropriate”
Shannon’s ambition and innovation are driven by unconventional triggers. “It can be as large as the financial transaction and profit of selling a company, to handing someone a well-deserved bonus check and knowing by the relief on their face it will impact their family and make their lives a bit better… the desire to help others achieve success and financial freedom keeps me motivated.”
Maxim of “shareable success”
Sharing his democratic vision of success, Shannon says: “For me success is the ability to look at myself in the mirror every day, knowing I am building a company I am proud of. It is knowing I am making decisions that not only make financial success but also better my employees’ lives. If my team, my people, are not feeling successful and sharing in the rewards of the company – there is no true success. If I do not create “shareable success”, I have no success at all. The fact that I have shared success with so many amazing people is my greatest achievement.”
Trak Capital fosters a culture of respect among the employees. For Scott, It is imperative that his team members are respectful of each other on a personal and professional level. He feels proud to see respect as a cornerstone of Trak’s work culture.
Challenges, and surmounting them
Shannon considers challenges to be opportunities. “Without adversity, we cannot test what we are made of,” he states. He holds that starting a business is not as difficult as sustaining it. “I have found starting a company, or getting the initial momentum is not as challenging as scaling it to profitability. Failure rates tell the story for me – 31% of businesses fail in the second year but by the fifth year that rate is almost 50%. That statistic speaks volumes to me because it shows where it gets truly hard,” explains Scott. In his experience, starting a company, or getting the initial momentum is not as challenging, as getting enough buy-in to scale the product/service to profitability.
Sharing the challenges faced by Trak Capital, he says: “In this business, we are dealing with ongoing legislation. While we operate in the private sector, we have the challenge of needing to follow the public sector closely. Over the years I have developed and worked closely with Congress in tax incentive programs and other areas of compliance legislation. We have a responsibility to our customers to always be on top of how current (or proposed) legislation may impact their compliance.”
Growth engines: personal & professional
Shannon’s simple mantra for personal and professional growth is: “Listen and read. Find mentors, people smarter than you, who know more than you. Don’t feel intimidated by them. Ask questions. Someone smarter than you in a room is an opportunity for you to grow and learn, not a threat. Secondly, read. The more you read, the more you know and understand.”
Scott believes that a true business leader revels in his insatiable urge for entrepreneurship, never resting on his laurels. “I can believe I have accomplished a goal or recognize an achievement, but …there is always the next thing in the back of my mind the second I am idle.” He says, “When you are deeply passionate about your business and deeply passionate about your family, you are always going to be at war with yourself.” At home, Shannon strives to be the best father he can be, and in office, the best CEO.
Sustaining superior standards
Shannon ensures that the company maintains the highest standards of integrity and compliance. “Through Oncentive, Trak Capital has processed billions of dollars in financial incentives and has never had a single dollar returned to the IRS. I never want our company to lose that exceptional level of service distinction.”
The Trak Capital portfolio features some companies that thrive in a down trotting economy and others that will thrive in an economic boom. “We will have some new platforms and disruptive technologies being released in 2023.” He shares.
Advice to entrepreneurs
Shannon advises budding entrepreneurs to carefully choose the people they engage with. “Surround yourself with people that believe in you, that you trust, you can confide in, and work shoulder to shoulder with. Nothing will be as important as the people that comprise your business. Find the right ones…the great ones…and reward them well. The key to your success is not just you – mostly the people around you.”
