Colorado presents a number of opportunities for tech companies. Businesses can make use of its unique environment or work with its established cannabis industry, for example. On top of these features, Colorado remains one of America’s most significant tech hubs.
Each of these companies are based in Colorado for their own reasons — some for its particular features, others for its industry. Regardless, they’re all doing something interesting — and they’re all hiring.
What they do: Gtmhub is an objectives and key results (OKR) platform that focuses on helping organizations align with their mission at all levels, from leaders to entry-level employees. Their software supports every stage of the process, from vision to strategy to implementation.
Learning objectives: The blog page on their website contains a library of resources about not only their software, but OKR advice and strategy. Many of these articles are written by expert partners in their “Voices of OKR” series, such as CEOs of OKR companies and Chairman & Founder of OKR International, Nikhil Maini.
Funding results: As of December 2021, Gtmhub raised $120 million in Series C funding, a record for the OKR software industry. They plan to use this funding to double their employees and triple their revenue in 2022.
What they do: Flowhub is a point-of-sale (POS) provider for cannabis dispensaries. Its POS system, business and supply chain management tools and legal compliance software are currently used by over 1,000 companies.
A (w)rap on funding: A strategic funding round that concluded in October saw Flowhub raise $19 million, bringing their total valuation to $200 million — $50 million of which is in outside funding. Notably, this round of funding included contributions from acclaimed rapper, Jay-Z.
Social equity: Flowhub launched its Social Equity Program in June to do its part in closing the opportunity gap in the cannabis industry for marginalized entrepreneurs. It awards recipients on a rolling basis, with a particular focus on store owners who have been personally harmed by the war on drugs. This award includes a three-year Flowhub subscription at $4.20 annually, along with free subscriptions to other related apps and free implementation.
What they do: Verblio is a content creation platform for marketing organizations. With their expert team of writers and a number of sliders to help marketers define the tone of their products, Verblio helps companies produce content such as blog posts, newsletters, press releases and website content.
People first: “Content marketing is a hyper-saturated industry, and our people and culture give us a key competitive advantage,” CEO Steve Pockross told Built In in March. “Our people bring their whole, curious selves to work every day and create better relationships with the stakeholders they work with.” Verblio makes certain that they hire top-tier writers to produce high-quality content — 23 percent of their writing team has a master’s degree or higher.
Tone masters: Verblio’s greatest strength is in its creativity and tone. Its website’s FAQ combines informative and fun questions — curious minds can find answers about plagiarism detection on the platform in the same place as advice on taming dolphins. The website also contains a “poetry” page where writers contribute verses about the platform. The software itself includes a tone slider, so marketers can decide how much of Verblio’s whimsy they wish to inject into their own products.
What they do: Artifact Uprising uses your digital photos to create high-quality products such as albums, photo books, custom cards, prints and calendars. Each of these products has a wide variety of types and customization options to help you display your photos to your exact specifications.
Materials Matter: Artifact Uprising’s products are made of wood reclaimed from Colorado’s pine trees felled before their time by the invasive mountain pine beetle. This is in addition to making use of recycled paper. Artifact Uprising has embraced this strategy completely, proudly advertising the storied nature of their products’ materials.
Capturing UX Success: Since their products are custom-made, it’s important that Artifact Uprising has an effective website UX that shows users exactly what they will be getting. Daniel Alt, senior product designer, spoke to Built In this past February to talk about what makes their UX successful: listening to and running tests based on customer feedback.
“A pain point we heard many times during these conversations was that our site had issues with readability, which led us to make design improvements to specifically solve this issue,” said Daniel. After discovering that pain point, they were able to make necessary changes and test for success.
What they do: Sunday is a subscription service that applies climate, satellite and user data to curate a specialized delivery box for an individual’s unique lawn. The customer needs only to provide a hose, and Sunday will deliver plant nutrients, fertilizer, grass seeds and natural pest control substances to help their lawn thrive.
Sustainable funding: Sunday concluded its Series C funding in October by announcing $50 million in new funding, bringing its total fundraising to $78 million. It plans to use this new funding to increase its employee headcount from 70 to 110 in 2022 and accelerate development of new products.
Green thumbs: Sunday is dedicated to making lawn care sustainable and eco-friendly. The company is 100-percent transparent with its ingredients and actively avoids the harmful chemicals found in many pesticides. They are also part of “1% for the planet,” an organization of companies that have pledged to donate at least one percent of their sales to environmental causes.
What they do: Gloo is working to modernize the way churches connect to their local community. They help build next-generation church directories and use data analytics to determine the unique values, needs and experiences of local communities.
Remote benefits: After a productive 2020, Gloo implemented a remote-first policy in 2021, repurposing their office as a space to build community and collaboration. They also took the time to emphasize their employee assistance services, such as counseling and parental support.
Easy learning: Gloo offers a number of easy-to-understand tutorials for its software on its website, including a PDF user manual designed in a printer-friendly format for easy reading. Other resources include several short guides for specific tasks and a support center for technical difficulties.