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The tech industry in Colorado is known for its success in building B2B companies: in fact, in 2013 21 B2B web businesses raised over $103 million from investors. (How is that for some positive attention?) Many have speculated that this B2B success is due to the nature of Colorado's acclaimed work-life balance, which allows for the creation of quality relationships. But that only brushes the surface.
To hear what the pacemakers themselves are accounting for Colorado's B2B growth, Built In Colorado asked Stuart Wall (CEO of Signpost), Gavin McLoughlin (VP of Worldwide Marketing at X-IO), Matt Harada (CEO of Trada) and Ted Battreall (President of Vertiba) to shed some light:
1) Other Colorado B2Bs here helped pave the way
“Interestingly, X-IO was born out of the Seagate Advanced Storage Array Group, a Colorado-based company. We owe a lot to Seagate: its $100M investment in X-IO's Intelligent Storage Element (ISE) technology and the work of its world-class team (all of which is Colorado-based) has enabled us to build a global, industry-leading business.” - McLoughlin
2) There are countless B2B thought leaders innovating in Colorado
“I have admired the companies and leaders who have taken a fresh approach and applied new business models and innovations to entrenched industries. Locally those include Zayo and Layer3TV.”- Battreall
3) It's easy to meet people
“It has been easy to meet new people, get support and share lessons learned necessary to grow our business. Many of the initial introductions and meetings were facilitated by the Downtown Denver Partnership and folks involved in the Denver Startup Week.” - Wall
4) Other B2Bs help them scale
“There are a lot of great companies in Colorado, ranging from SendGrid that we as a company use for our email to Inversoft that is very active and helpful in the startup community.” - Wall
5) Egos don't get in the way (too much)
“The willingness of the community of entrepreneurs in Colorado to share experiences and advice is really incredible. I think a lot of other regions have a defensiveness that comes from big egos and cutthroat competition. In contrast, there is a feeling in Colorado that we are trying to grow the pie rather than grab a bigger slice from someone else.” - Harada
6) The region is hot with talent
“Without a doubt, Colorado's incredible talent pool is the biggest contributor to our current success and future growth. Colorado offers great deal of technology knowledge and expertise (particularly in the data storage sector) and we have always been fortunate to attract talented, experienced workers to join our corporate and engineering teams. In fact, beginning in 2011, we have doubled-down on our commitment to growing our Colorado presence by relocating staff to Colorado Springs from other US and international locations.” - McLoughlin
7) VCs are making more and more stops in Colorado
“At Trada we're particularly lucky to have Foundry Group and Google Ventures as two of our investors. Many of the companies in their portfolios are here in Colorado. Without exception, these other businesses have been very generous with their time. Even some of the out of state businesses have taken the time to meet with us when they come to Colorado.” - Harada
8) The government is tech-friendly
“The State of Colorado is a leader among states in embracing technologies, particularly cloud-based technologies. This is true in the way of encouraging technology innovation for Colorado based business and applying technology across state agencies to provide better services for citizens.” - Battreall
