Jason
Chavez

Profile

Napa's Quiet SaaS Founder

Somewhere between his first day wiring phone systems and the moment he realized he was managing assets with a highlighter on a photocopy of a floor plan, Jason Chavez made a decision. Not to pivot - that word implies speed he wasn't in a hurry for. It was more of a slow realization: the software that was supposed to help people track thousands of pieces of equipment across large buildings was so complicated that those people simply refused to use it. And if they refuse to use it, you have failed before you walked out of the building.

Chavez built ComNet Technology in Napa, California in 2000 as an IT professional services company. The focus: VoIP and communication systems, serving businesses that needed to migrate from traditional phone systems to voice-over-IP. For about ten years he kept the company deliberately small - roughly ten employees - not because of a capital constraint, but because of a schedule one. His three children had sporting events. He intended to be there.

The Highlighter Problem

What changed Chavez's direction wasn't a trend deck or a VC's suggestion. It was paper. Specifically, floor plans with hand-written notes, color-coded highlighting, and layers of sticky annotations that had to be maintained, reprinted, and redistributed every time something moved. He was watching facilities teams - skilled, experienced people - manage complex operations with tools that hadn't meaningfully evolved since the 1990s.

He investigated the existing alternatives. Autodesk's Revit. TOPS. Facility Dude. What he found was a pattern: the software that was most capable was also the most intimidating. Field technicians and tradespeople - the people who actually needed to log where a piece of medical equipment went - were bypassing the systems entirely. They'd fill in the spreadsheet later. Sometimes. The data would degrade, and with it, the utility of any system built on that data.

His answer was SpaceRunner. Not another BIM application. Not another CAFM system built for facility directors who already knew Revit. SpaceRunner was designed around the field worker: the installation tech, the project manager on a hospital floor, the person who needed to see where things were and update that record in thirty seconds without a training certification.

The Pivot That Wasn't Really a Pivot

In 2015, Chavez launched Xyicon and SpaceRunner as a commercial product, rebanding what was by then a fifteen-year-old company. The core premise was elegant: take a PDF floor plan - the kind every building already has - and make it interactive. Link spreadsheet data to location-specific icons on that floor plan. Let the data propagate through relational connections. Bring BIM principles down to a level that a hospital project manager could operate without a specialized degree.

The tagline he landed on was direct: "Think outside the spreadsheet." It was a swipe at Excel dependency so precise it didn't need explanation. Every facilities manager who saw it knew exactly what it meant.

The early validation was credible. A major West Coast healthcare provider - one running several billion dollars in active construction - adopted SpaceRunner for project managers and field workers while continuing to use conventional BIM software for design. The division of labor was clean: design in Revit, manage in SpaceRunner. One of their project managers later reflected that they "could not have opened our new hospital on schedule without this tool" - managing thousands of pieces of equipment across eighty departments.

Building in Napa

There is a running assumption in enterprise software that the companies that matter are built within commuting distance of Sand Hill Road. Xyicon is headquartered at 2650 Napa Valley Corporate Drive, Napa, California - better known for its wine production than its software output. Chavez built his company there anyway, and grew it to 54 employees while expanding into healthcare, construction, and real estate markets that have no particular preference for Bay Area zip codes.

The company's technology stack reflects pragmatic choices over trend-chasing: React, Webflow, HubSpot, Slack, Google Tag Manager, Wistia. Tools that do the job. The platform handles 3D model transformation, conditional formatting of asset data, boundary definitions for space planning, Excel import, and real-time collaborative updates - features that emerged from what actual users needed on actual job sites, not from a product roadmap built around feature announcements.

Where SpaceRunner Operates

SpaceRunner now spans multiple verticals. In healthcare, it handles equipment planning for hospital construction programs - tracking capital assets from procurement through installation to operational handoff. In construction and real estate, it serves project visualization and large-scale equipment deployment. In facilities management broadly, it handles space planning, occupancy management, and asset lifecycle tracking.

The numbers the company reports are notable: 95% reduction in time on critical tasks, 80% improvement in data accuracy, 15% reduction in procurement costs. These aren't claimed by Xyicon alone - they appear in customer accounts and G2 reviews from implementation project managers and IT consultants who were looking for exactly what Chavez built.

Chavez himself has spoken at ASHE - the American Society for Healthcare Engineering - carrying the message of simpler, more accessible facility management into the industry conference circuit. Xyicon also appeared at HIMSS, the major global health technology conference, in 2024. The company's presence at these events is not incidental. Healthcare is one of the most demanding and highest-value markets for asset management software, and Chavez has positioned Xyicon squarely within it.

The Operating Philosophy

Chavez's background as a technician - the person who installs and manages the systems rather than the one who designs them - shows up in how Xyicon thinks about usability. The insight that drove SpaceRunner's design wasn't about technology. It was about behavior. Software that people avoid using is not software that works, regardless of its feature list. The discipline Chavez applied was removing every barrier between a user and the data they needed to record or retrieve.

For a long time, the company's growth was deliberate rather than aggressive. Chavez built a business that let him attend his kids' games. That same discipline - choosing depth over scale, users over growth metrics - appears to have translated into a product that competes on retention and reliability rather than marketing spend. Xyicon doesn't appear in VC funding databases. It appears in the operational workflows of hospitals, construction programs, and facility teams who need the data to be right because the cost of getting it wrong is measured in delays, equipment losses, and project overruns.

There is something instructive in the fact that a company built on the frustration of paper floor plans operates from Napa wine country, still led by the person who wrote the original check. Chavez hasn't sold. He hasn't raised a round that would require him to explain a hockey-stick chart to a board. He's built a business that solves a real problem for the people who have to live with it every day.