Mitchell Sims recalls with fondness breaking horses and riding bulls in his native McCurtain County, calling himself the “quintessential Oklahoma kid.”

But this “kid” was always a grown-up when it came to making money.

Sims cut his entrepreneurial teeth running lawn mowing and watermelon businesses, and by age 15, he supervised a hay team, complete with truck and loader.

“We just got up and worked every day,” Sims said. “I didn’t know any different.”

He still doesn’t.

Sims is six years into PigTracks, a real-time pig tracking and project management platform he founded to help maintain the 3.2 million miles of regulated pipeline in the United States.

PigTracks’ revenue has doubled in the past three years. In March, he took home top honors in the Cowboy 100, which celebrates the contributions of entrepreneurial-minded Oklahoma State University graduates.

“A salesperson has a sales force,” Sims said. “An accountant has QuickBooks. A pipeline integrity engineer has PigTracks.”

Pig tracking is the process of monitoring the location and progress of a pipeline pig (pipeline inspection gadget) as it moves through a system. Pigs are essential for cleaning, inspection and maintenance tasks.

The brainchild for PigTracks came while Sims was working as a project manager for T.D. Williamson, a pipeline services company based in Tulsa.

“We were in notebooks and spreadsheets, spending 18 hours a day planning, executing and invoicing all these projects,” he said. “I just thought there had to be a better way.”

PigTracks’ software provides pipeline operators and their contractors a suite of tools to help them do their job.

“Our model has been converting bottom up, not top down,” Sims said. “The problem we solve is right in the field…Those are pipeline integrity engineers who have a budget every year to spend. Those are the folks we go after.”

Heavily involved with his alma mater, he serves on the board of OSU’s Riata Center, the university’s hub for innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as on the board for the pipeline integrity program at OSU-IT in Okmulgee.

 Sims also is a member of the Tulsa Regional Chamber’s Technology Council.

“When I got invited to the Tech Council, I found a home within the Chamber,” he said. “I found like-minded individuals who were doing their best or successfully doing big things. I got to find my people there.”

Big things certainly characterize PigTracks.

The company is up to 11 full-time employees, and in terms of partnerships, it has about $6 million worth of opportunities in the pipeline.

Sims relishes being his own boss but warns that entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone.

“You really have to have a high tolerance for pain,” he said. “And additionally for founders, ignorance is bliss. If you knew all the risks and all the work it was going to take in the beginning, you never would do it. It’s actually an illogical decision to commit to founding a company.

“…You have to have this internal burning passion for the mission. All founding companies, all successful ones, have a good mission. It’s really a compelling belief in the mission that allows you to tolerate the pain.”