Like most 17-year-olds, Jason Smith wanted to earn some extra cash. But while most high school kids earn their movie money waiting tables, tearing tickets or selling something, the teen was in the preliminary steps of starting his company.
“I’d always been pretty good with different sciences and technologies,” Smith said, “and I wanted to focus on my passion for technology by learning about it and tinkering around with it. So I put out ads saying I could fix computers.”
Although he “didn’t make a lot of money – just enough to go to the movies or a restaurant,” his after-school job became Torchlight Technologies LLC, an innovative technology-services company specializing in database development, security services and its “claim to fame,” open source, or software with a source that is accessible and changeable to clients and users.
“Open source is really my forte,” Smith said. “I’ve contributed to a few blogs about it, and I’ve spoken about it at InnoTech [San Antonio]. We’ve investigated, experimented and done several developments with open source, so we’re very knowledgeable about it.”
After only five years, Torchlight has become the self-described “open-source voice of San Antonio” and has served everything from “a few small private practices here and there” to big names like FreedomDebt.com, the City of San Antonio and Phoenix Technologies, Smith said.
“We’ve done quite a few things,” he said. “We’re usually brought in to help fulfill a need that a company can’t fulfill for [its] customer. But we’re not interested in rehashing the same old technology that everybody else is [using]. We pride ourselves on being innovative and problem solving.”
Unlike many other businesses offering technological services, “we actually solve problems,” Smith said. “We don’t just throw technology at [our customers] and hope they go away. We’re here to serve the customer, not ourselves, and we take customer service very seriously.”
This care for the customer is evident not only in Torchlight’s pristine listing with the Better Business Bureau, but also in Torchlight’s list of services. Become a Torchlight customer, and Smith and his team will help you plan, develop and maintain databases for your business, as well as find ways to secure the information that is most important to you.
As Smith said, “if we’ve helped our customers with our technology and made life easier and more productive for them, we’ve done our job.” And since “there’s definitely room for us to grow,” he’s always looking for new ways to do just that.
“We’re still in the [research and development] phase for a new product we’re launching for information security,” he said. “I got tired of using products from other companies, so I decided to build my own. There aren’t products similar to what we’re launching.”
Smith is also in the process of developing a subsidiary company focusing on cloud computing, which “is a very fast-growing sector of the information technology field and has been a big buzzword over the last few years,” he said.
As a firm believer that technology should help people and enhance their lives, Smith’s care for people doesn’t end with his customers. This San Antonio native contributes to the community through his membership and affiliation with several organizations, including BioMed SA, the Center for Family Relations and the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce.
He also holds Torchlight Presents, a series of quarterly mixers to raise funds and awareness for select charities, Smith said. “I look for charities, find one that touches my heart and throw a mixer at no cost to them. I charge an entry fee, and 100 percent of the profits go to that charity. We’re big on giving back to the community. San Antonio is our home, and we want to do what we can for it.”
