Brothers Quinn and Nick Small said it felt destined that they would join forces to build a company. Growing up in Lincoln, the duo share a history of dabbling in startups and assisting where they can with the window-covering business their mom started when they were younger. 

“My whole life I’ve worked with family, so now we’re doing it again,” Quinn, the older brother, said. 

Their startup is called Driive, an AI-powered booking platform aimed at contractors and home service providers. With their co-founder Corey Collins, Quinn and Nick are combining their insights in the trades and tech. Their shared goal is to scale a software venture in the city they call home. 

Driive offers a scheduling solution that books jobs more effectively and efficiently — even after hours, when staff isn’t in the office to answer calls. The product helps ensure customer requests are received and technicians are matched to opportunities optimally based on their location, driving routes and shift availability. Driive leadership recently announced a nearly $800,000 pre-seed investment round. 

Quinn said Invest Nebraska led the round. Other investors included MOVE Venture Capital, Nelnet, Nebraska Angels and CompanyCam Founder and CEO Luke Hansen. 

CompanyCam has gained notoriety in the state for becoming Nebraska’s first unicorn company — achieving a $2 billion valuation. The construction tech company headquartered in Lincoln also targets the trades, offering job site management solutions for everything from communicating across crews and tracking project progress. 

According to data compiled by Invest Nebraska for its 2026 Nebraska Venture Capital Report, Driive raised about $530,000 last year. Quinn and Nick said the pre-seed round occurred in phases, finalizing with $783,000 raised.

Local organizations and support resources Quinn pointed to that helped his idea grow include the Nebraska Startup Academy and advisers out of Invest Nebraska and MOVE VC. The Small brothers said additional financial support came from Nebraska’s prototype grant through the Business Innovation Act. 

An answer to a lived-through problem

Driive’s team of three has a collective track record in the Nebraska startup and entrepreneurial ecosystem, with experience in nonprofits and tech companies. These include Nonprofit Hub, The Bay, BasicBlock, Exodus and CompanyCam. 

Quinn said he stepped away from the ecommerce company Spreetail to assist his family’s business, Custom Blinds and Design, around the surge of home remodeling from the pandemic. He described how customers working from home and having money to spend began seeking out ways to update their houses. 

During his return, he took on the role of CEO to explore how to possibly tap into this momentum and potentially extend operations and market reach. 

“Other competitors (were) getting in the market,” Quinn said, “and we needed to be quicker at getting leads converted to an actual sales opportunity and get a salesperson in front of it to close the sale.”

Quinn said his team faced obstacles such as missed calls, phone tag and appointments that could vary greatly on location and distance from available crews. 

“Ideally, you have well-coordinated routes so that you’re spending more time actually in homes with customers than in the car driving between appointments,” Quinn said. 

Not finding an existing solution or product combination that fit his needs, Quinn decided to create his own. 

Driive’s origins began around 2023 before developing into its official present-day iteration in 2025, which is when Nick said he and Collins joined full time. Quinn said he has returned leadership of Custom Blinds and Design to his mom to allow him to carry out his venture.

The brothers said they maintain a close relationship with their family and still follow the business. Nick described Custom Blinds and Design as Driive’s first customer, collecting input across teams and testing out the booking platform. 

Catching the eye of an industry leader

Both Nick and Collins worked for CompanyCam prior to Driive. Nick, who had joined CompanyCam in 2017 and would serve as vice president of marketing, said he valued Hansen’s founder story. Hansen came up with the idea of CompanyCam through working for his family’s roofing business, White Castle Roofing. 

According to Invest Nebraska, CompanyCam’s $415 Series C fundraising round last year helped push 2025 to be a record-breaking year in VC raised in the state. CompanyCam has demonstrated ongoing traction with its first-ever business acquisition earlier this year. 

With CompanyCam moving into more advanced development stages, Nick said he began searching for another opportunity to scale an early-stage venture — realizing his passion for the work. He said he was specifically interested in a startup in the trades and with a founder who knew these industries. 

Nick said his time in the startup world made him aware of a crowded market where tech entrepreneurs were targeting contractors and related fields but lacked direct experience in the space. 

This led him to his brother and Driive. 

“It was definitely a hard split because I met my wife (at CompanyCam). All of my best friends are there,” Nick said. “I really cut my teeth in GTM (go-to-market strategy) and growing a company and learning how to be a leader there.”

Hansen, noting his longtime relationship and friendship with the Driive team, said he is supportive of their decision to pursue this opportunity and “make something their own.” 

Hansen said he has made other investments in the community and that the convincing factor is the people behind the solution. He emphasized Quinn’s trial-and-error approach to produce a solution that solves a real need. 

“(Quinn) understands the customer, the problem and what a good solution looks like and what it needs to be for people to buy it,” Hansen said. “And he’s not like a software engineer, but he also understands product.”

Invest Nebraska Investment Manager Shelby Strattan said having Hansen in their corner gives Driive key validation and mentorship. “We’d love to see more partnerships like this across the ecosystem,” she said. 

“Whether they’re startups or were startups, or whether they’re these massive legacy businesses, whether it’s the founder or the executive team working with startups that they see a lot of potential with, can really be such a game changer for these companies at the early stage that are looking to differentiate themselves,” she continued. 

Driive promotes itself as fully integratable with CompanyCam.

Finding a path forward

Quinn said the investments Driive has received will enable the startup to go to market with a more customer-facing product, built on the described “Driive brain.” 

With this technology, Quinn said he and his team can explore other software to integrate with and build upon. He said there are also opportunities to market their solution as a way to train other AI models and agents. 

The brothers said they’re now moving forward with raising a seed round. 

“There’s no longer as much of a, ‘Oh, you think you can build something material in Nebraska? How are you going to do that? Don’t you need to move to Salt Lake, or do you need to move to San Francisco, or do you need to be in Denver?’” Quinn said. “We’ve made a name for ourselves that you can build something materially valuable in Nebraska.”