Tag: Justin Davis

Entrepreneur of the Year: Zig when others are zagging — and don’t be afraid of the word ‘no’

By Tommy Felts / October 13, 2022

Bold strategies helped lead BacklotCars to one of Kansas City’s biggest-ever startup exits, said Justin Davis, and ultimately brought the lauded founder to the stage Wednesday to accept one of UMKC’s Entrepreneur of the Year honors. “Taking ‘no’ for an answer wasn’t an option,” the co-founder and CEO of BacklotCars, a web-based, dealer-to-dealer automotive platform, told…

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Justin Davis, BacklotCars; Back2KC 2018

BacklotCars co-founder set to be honored as UMKC’s regional Entrepreneur of the Year

By Tommy Felts / September 22, 2022

A founder who helped drive one of the metro’s biggest startup exits is expected to be heralded in October as UMKC’s Kansas City Entrepreneur of the Year. Justin Davis, co-founder and CEO of BacklotCars, will take the stage Oct. 12 alongside five other honorees — business leaders who have shaped entrepreneurship, according to officials at…

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Justin Davis, BacklotCars

Want the next $425M exit? Be ‘ruthless’ with your time (and cap table), BacklotCars co-founder says

By Tommy Felts / March 9, 2021

In the years leading up to BacklotCars’ historic exit, Justin Davis steered clear of the startup social scene — detouring instead into deep collaboration with capital and automotive industry partners, he said. “As a startup, getting connected is great, but you have to be ruthless in your execution,” the BacklotCars co-founder told ACG Kansas City’s…

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BacklotCars co-founders: Josh Parsons, Fabricio Solanes, Justin Davis, and Ryan Davis

BacklotCars completes historic $425M exit, joining ‘power and fierce entrepreneurial spirit’ of KAR Global

By Tommy Felts / November 13, 2020

The $425 million acquisition of Kansas City-based BacklotCars is complete, nearly two months to the day it was announced.  “There is so much energy and excitement around this combination with our employees and with our customers,” Justin Davis, president and co-founder of BacklotCars, said in a release announcing the milestone acquisition’s completion Thursday by KAR…

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BacklotCars developer balances work, school and helping recover 33,000 pounds of food for the hungry 

By Tommy Felts / September 30, 2020

Behind the scenes of BacklotCars’ historic $425 million exit deal, one of the Kansas City company’s top developers is feeding innovation in his home country, said Josh Parsons. Pablo Ulguin — a full-time senior software developer at BacklotCars who also is completing night school in Uruguay to earn a degree in computer science and learn…

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