4 Colorado Tech Companies Share Their Biggest Wins of 2017

by April Bohnert
December 27, 2017

A new year is right around the corner and with it, the promise of exciting new achievements and, yes, even challenges. But before we bid farewell to 2017, we wanted to take a look back at some of the milestones that have made the year great for members of the tech community. We asked four local companies to share their biggest wins of the year and how they’ve overcome the challenges that have come their way.

 

CA Technologies biggest wins Colorado
Photo courtesy of CA Technologies.

CA Technologies is no startup, but that doesn’t stop the company from dabbling in the startup game. To keep driving innovation, CA Technologies operates an accelerator within the organization that takes winning ideas and turns them into businesses. Instant Agenda is one of those startups, and founders Michael Ball-Marian and Rick Lansky shared more about its year.

 

How would you summarize your year in three words?

On the rise.

 

What was the biggest "win" you and your team have celebrated this year?

Our most important win was amazing growth (500 percent) over the last 6 months. This was important because early on we were struggling to achieve traction. We’re now making great progress validating our messaging and product, and feel we are starting to show signs of product-market fit.

 

What was the greatest challenge your company faced this year?

Early in the year. we were struggling to gain adoption. We got plenty of users signing up for trials but few going on to become active users. We ultimately found that our targeting and messaging were a bit off, which had been bringing in lots of window shoppers. We also significantly improved the product onboarding and user experience. We’ve still got work to do, but addressing these two issues produced break-out growth and traction. We need to further refine and understand the levers, but things are looking solid to end the year.

 

Billtrust biggest wins Colorado
Photo courtesy of Billtrust.

Billtrust’s software automates and streamlines every step of the payment process from invoicing to cash flow management. Marketing communications manager Jill Baldassano explained how this year’s partnerships have set the company up for even more success in 2018.

 

How would you summarize your year in three words?

Empowering B2B daily.

 

What was the biggest "win" you and your team have celebrated this year?

An important "win" that Billtrust celebrated was with our strategic partnerships. In 2017, we announced partnerships with KeyBank and with Visa. As we move into 2018, both partnerships will enable us to continue to expand revenue opportunities, increase efficiencies and simplify B2B payments for suppliers and their accounts receivable teams. 

 

What was the greatest challenge your company faced this year?

One of the biggest challenges that we face is attracting highly skilled technical talent that also fits in well with our dynamic company culture. There are a lot of tech companies recruiting similar talent, so we've added some even more tech-friendly benefits like internal hackathons, one-month paid sabbaticals, relocation opportunities to other Billtrust offices and a supportive attitude about all kinds of “gaming” action happening in the office during breaks. By combining those benefits with our existing benefits package and tech-friendly culture, we aim to continue to attract the best technical talent.

 

Envysion biggest wins Colorado
Photo courtesy of Envyson.

Envysion’s surveillance software and video-based analytics enable businesses to gain better insights into their operations. The Superior-based company saw some major growth this year, adding 93 new employees to the team. Lisa Harris, senior director of marketing, and Jennifer Taylor, marketing and creative manager, shared how they’ve handled the scaling.

 

How would you summarize your year in three words?

Teamwork, breakthrough, abundance.

 

What was the biggest "win" you and your team have celebrated this year?

This year we have substantially increased our subject matter expertise within the restaurant industry by hiring accomplished professionals with real-world restaurant experience, chief among them is seasoned veteran Kevin Milner, Envysion’s director of audit services. Subsequently, we have revitalized our audit programs to deliver the most comprehensive loss prevention solution for restaurateurs — including more affordable hardware options with our software’s HD analog compatibility. These developments played a crucial role in delighting our customers and maintaining our track record of innovation and leadership in loss prevention.

 

What was the greatest challenge your company faced this year?

Our greatest challenge has been growing fast enough to keep up with the demand we’ve created in the marketplace. We are fortunate to have incredible opportunity in the market, and balancing our high-speed growth to meet that opportunity while handling the growing pains that come with that expansion has required finesse. What have we learned from it? No matter what obstacle we are working to overcome, we must never lose sight of the most important part of our business: our customers. To ensure that we always keep this at the center of everything we do while also nurturing fast-paced growth, we have focused on hiring talent that intimately understands our customers and the challenges they face.

 

Mobile Solutions biggest wins Colorado
Photo courtesy of Mobile Solutions.

Brightfin makes mobile management more scalable with a SaaS platform that helps businesses manage their mobile devices, carriers and plans from one portal. Co-founders Jim Johnson and Kim Johnson gave us some insight into the company’s biggest achievements in 2017.

 

How would you summarize your year in three words?

Exciting, challenging, rewarding.

 

What was the biggest "win" you and your team have celebrated this year?

The single biggest win has been the growth and maturity of our team. We take pride in our team, and for us, that means investing in our mutual success. With growth and maturity comes creativity, talent and vision to move forward with confidence and take on new challenges with excitement.

 

What was the greatest challenge your company faced this year?

This year has been full of challenges as we are improving on every aspect of our business. The thing about challenges, though, is that they always provide a way to grow. Encouraging everyone on the team to think outside the box when trying to improve on our success as a customer service-based company has led us to new highs. Every person on the team has the ability to contribute in a positive way to the future.

 

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