Table of CEOs: Colorado tech CEOs share their secret sauce for success
Developing an innovative idea that leads to a successful business is one thing, but what needs to happen from there to scale and remain competitive? How does being based in Colorado, a thriving tech hub with a pool of available tech talent, impact a company’s potential? What role could artificial intelligence play in further driving a company’s future metamorphosis?
Those were among the topics discussed by the CEOs of some of Colorado’s fastest-growing tech companies recognized in the 2023 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 rankings. The following Q&A was conducted by the Fast 500 program champions for Colorado state: Chris Schmidt, managing partner of Deloitte’s Denver office, and Alexie Tune, a Deloitte audit & assurance partner specializing in emerging growth companies. In collaboration with the Denver Business Journal, they explored the leaders’ personal attributes, their companies’ origin stories and growth journey, and their aspirations for the future.
The panelists included CEOs of five Colorado-based 2023 Fast 500 winning companies: James Eberhard, Fluid Truck; Paul Lichty, Forge Nano; Jeremy Ostermiller, Edison Interactive; John Street, Pax8; and Gary Weiss, Career Certified.
Let’s dive in so we can learn more about each of these successful leaders as people and how they are future-proofing their businesses.
What’s the one thing you, as a person, are most known for?
Street: As a very accomplished entrepreneur.
Lichty: I believe I’ve built a reputation in both Colorado and global markets in my ability to build a sustainable, innovative material sciences company that is directly impacting the performance of products in some of the world’s most demanding industries, including batteries and semiconductors. Forge Nano is taking highly technical concepts and offering them as a solution to tough problems – something I’m personally very proud of and hope to be remembered for.
Ostermiller: I’m most recognized for my innovative thinking. I often approach problems with unique perspectives and solutions.
Weiss: Family First. I once relocated to the North with my family for the dream job. However, my family didn’t adjust and needed to move back. Despite a record setting year, I surprised the company by gaining clarity in conveying that “my family is relocating back to our home and I belong with them”. That’s the moment that everyone who knows me know that my Family comes First. My relentless passion for innovation through empowering the right people, processes, and technology, and getting out of their way to do what they do best.
Eberhard: I’m a serial entrepreneur. Fluid Truck is lucky #13 for me. I started my first business in second grade – renting video games to classmates. By the time I was in my 20s, I was onto my fifth business. My 13th company, Fluid Truck, is my largest and most successful endeavor yet.
It’s important to stay curious in life. What was the last new thing you learned or experienced?
Lichty: I recently learned that the Milton Hersey School owns a majority stake in the Hershey company. Milton Hershey donated virtually his entire personal fortune to The Hershey Trust Company to administer, support, and fund Milton Hershey School. The school started as a way to provide a home and education to orphaned children. Today, it’s home to more than 2,000 income-eligible children from across the U.S.
Ostermiller: I’ve recently built a music studio in my home and am currently diving into the world of music production. I’m exploring how to DJ and am also learning to play various musical instruments.
Weiss: I agree people must be curious and engage in both critical thinking as well as learn new things. Although silly, I am not handy around the house but I did learn how to unclog a sink trash compactor recently. As a CEO, through the issues of our times, I learned that providing moral clarity as a leader is acceptable and appreciated.
Eberhard: The latest new thing I experienced was new technology in an electric vehicle we are piloting on our platform. We work with electric vehicle manufacturers across the country to make EVs easily available to our customers. It’s great to see more and more companies switching to electric vehicles. I’m really proud of our project with IKEA, where we supply EVs to help IKEA accomplish its goal of 100% zero-emission last-mile delivery by 2025.
Street: The power of ChatGPT.
What is your company’s origin story and mission? Also, where in Colorado is it headquartered?
Ostermiller: Established in 2016 by high school friends Jeremy Ostermiller and Nick Stanitz-Harper, Edison Interactive has its roots in a mission is to inform, inspire, and entertain, creating experiences that enrich and elevate everyday life. Edison embarked on a journey to develop technology that forges deeper connections between brands and consumers, striving to make these interactions more meaningful and impactful. Today Edison powers over 80,000 screens across all 50 states across the country at golf courses, ski resorts, hotels and casinos and connected vehicles. Edison’s headquarters is in Cherry Creek North.
Weiss: Our history dates back to 2005, when we founded our flagship real estate education brand, The CE Shop. Inspired to grow from their industry-best learning platform, knowledgeable staff, and passion to do the right thing for customers, we expanded into Career Certified. Looking to make an even more meaningful impact in the lives of people across the nation, the Career Certified vision became clear: to make your purpose attainable. We presently serve professionals in real estate, home inspection, real property appraisal, mortgage loan origination, insurance, securities, and architecture. We are headquartered in Greenwood Village, Colorado, in the Denver Tech Center.
Eberhard: We are located in Denver. Fluid Truck started as a “marketplace for stuff” in 2016. It was a place to rent anything from bouncy castles to power tools from people in your local community. Of all the items on Fluid Market, one box truck was by far the most popular item to rent. This was the light bulb moment for me. Businesses and people wanted a quick and easy way to rent commercial vehicles. Fluid Market switched exclusively to commercial trucks in 2018 and changed its name to Fluid Truck. Since then, Fluid Truck has expanded to 400 cities across the U.S. with 100,000 users coast-to-coast. Our mission is to transform the commercial vehicle industry and make vehicle rentals quick and easy. Businesses and individuals can download the Fluid Truck app, locate a vehicle near them, read reviews, and rent it.
Street: Pax8’s mission is to become the world’s favorite cloud marketplace for technology professionals to buy cloud products. The origin of the company is through selling an early SaaS product, I realized that traditional distribution was ill-equipped for cloud products and needed to have a fresh perspective. Headquartered in Metro Denver.
Lichty: Forge Nano spun out of the University of Colorado Boulder in 2011 following my Ph.D. I’ve been building the business ever since, which has included two successful acquisitions and the recent spin out of Forge Battery – a unit that will produce battery cells for niche markets in North Carolina. Forge Nano started out of my garage in Colorado, so it only made sense to keep operations nearby in Thornton, Colorado. Our mission is to enable better products that can make a positive impact on people’s lives. Forge Nano is proud to be a legitimate garage startup, with reactors being built in my personal garage during the early days.
Looking back over the past year of your company’s life, what are you most proud of and why?
Weiss: We have collectively become more efficient and more innovative in the last year. We are attracting some of the world’s best talent to solve future problems ahead of the competition; we are finding greater purpose in our individual roles while opening up greater purpose for the audiences we serve.
Eberhard: I am most proud of our employees’ ability to stay nimble and adaptable. There have been a lot of changes in the macro environment over the last year and we’ve seen its impact on companies large and small across the U.S. Our team has been quick to pivot and adapt when needed. I’m really proud of them and their commitment to our mission of caring for our customers and making commercial vehicle rentals quick and easy.
Street: In addition to making the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 ranking, we were designated as a Best Managed Company, sponsored by Deloitte Private and the Wall Street Journal. We achieved it at a time when we were working hard to scale the company while continuing to experience hyper-growth. To do both is a highwire act and the designation was very vindicating that our efforts were well done.
Lichty: I’m most proud of the team we’ve built. When Forge Nano started, it was a company of two fully committed employees. Today, we’re over 100 and plan to bring over 200 additional jobs to North Carolina with Forge Battery. Seeing the impact Forge Nano has had on our employees – from career growth to supporting growing families in Colorado – is a major reason to be proud.
Ostermiller: Looking back at 2023, I can’t be prouder of the company and the team that we’ve built. We are working with some of the largest companies in the world, and providing a level of customer service and support that is unmatched. I’ve gotten positive feedback from both our customers and our partners about the level of professionalism and the quality of our team, and I can honestly say that Edison wouldn’t be the same without our employees.
As you look ahead two to three years, how would you like to evolve your company or “take it to the next level”?
Eberhard: AI and machine learning will become a more integral part of our business in the years to come. We recently formed an AI Innovation Team. This team will spearhead our efforts in integrating cutting-edge AI technology into our operations and products, ensuring Fluid Truck remains a frontrunner in the industry. By harnessing AI, we aim to enhance efficiency, enrich our products, and elevate customer experiences.
Street: Add a stellar late-stage, pre-IPO private equity investor and position the company to take it public.
Lichty: Forge Nano’s Atomic Armor technology allows us to push products to perform at their peak. Because of this, we have the ability to pursue various verticals and showcase the value of atomic layer surface engineering to various products. We began the business with a focus on battery materials. We have so much expertise in making battery materials reach new levels in performance, we recently spun off Forge Battery to manufacture our own battery cells for defense, aerospace and niche mobility markets. In recent years, we have since expanded to semiconductors, medical and additive manufacturing. We look forward to adding more value in these new verticals, expanding into new markets and using our expertise in new and exciting ways.
Ostermiller: Edison has a tremendous opportunity to radically change how people interact and monetize different verticals such as healthcare, hospitality and sports. The next couple of years will be focusing on scaling the business to achieve the growth in the verticals we have identified as targets. We will expand on our current process, grow the team and continue to drive new product development to make sure we establish Edison as a true change leader in these verticals.
Weiss: We are positioned to be the only true unified, scalable career lifecycle management partner in this type of professional education. There is nothing stopping us from growing through acquisition and applying our best practices in marketing, product innovation, engineering, sales, and customer support to any industry requiring regulated education.
How are you thinking about your next phase of growth? How are you balancing growth vs. a drive toward profitability?
Street: We plan to re-accelerate our trajectory of growth while closing the gap towards profitability. We expect to be EBITDA positive no later than mid-2025.
Lichty: Growth and profitability aren’t always the same mindset. At Forge Nano, we focus on maintaining a baseline revenue stream and building profitable products so that if the growth strategy needs to slow down; we can retreat to core business that is profitable. That may be more conservative than most startups, but it has worked well for us and allowed us to grow at a sustainable pace.
Ostermiller: Edison is currently in our high growth phase, so balancing growth and profitability is always a challenge. We are fundraising in 2024 to accelerate the growth of our company. After we close our fundraise, we will have a focus on using the proceeds to strategically invest in the areas that will help us generate the pieces of our business that bring long value contracts and recurring revenue. We have always been scrappy and that mentality will continue to drive performance across all of our teams as we move forward.
Weiss: Career Certified is already the leader in multi-vertical education, and we’ll continue to evaluate opportunities of acquisition in order serve an expanding portfolio of industries. We drive toward profitability by applying our industry-best practices in engineering, marketing, and course creation to industries that have not yet refined the process.
Eberhard: You have to be very intentional about how you want to allocate capital and resources as you grow. When you go through phases of rapid growth, it can be easiest and fastest to hire more people to get things done instead of taking time to setup processes that can improve efficiency and productivity for your existing team. As we look at our next phase of growth, we are looking for opportunities to improve processes and efficiencies because it improves the experience for both our customers and our staff.
How would you describe the current state of the capital environment in Colorado? How is your company navigating this landscape?
Lichty: The global markets have been shaky to say the least, and as a result capital is retreating to high quality deals with less speculation. Forge Nano is focused on being a high- quality deal, and we’ve been able to raise significant funds during difficult market conditions as a result. Colorado is the reason we’re here, and we want to continue the foster the “hard tech” industry in the state. Colorado is home to a lot of smart people, and we want to ensure they stay put to help grow the local economy.
Ostermiller: To say the capital environment is unlike anything we’ve seen in the past, would be an understatement. I think there is a lot of uncertainty in the markets, but at the same time we are seeing a lot of money sitting on the sidelines, looking for the right investment vehicles. I think a lot of people are being very cautious and the diligence is focused on companies that can drive real revenue and profitability. The days of solely investing in companies because of their high growth capabilities have passed, and investors are looking for founders and companies they know can drive results in the next three to five years.
Weiss: We have not tapped any new capital in 2023, including in Colorado.
Eberhard: When I started building companies in Denver 20 years ago, venture capital was hard to come by. We were always going to the coasts for capital. Now we see more and more venture capital groups coming to Denver and it’s opening the door for more entrepreneurs to launch. We still have a way to go in terms of diversity in our ecosystem. I would like to see more representation and more capital allocated to founders from more diverse backgrounds.
Street: We are not particularly informed about the state of capital in Colorado. However, we are very informed about the investment community in the US and find the capital markets to be very favorable for high-performing companies in an environment that is still experiencing wreckage from overinflated values from investments placed in the 2019 to 2021 timeframe.
How is your company thinking about generative AI? What opportunities and risks do you see?
Ostermiller: Edison is a platform company, so AI or Machine Learning has always been a part of every product or feature we roll out. We have a robust data infrastructure across all of our products, which gives us the ability to think strategically about how we can help drive real success for our customers. For example, we can drive real recommendations inside our hospitality products based on a consumer’s behavior while on premise. These automated recommendations can help drive real revenue for our hospitality customers by increasing activities such as restaurant reservations, amenity usage or offering discounts on extending stay. This isn’t possible with their existing tools, so we’re helping them generate incremental revenue using real time audience data and analytics coupled with our ML/AI infrastructure.
Weiss: We feel strongly that one of our core competencies and differentiators is our human IP applied to our curriculum and content creation. Easily, our competitive advantage could increase when we think about the opportunities to enter a business quickly by creating coursework with the help of AI. However, AI is still in a state of trying to please the reader or seeker, and the nuances of regulatory language may be overlooked versus the intellect and strategy our teams put into every piece of education that we carefully craft in order to guide the professional to success. That said, I believe AI is the next step for other business operations and will be implemented in more tutorial ways within a course to help a student identify areas they specifically need improvement or review or implemented in ways to make customer support efficient and speedier.
Eberhard: Generative AI is top of mind for us. I think there are great opportunities as well as potential risks. As I mentioned, Fluid Truck launched the AI Innovation Team. This team is charged with the task of spearheading our efforts to integrate cutting-edge AI technology into our operations and products. The team’s first focus is identifying AI opportunities within our current operations and establishing ethical AI practices. I’m excited to see where this goes.
Street: Generative AI is a core strategy of our company. The risk we see is to be slow to market with adding AI to our technology platform. Opportunistically, we feel that our AI efforts will extend our lead over our competitors, and new AI products will be a source of tremendous revenue for our marketplace and could dramatically improve our growth curve.
Lichty: Forge Nano is using AI in a way that is less discussed in the public forum. We use AI/machine learning tools in equipment development, in manufacturing and production and personnel training. We see a lot of opportunities for AI to help us streamline processes across the board.