Voqara launches its beta platform, created by Tusk Software Solutions
Joel Marshall created the billing, invoicing, and time tracking platform for software development companies like his own.
Tucked inside one of the staple buildings in the Old City of Knoxville is a team of creative software developers led by Joel Marshall. His company Tusk Software celebrated its 10th anniversary in November of 2024, and now has plans to launch a new product.
Today, Marshall oversees a team of a dozen who craft software solutions for a lengthy list of loyal, long-term clients. His guiding principle has always been efficiency — an idea that drove him to start his own business in the first place.
“Early in my career I worked in Washington D.C. as a government contractor,” Marshall said. “Regardless of the project, the common thread was a lack of efficiency. Things moved very, very slowly.”
That experience led Marshall to step out on his own, with a mission to solve those issues. He likes to describe himself as a “developer turned business owner.”
“I didn’t have much foresight or understanding of what I was getting myself into. A lot goes into starting your own business,” Marshall admitted. “But my goal was simple: deliver better work, provide higher-quality solutions, and do it all at a more affordable price. Over the past 10 years, I think our team has achieved that.”
One of Tusk’s large local clients is BioPet Laboratories, which was founded by Tom Boyd, and is currently run by J Retinger as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). When BioPet opened a new headquarters in early 2024, Tusk played a pivotal role, creating the software behind its DNA processing, warehousing, and data management systems.
As Tusk’s client list got longer and projects became more abundant, Marshall identified one area of inefficiency that bothered him: billing, invoicing, and time tracking. The existing systems were difficult to integrate, clunky, and spread across separate platforms.
“So we decided to build our own, and within the last year we’ve been using the platform, which we have coined ‘Voqara,’ to streamline those processes,” he said.
By rolling out Voqara internally, Tusk was able to identify bugs, test integrations, and smooth out pain points before bringing the product to market. In the second half of 2024, Marshall partnered with several local development firms to conduct a private beta test of the platform.
“We quickly realized that companies can do really interesting, really powerful stuff with our platform, especially with analytics and reporting, by having all of this information under one roof,” he said.
Now, Marshall is gearing up for a public beta launch of Voqara, once again aiming to help businesses achieve maximum efficiency — his core passion.
On a personal level, Marshall is particularly excited to share this product with Knoxville’s development community (Knox Devs), a group he’s grown close to during his time in Tennessee.
“We’re all in a position to help one another, share ideas, and provide feedback,” Marshall said. “Voqara is a perfect example of that. The local developers who were willing to test our product were incredibly helpful, and I’m so grateful for their input.”
With Voqara’s website live and the public beta test just launched, Marshall is looking forward to the next phase of his entrepreneurial journey and invites Teknovation readers to join the beta and be among the first to try Voqara free of charge.
“It’s been an exciting ride launching a second business,” he said. “We want the Knoxville community to know we’re advocates for teams like ours, advocates for our clients, and we’re focused on helping businesses get the most bang for their buck.”
Learn more about Tusk Software.
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