Tech firm bids farewell to Denver
Reversing the trend of many tech companies, TapInfluence is leaving Colorado to be closer to its Silicon Valley partners and the tech talent it needs. An undisclosed number of local employees will not be moving.
“It was a very strategic decision and a difficult one,” said Promise Phelon, who took over as TapInfluence’s CEO in the spring of 2015. “It made sense to be close to our partners and accelerate the relationships with the companies. … At some point, I’d love to come back and have a presence in Colorado but for now, it made sense to be close to our partners and accelerate our relationships with those companies.”
Phelon, speaking Tuesday from the company’s Mountain View office, said about half of its Denver staff will become teleworkers or move to Mountain View, where the company opened a satellite office last year. The rest have received “several weeks” of severance, she said. TapInfluence currently employs 43 people, she said, which is down from about 50 last year.
TapInfluence started life eight years ago in Boulder as BlogFrog and morphed into an agency that teamed influential bloggers with brands.
It was renamed TapInfluence in 2013 and focused on attracting — and paying — influential Youtube, Pinterest and savvy social media users to spread the word for advertisers. Last year, it picked up $14 million in venture capital and moved its headquarters to Denver.
Since joining, Phelon said the company pivoted to focus more on the technology and figuring out what to do with the years of data it has collected.
“Some of the things that are different today than from when I started, we had a lot of people involved in the selection of influencers and (client) management,” she said. “Right now, 70 percent of our customers are self serving on our platform every month. We’ve gone from a managed service to one that is fully powered by automation and data.”
Phelon, who is from the Bay Area, knows it’s more expensive to be in Silicon Valley and this may be contrary to what others are doing.
In fact, several Silicon Valley tech companies have expanded their presence in the Denver and Boulder area, including Google, which is building a new campus in Boulder. Amazon, which opened its first distribution center in Colorado last year, is also looking for office space in Denver. Earlier this year, San Francisco accounting firm Xero and insurancetech firm Vertafore said they will move their headquarters to Denver. The top reasons? Attracting talent.
But after assessing both locations, the leadership team decided to depart Denver by the end of July.
“We just feel at this stage in our growth, we need to be in Silicon Valley,” she said. “The one thing I know is going to change fundamentally for Boulder and Denver will be Google. LogRhythm is growing (in Boulder). Twitter is there. It’s not a question of if but when. I want to make sure our bridge continues to come back to Denver. The question for us is how quickly?”