By Christopher Manson
“Business is a force for good if you build it that way.” – Vince Mayfield
Twenty-five years ago, with the 21st century and the third millennium on the horizon, widespread anxiety about something called “Y2K” reared its worry-making head. Also, in 2000, America Online purchased Time Warner for a cool 162 billion. The final Peanuts comic strip by the late great Charles M. Schulz was published in something called “newspapers”—after a glorious 50-year run, Charlie Brown never got to kick that football, nor did Pig Pen get himself cleaned up.
And a pair of military veterans, Vince Mayfield and Louis Erickson, founded Bit-Wizards, a company that has displayed exceptional growth and positive community impact in a quarter century.
Bit-Wizards CEO Mayfield says the company is already outgrowing the 25,000 square-foot building in Fort Walton Beach’s Industrial Park it has occupied for the last three-and-a-half years. A move to an even larger building at Freedom Tech Center—over 50,000 square feet—is planned for late 2026. Bit-Wizards has upped its number of team members from 50 in 2020 to around 95 at this writing.
Some of the services initially offered by Bit-Wizards—notably software development—have been transferred to Mayfield’s other company, TalkingParents. The product-oriented TalkingParents provides a software communications platform “for divorced people who are co-parenting,” says Mayfield, while Bit-Wizards’ focus is on managed IT services.
Before they founded Bit-Wizards, Mayfield and Erickson wrote custom software while working for various defense contractors. “When the dot-com boom was happening, we wanted to go off on our own into a commercial venture,” says Mayfield. “At my niece’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese, we started sketching out ideas on a napkin.”
Erickson lost his sister that year and relocated to Austin, Tex., while Mayfield went to work for another company. Not long after that, Erickson reached out to Mayfield about contracting for building commercial software. “’Look, we’re single and we don’t have any kids, now is the time to do this’ he said to me,” remembers Mayfield. Since the domain name for Bitwise—the company’s original moniker—wasn’t available, the guys went with Bit-Wizards, wand, magic smoke and all.
“We spent our first year in Austin then moved back here in 2001. Then 9/11 happened, and we were able to scrape by taking a SBA business loan against my house, and we borrowed 25K from my father at 14 percent interest.”
Bit-Wizards hired its first employee in 2003, and the business has been blowing up ever since. TalkingParents, the company Mayfield and Erickson founded in 2012 with Stephen Nixon, is also “growing super well.
“We’ve created a great place to work, and we’ve watched a lot of people come in and grow their careers,” Mayfield adds. “Some have gone off to start their own companies, and some have gone on to work for companies like Microsoft.”
In the last 25 years, Bit-Wizards has chalked up 15 mentions in Florida Trend’s Best Places to Work in Florida. Inc. magazine named the company one of the best places to work for the past eight years. Bit-Wizards also appeared on Inc.’s fasted growing companies list five times, four of which were in consecutive years. In addition, it has been recognized by former Florida Governors Jeb Bush and Rick Scott for its continued growth and for employing veterans.
“We’ve been heavily involved in community things,” says Mayfield. He and Erickson have both served on the board of the Greater Fort Walton Beach Chamber of Commerce, and they started Be the Magic Foundation, an organization “committed to helping the Northwest Florida community through time, talent and money.”
“My business partner and I both grew up here, and we have a pretty strong drive to give back to the local community,” says Mayfield. “I grew up in Shalimar and graduated from Choctawhatchee High School. Louis graduated from Fort Walton Beach High School. We’ve known each other since we were in junior high school at Meigs, and both of our dads were in the Air Force.”
Bit-Wizards started out specializing in custom software, then added digital marketing and infrastructure to its services. “We’ll continue to grow the companies and flourish,” says Mayfield. “In the Bit-Wizards realm, we’ve decided to focus on managed IT services that a lot of small and medium-sized businesses need. These days, every company is an IT company no matter what you do.” The TalkingParents user base is over half a million and continues to increase.
Earlier this year, Bit-Wizards held its annual awards dinner, and other “mini celebrations” will continue throughout the remainder of 2025. Mayfield publishes monthly articles about his business experiences and lessons learned on LinkedIn.
“Most technology businesses fail within three years, and the fact that we’re still thriving 25 years later is pretty monumental,” says Mayfield.
Discover more at bitwizards.com, bethemagicfoundation.org and talkingparents.com.
Bit-Wizards Founders Vince Mayfield and Louis Erickson.
Where the Bit-Wizards magic originally happened.
The Bit-Wizards family celebrates 25 years.
Photos courtesy of Natalie Ewing.
