In the tech world, the size of your workforce is less important than the quality of your ideas, which gives smaller teams a chance to have a massive impact. Chicago has more than its fair share of companies like that, who may not be major corporations just yet, but who are certainly punching above their weight in industries like transportation, education and cybersecurity. We checked in with some of them to learn more about what they do to make it all happen.
Via puts the “sharing” back into “ridesharing” by matching passengers who are going the same way and taking them there for a flat fee. Unlike many other transportation startups, Via also lets consumers pay for rides with their commuter benefit cards. Despite consisting of fewer than 15 local employees, the company's Chicago team is already changing how many people get around in the Windy City.
What were your team’s biggest accomplishments in 2016?
“We believe shared rides have the power to transform a city and the lives of its citizens. By reducing the number of vehicles needed to move Chicagoans, ride sharing can reduce congestion and emissions,” said Chicago General Manager Tully McLoughlin. “We launched service in Chicago just over one year ago. Since then, we have quadrupled our service zone, expanded to late night service and added rides to and from both airports, allowing more Chicagoans than ever to benefit from shared rides.”
What are your biggest challenges right now?
“Among our biggest challenges is ensuring we have enough partner drivers to meet our growing demand,” said McLoughlin. “We've built a system that rewards drivers when trips are shared, so we are all working towards the same goal. Now, we can focus on finding smarter ways to reach drivers who are excited to join our team and help build the future of transportation.”
How do you stay focused on your company’s mission moving forward?
“We work with the end in mind: to revolutionize transportation by building a system that's convenient and affordable for riders, supportive and rewarding for driver partners and efficient for the city as a whole,” McLoughlin said. “Most of all, we really show our Via love to our riders and our driver partners in Chicago each and every day!"
Efficiency is key if you want to have outsize impact. That’s why NowSecure's 18-person Chicago team has been hard at work to automate part of the security auditing process for mobile apps. Director of Mobile Services Katie Strzempka, who literally wrote the book on iOS security, said her company’s new solution lets customers detect security flaws earlier, saving them time and money.
What were your team’s biggest accomplishments in 2016?
“2016 was a big year for us as we expanded our mobile app testing solution with the release of our automated testing tool,” said Strzempka. “Security testing is typically something that is done after an app has been fully developed, as it requires a very special skill set found within the security department of an organization. With our Lab Automated product, we are now able to integrate mobile app security testing into the SDLC, flagging important security issues earlier on in the development process. The combination of this technology, our other mobile app testing products, and services engagements has led to year-over-year triple digit ARR growth."
What are your biggest challenges right now?
“At NowSecure, we hire the best around the globe, with half of our team working remotely,” Strzempka said. “Efficient communication, striving to hit key milestones and focusing on our mission have really helped us reach our goals. We've also found that regular, cross-functional team interaction is crucial to ensuring that we are all headed in the same direction. For example, those that are directly involved in development of our products are motivated by hearing direct customer feedback, good or bad; so it's not uncommon for our engineers to interact with our customer-facing team on a regular basis.”
How do you stay focused on your company’s mission moving forward?
“At least once per quarter, we host all-day workshops and invite various teams, depending on the topic,” said Strzempka. “The goal of this workshop (and any meeting for that matter), is to always set expectations and come out of it with specific individual action items. Revisiting company-wide goals on a quarterly basis is also a best practice to make sure we are all driving the company forward.”
Instructure is all about helping people learn — whether that’s in the classroom, at the workplace or anywhere in between. In the past year, one of its Chicago group's most impactful projects has been to help teachers who use their platform save time on grading homework and other assignments, giving them back countless hours to work more closely with their students. Not bad for a team of a couple dozen.
What were your team’s biggest accomplishments in 2016?
“One of our biggest accomplishments came from our customers,” said Gradebook Team Lead Keith Garner. “We gathered feedback from our K-12 clients and revamped our product to make the online classroom experience easier for the teachers — specifically when it came to grading and assignment submissions.”
What are your biggest challenges right now?
“Our development team is 100 percent remote engineers, and the fact that we can only meet online, I think, makes us work that much harder at supporting each other and pulling together,” said Bridge Senior Developer Charley Kline. “I’m thankful for a collaborative team that’s willing to use video conferencing and other communications tools to help us stay connected. Not a day goes by where we’re not tasked to solve a business problem. And each time our team all works together to make that happen.”
How do you stay focused on your company’s mission moving forward?
“At Instructure, our mission is to make software that makes people smarter. We do this by living out our values of openness, trust, excellence, simplicity, ownership and the list goes on,” said Garner. “A great example of our Chicago team living this out is in what we've called ‘raising your hand early.’ If you're working alone and end up getting stuck on a problem, ask someone on the team for some assistance. In the past we lost time trying to solve everything as individuals rather than working as a team. Of course, the other side of the coin is that when a team member asks for help, the rest of the team does whatever it can to jump in and help. This has kept us focused and on track to keep our commitments and continuing to build great software.”
Chicago logistics technology startup FourKites kicked off the year as a small team but has seen explosive growth in the past 12 months, going from a handful of team members to several dozen and landing a massive Series A. As interest in shipment tracking services continues to flourish, there’s no reason to believe this year will be any less spectacular.
What were your team’s biggest accomplishments in 2016?
“A Chicago Innovation award, Chicago Inno's 50 on Fire, Fortune 100 customers, and $13 million in Series A funding,” said VP of Marketing Rob Kunzler. “It's hard not to be proud of what we've accomplished this year."
What are your biggest challenges right now?
“When I became employee number seven, conversations were easy — I could turn around in our 10-by-20-foot office and ask a question," said Customer Success Manager Brett Corey. “Now, with 58 employees around the world, and more joining every week, scaling our internal and external communication methods to be both efficient and effective is a challenge that we conquer every day."
How do you stay focused on your company’s mission moving forward?
"FourKites was built to provide our customers with the best real-time freight tracking,” said Carrier Operations Manager Thomas Mella. “We remain focused on that mission by solving the right problems through effective communication internally and externally. With everyone aligned through communication, we continue to blow past our competitors and amaze our customers."
Images via participating companies.
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