Thanks to the Colorado Technology Association, over 80 of local C-level execs and IT leaders (deemed "celebrities") will be attending the C-Level @ A Mile High event on March 6. The event gives over 1,000 attendees an opportunity to meet C-suite decision makers and IT team leaders in Colorado across industries who use technology to power their businesses. Register for the event here, but if you're looking for a sneak peak, Built In Colorado sat down with three of these local "celebrities" to talk about how they have dealt with technology and growth in their own careers:
Andre Durand: CEO, Ping Identity
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What do people need to know about Ping Identity's industry? I would say our market has really caught on fire after many, many years. The reality of mobile devices and clouded options in the enterprise is unmistakable and a lot companies have a lot significant problems that we can help them with. The identity problem isn’t getting any better any faster than it’s getting worth. We are really keeping pace. It’s also an interesting time for the intersection of mobility and identity. Everyone’s mobile phones have become so central.
How are you keeping up with that industry growth? We are approaching 350 people and hired well over 100 last year. We have a pretty significant hiring plan for this year. We have offices in Denver, Boston, Vancouver, San Francisco, Halifax, London and Tel Aviv.
Why have you stayed based in Denver?
Being distributed doesn’t scare us. There’s no reason to move headquarters. We have a distributed executive team. I would say that when you have a lot of change and it’s rapid, it’s certainly advantageous to be together. But having a distributed team forces a fairly healthy discipline, so you deal with fewer things off-the-cuff. It kind of mutes the energy.
How do you manage your team members at various offices?
We have a Monday morning phone call that lasts 90 minutes and it’s really focused on the top five things for each individual. That's followed by a number of one-on-one phone calls, followed by monthly in-person management meetings that last all day. All of the larger decision-making that requires discussion, you want to do that stuff in person. Once a quarter, we expand that meeting to our plus-one team which our senior managers to review all the major progress. Twice a year, we do two different executive offsites.
What lessons have you learned since founding your first venture in 1999?
Patience is very powerful and underappreciated. If you’re in business long enough to experience the results of your decisions, you might appreciate the long view a little bit more. Building something small with the intent to flip it is different than building something that’s enduring. I also think I didn’t appreciate the advice in Jim Collins’s book about getting the right people on the bus and into the right seats. If you want to move a big rock, it takes a team. Building a team is purposeful.
What is your Number 1 hiring tip?
Every company and every culture has an ideal profile whether they know it or not. They change with the stages of the company. Be cognizant of that. We’ve identified what succeeds at Ping and we’ve developed our own profile of success. An attribute that wasn’t originally on my list is coachability.
Shawn Mills: President and founder, Green House Data
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How has Green House Data grown since being founded in 2007?
We are a colocation and hosting company and have operations in Wyoming, Denver, Portland and Newark. Sales and marketing in Denver. This is the hub of our growth activity from a marketing perspective. Our business model is an environmentally-responsible and energy efficient data center and Infrastructure as a Service company, but more importantly is our service level.
We are in the process of building a second data center in Wyoming while expanding in New Jersey and probably follow that up a year later with the same thing on the West Coast in Portland.
Almost by all metrics, we have doubled on a year-over-year basis and anticipate probably this year experiencing 60 to 85 percent growth.
How have you managed that growth?
Obviously, there are different levels of focus at different times, but the key thing that we’ve done over the past several years to manage that growth and ensuring we have the funding in advance of the growth. But almost as important is hiring at a pace that is a little bit quicker than the growth so that we can ensure that our clients’ needs. It’s kind of a one-two punch. We’ve been hiring sales and engineering staff in advance of the growth. One of the things that could easily happen is that we sell out ahead of our talent and don’t deliver to our customers.
Doesn't hiring ahead of growth worry you?
It’s a super scary thing to do, but we started seeing pains during year one when we were growing faster than our staff could handle and so we made a ton of effort to stay ahead of it.
How do you find the Colorado community?
In Colorado, a top-of-mind topic for most business owners is: "How can I live in such an awesome place and still be able to be socially and environmentally responsible?” Our business model has been greatly embraced.
What about your national clients?
Not everybody cares about being environmentally responsible, that’s why we have our service level, too. But being environmentally responsible means saving money and energy and we couple that, for people who care a little less about that reality, with super high service and support for those markets.
What are your goals?
In one year, I feel pretty confident we will have an owned facility out in New Jersey and in three years I think we will have Portland online. In five years, I envision us looking at acquisitions either of our company or of other companies to reach a critical mass.
Who are your competitors?
In the state, we would consider HOSTING.com and ViaWest our competitors from a macro standpoint.
What else do you want Colorado engineers to know about Green House Data?
This is a high-growth organization and the ability to learn a whole a lot about a new technology in a high customer service organization is an attractive thing. There’s a lot of opportunity to help other technology companies grow.
Sherri Hammons: CTO, IQ Navigator
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You were previously CTO for the State of Colorado. What lessons did you carry over to IQNavigator?
The state CTO is a rigorous job with many different competing priorities. Because state agencies such as the Department of Labor are similar to a company in the private sector, managing 17 “companies” at once, with disparate agendas, roadmaps, and resources, is exceptionally challenging. The experience really carries forward into the private sector. Government also has constraints around purchasing, budgeting and resource management that truly help you focus on what is most important from a technology perspective.
What technologies are playing the biggest roles in IQNavigator this year?
As a Software as a Service (SaaS) company, technology is our business. Big Data will be a focal point this year and how information can drive decision making. Leveraging those tools, along with the analytics to understand the data, will really power our product.
What does it mean to you to have a such a product-centered company?
Our product is our revenue stream, so it is our water. We cannot live without it. We must continually invest into to ensure we are maximizing our customer’s experience and needs. Big Data tools will also help us understand how people are using our product, so we can deliver functionality to them in the way that they user it.
What tips can you offer young companies still honing in on what exactly their product is and the value of it?
Include analytics into your platform so you can truly understand what is happening with it. And don’t underinvest. It is your water, after all.
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