Newly launched technology advisor operating platform Modero is betting that partners are best suited to build their own software.
The firm launched in July, offering a free CRM platform built for TAs with paid features including inventory management, contract management and commission tracking. It’s the same software Georgia-based TA firm Socium IT built to manage the telecom lifecycle for its clients.
Modero, spun off into a separate company by Socium IT, has moved the platform into general availability for the rest of the channel after adding capabilities for CRM and commissions. Modero has signed seven TA customers and looks to onboard another ten in the upcoming months.
Modero’s launch is part of a massive wave of home-cooked TA software propelled by automation and market demands. TAs are ditching mainstream CRM platforms en masse in favor of feature-lite versions tailored to their needs and in some cases vibecoded.
In their place, TAs are deploying digital platforms that deliver services and boost revenue. In a business where partners help firms manage hundreds or even thousands of vendor contracts and bills, client-facing portals administered by TAs are making the partners stickier with their customers.
“The differentiator that we've been going to market with for the past two years is being able to do inventory management and expense management,” said Modero Founder and CEO Stephen Hancock, who founded Socium in 2021. “We made the decision to productize it and make it available to advisors so that they can take advantage of the same automation.”
Hancock originally built the platform on an Airtable database, importing contract and commission data from Excel spreadsheets. He then vibe coded a customer-facing front end. As the volume of data increased and tested the limits of Airtable, he hired a developer to rebuild from the ground up. Part of the plan was to incorporate privacy controls such as tenant isolation and Advanced Encryption Standard 256 encryption.
“I told the developers I potentially need to be GDPR-compliant and CCPI-compliant in the future and need to be able to achieve SOC 2,” Hancock said.
For Socium, Hancock positioned the platform to clients as an alternative to legacy telecom expense management platforms, which typically require the customer to manage the client. Socium offered the option to manage the lifecycle management platform, saving clients time tracking and optimizing their networks.
“Our customers are seeing a bigger reduction in the time that they spend on telecom activities than if they had otherwise gone with a more popular TEM provider, because let's be honest, they do TEM,” Hancock said. “They don't do telecom lifecycle management.”
TAs can white-label the platform as or use the Vigilis brand Socium uses. A TA may manage the platform on behalf of its customers or tap Socium for the service. That choice decides how much access Socium has to end user data — a question with sensitivity Hancock knows well.
“There's an elephant in the room, that I'm an advisor trying to sell software that manages other advisors' business,” Hancock said. “I recognize that.”
The contract prevents a proverbial fox in the henhouse, Hancock said. Data remains inside an isolated tenant, hidden from Socium. For TAs that trust the safeguards, it promises relief from monotonous back-office processes.
“You didn't get into this business to manage your CRM,” he said. “You didn't get into this business to manage your commissions. You got into this business to sell your customers a dream of more effective services, lower-cost services and a better technology environment.”
