Build the Future of Fundraising, Virtual Collaboration and More at These 4 LA Tech Companies

by Alton Zenon III
December 11, 2019

At Miro, customer success managers work to connect distributed teams from San Francisco to Perm, Russia through visual collaboration software. At Omaze, engineers build upon a fundraising platform that has (so far) enabled 300 nonprofits to raise more than $100 million.

While their missions and job titles vary, employees at the following LA tech companies said they are bent on improvement: improving themselves, their business, or, well, the world. We spoke with four LA tech professionals about what surprised — and excited —  them most about working at their companies.

 

Miro team members hanging out
miro

As a platform that allows cross-functional teams to virtually sync, Miro is evolving how teams across the world collaborate. And since its own team is spread across the globe, Senior Manager of Customer Success Jeremy Green said Miro’s platform is used internally across its offices. Green said the opportunity to utilize their own product on a daily basis inspires the team to play an active role in making it better. 

 

What’s one thing that would surprise people about your company? 

Not only do we have over 3 million users around the world, but we support our customers from offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Amsterdam and Perm, Russia. Though there are challenges working with teams that are so far apart, this actually helps us build a better product for our customers. Since we are a distributed team, with a 12-hour time difference between some of our hubs, we use our visual collaboration software every day to centralize communication on all our projects. From product development to annual planning, we “drink our own champagne” and work to make it taste better. 

Since we are a distributed team we use our visual collaboration software every day.”

 

What’s one trait all the members of your team share? 

Our people are our greatest resource, so we make sure that everyone has the opportunity and resources to invest time in learning and development. 

As our employees discover new things, we encourage them to apply their learnings and drive change in the company. This has put us on a path of progress and has brought about innovation in how we run our company, develop software and support our customers. 

 

Wpromote's team at dinner
Wpromote

Wpromote’s Head of Search Engine Optimization Justin McKinney said channel managers at the digital marketing agency are encouraged to deliver impactful solutions for clients — even if that means forging a new campaign model. The leader said the amount of ownership given to channel managers can be “surprising to some.”

 

What’s one thing that would surprise people about your company?

The amount of flexibility and freedom we give our channel managers to develop campaign strategies can be surprising to some. While we follow certain best practices and have oversight to ensure a high level of quality for our clients, we don’t mandate that all campaigns follow the same rigid structure. Giving our team the flexibility to adapt to different client situations allows us to meet our clients’ needs.

We don’t mandate that all campaigns follow the same rigid structure.”

 

What’s one trait all the members of your team share?

We share a hunger for knowledge. SEOs are constantly curious about the state of the industry and what the latest and greatest tactics are to drive wins for their clients. SEO encompasses so many areas of digital marketing — content, coding and user experience — that without a true passion for learning, it can be difficult to keep up. Our team shares news and tactics with each other daily, which allows us to tap into a much larger pool of knowledge than any one person would have on their own.

 

Omaze team member chatting outside
Omaze

Fundraising platform Omaze aspires to help organizations raise more money and ultimately, do good in the world. President Will Kassoy said the desire to effect change draws many candidates to their mission. 

 

What’s one thing that would surprise people about your company?

The nonprofits’ leverage of our business model to fundraise more effectively. Through our platform, we have raised over $100 million for over 300 nonprofits.

One trait shared by members here is a passion for social good.”

 

What’s one trait all the members of your team share?

One trait shared by members here is a passion for social good. Our mission is to harness the power of storytelling and technology to effect change. Some examples of projects we funded this year include building a community hub at the Downtown LA campus of PATH — a nonprofit that works to end homelessness — and the construction of a solar-powered desalination plant with Give Power that will provide clean water to 20,000 people in Kenya for 20 years.

 

nok team members working
nok

Renato Anselmi Ricci and Bobby Wann, co-founders and the respective COO and CEO of nok, said their teams are tenacious. Their company lets users try out products prior to purchase and has been known to send 100 test units to more than 1,600 homes and offices in two months. These shipments can be split across two continents, so persistence could come in handy.

 

What’s one thing that would surprise people about your company?

Ricci: Bobby Wann and I met in Berlin while consulting for a tech accelerator, which ended up investing in the company. We actually tested and validated the concept for nok in Germany before moving it to America. Neither of us know German.

We actually tested and validated the concept for nok in Germany before moving it to America.”

 

What’s one trait all the members of your team share?

Wann: We share grit. We don’t give up. One of our investors said, “You guys are like cockroaches, nothing will kill you. I genuinely mean that as a compliment.”

 

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