Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, co-founders Ross Gray and Ryan Born opted to split the headquarters of their company Cloud Campaign.
Born would stay in Boulder, Colorado, where in 2019 the duo completed the Boomtown accelerator. And Gray would move to Portland, where his partner had landed a job at Nike.
So far, so good.
The company has grown to 13 employees, with eight in Portland. The Portland team is focused on go-to-market elements of the business, and the engineers are in Boulder with CEO Born. Gray is chief operating officer.
The company makes software for freelance marketers or agencies so they can easily manage the social posts and campaigns of multiple clients and brands.
Last week, the startup unveiled a $5 million funding round. The round was led by Oregon Venture Fund and Access Venture Partners. Gray said he started talking to OVF long before this funding and the group has been helpful.
Part of that money will be used for hiring in both Boulder and Portland. Gray said he expects the total team to be about 27 by the end of the year.
The talent pipeline in Portland has been good, Gray said. He was just able to hire Ken Diamond as head of customer success. Diamond was most recently vice president of account management at marketing software maker Lytics and before that was a director at cloud analytics company GoodData.
Prior to Covid the company received dozens of resumes for open positions, he said. However, he said that recently the number of applicants has decreased, and he is unsure why.
The company has been working remotely for the last year and gave up its lease in Old Town Chinatown as a result. However, Gray is planning to have another office, likely in the Pearl, where the team will be working in a hybrid environment.
Gray said he is hoping a hybrid office and remote work schedule will help the team fight burnout and offer time to see each other.
“We noticed employees are getting more burned out at home. The interaction and lunches with co-workers could help,” he said. “We get emails from team members late at night and we don’t want that.”
