Location no barrier to getting the best hires

The secret behind the rapid growth of Drupal Connect, a Web-development firm headquartered in Newport, is “the willingness to hire the best talent, the best developers in the business,” said CEO John Florez.
In August, Inc. magazine ranked Drupal Connect the 266th fastest- growing company in America, which Florez called “a humbling achievement” given his firm’s start in 2009 during the Great Recession.
Most, if not all, of the company’s developers work from remote locations, but they have created a full-service team to support large-scale websites using Drupal. Clients include prominent Fortune 500 companies such as Sony Music Entertainment, Waste Management Inc., General Electric Co., A&E, the New York Stock Exchange and NBC Corp.
“In order to extract the top talent, we don’t limit ourselves by geography,” Florez said. “We’ve really become a virtual company, with our 45 developers spread out across the United States, in New York, in Texas, in Colorado.”
The company’s headquarters, though, is located in Newport, because it is a great place to live, according to Florez.
The next big market to crack for Drupal Connect is the seven-figure website, Florez said, while on an elliptical machine at Newport Athletic Club, where he works out six days a week. “I do a lot of business on the elliptical,” he said.
Because his company sells a service – building websites using the Drupal language – and not a product, Florez puts an emphasis on his team being “warm, engaging, very client friendly, and having a personality that works well with groups in a team environment.” &#8226CEO (or equivalent):
John Florez
2011 REVENUE: $3,650,000
2009 REVENUE: $200,000
3-YEAR GROWTH: 1,725%

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