Managing Director & Co-founder, 1904labs
In which sector is your company most closely aligned?
Systems Integration
What does your company do?
We help leaders design, build, and launch custom digital solutions that work in the enterprise. We’ve worked with the biggest organizations in St. Louis to solve their mission-critical challenges in areas like data engineering, decision science, digital experience, modern software engineering, and AI enabled customer service.
How long has your company had a presence in St. Louis?
Founded in St. Louis in April 2016
What makes the St. Louis region an ideal home for your company/organization? Why do you choose to operate your business here?
St. Louis has a great community vibe and lots of talented people for our team to grow. And great local companies who embrace using outside resources to combine with their own people to create innovative solutuons.
What has been the most valuable resource (person, tool, organization) for helping your company grow? How did you find it? How do you utilize it?
Being located in Cortex has been a tremendous blessing. We have been located in Cortex since our founding. The Venture Cafe meetups have been very useful to us as a company and to our individual team members who are developing their own start up ideas. We just opened up and office in T-Rex and are benefitting from the focus on Geospatial that is found there. These are just two of the many resources available to companies looking for ideas to grow. We are very fortunate they exist to help a company like ours.
What advice would you give new tech companies that are trying to navigate the current market?
Spend your time truly understanding the market you are trying to serve. What problems exist that people in the industries your are trying to serve will not only pay you to solve but that you can create a big enough payoff for them to switch from the solution they are using. Inertia is a big time enemy of change and many companies underestimate it. Any new tech company needs to acknowledge it and have a plan to deal with it.
What new practice or policy did you put into place over the pandemic that has positively impacted your company?
Prior to the pandemic our work approach for two days in the office three days work in the office or remote. Once the pandemic hit we moved to a new policy “Innovation First: Work Where and When it Makes Sense”. This is in support of our belief that innovation is a team sport. As such, we was each of our team members to use the collaboration approach that is most appropriate for the task at hand. This includes in person collaboration for things like Sprint Reviews, Retros and Planning as well as for building and/or deepening their relationships with their other team members.
Tell us about the next big thing in your technology sector. How will this affect your business?
Just like when Mark Andreesen said something to the effect Software is eating the world the next big thing is Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI enabling new capabilities and improving old ones will be the new story for a long tim.
What is the accomplishment you are most proud to share from 2022?
On the business side of things: We developed and launched a new solution AI Enabled Customer Service offering that we successfully used to help an Amazon subsidiary improve their customer self service. On the community side of things: Our people continue to amaze me with their generosity and commitment to help others in our community. It matters and they show up and do it every week in 2022.
What exciting development is on the horizon for your company in 2023?
With the pandemic finally behind us we are back in full growth mode. Our 3 whys are: Be a transformative stop in our people’s careers, be the partner that our clients turn to solve their difficult and delight them in the process and giving back to the communities we operate in and uplift them. We are well positioned to deliver on all three of these in 2023 and we are very excited about it.
How can people learn more about your company or get involved in what you are doing?
Our website is a good place to start. Feel free to hit our “Let’s Talk” button to start a dialogue with us.
