How we rose from the dust of the dotcom bust…

This month marks 15 years since Vectorform was launched out of a small office in a storage garage facility in Davisburg, MI. Back in 1999, there wasn’t the investment support for tech start-ups like there is today. Our co-founders had to get started the old fashioned way, by using credit cards and loans for funding to get Vectorform off the ground.

Over the course of this 10 part blog series, we’ll take look back on how we got started, how we’ve grown and where our continuing growth will take us. Though many things have changed in the past 15 years, one thing that remains the same is our passion for innovation and inventing cutting edge digital experiences.

Before we were building the first connected vehicle platform, or building the world’s first virtual colonoscopy, Vectorform was a web development company working to bring the latest design and technologies of the post dotcom era to our client base.

As CEO & Co-Founder, Jason Vazzano puts it,

“Our original vision was to use technology to improve any aspect of our customer’s business. I suppose that might sound boring now, but the reality is that in 1999 the web was a totally new and exciting frontier and the possibilities were endless.

– Oakland County Prosper, June 2012- Vectorform Breaks the Nerd-Human Barrier.

Back then, CEO & Co-Founder, Kurt Steckling points out, companies didn’t have the web presence they do now, and Vectorform created websites for small and medium companies.

“As we worked our way up, we saw big agencies taking over web development,” Steckling recalled in an Xconomy interview in May 2013.

“We differentiated by doing whatever was around the corner. Back then, it was high-end user interface. We also embraced Flash and Flex early on.”

– Vectorform: Quietly Developing Software for Some of the World’s Largest Brands

Our big break finally came in 2003 when we caught the eye of the Communications Director at Daimler Chrysler Financial Services, who decided to leverage our talent on multiple upcoming projects. This relationship was a major contributor to our growth and still remains in place today.

Before long, our team began collaborating on revolutionary experiences for some of the world’s largest brands, including Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and Volkswagen (just to name a few). With these brands, as with the countless others we have worked with, our ability to expand our offerings by staying ahead of the curve with the newest technologies, has marked Vectorform as a leader in our industry.

Most importantly, we take great care and pride in hiring some of the most talented people in our industry. Vazzano describes the hunt for great talent as an integral part of Vectorform’s culture:

“We spend more energy on finding the right people than on anything else we do. We hire likeminded people who are passionate about building great experiences. When people are passionate about the work they’re doing, overall quality improves; but perhaps more importantly, it gives an energy in our offices that really defines the Vectorform culture.”

–  Michigan Advantage October, 2012- Vectorform Founders: Expanding and Hiring in Michigan

By acquiring such outstanding talent, our team has grown in both size and in our accomplishments over the past 15 years. After outgrowing our first “real office” in Downtown Detroit, MI we moved into a larger building north of Detroit in Royal Oak, MI. We also began growing our global presence in 2003, opening an office in Munich, Germany. The trend of growth continued as we opened satellite offices in Hyderabad, India in 2005, New York in 2006, and Seattle in 2008.

And the growth continues: most recently, we moved our global headquarters into downtown Royal Oak, MI, a move that will allow us to continue to expand our team and our presence in the industry. Stay tuned for more on our team, our offices and our innovative new space later in this blog series.

Up next in the series 15 years of Innovation- Part 2: Our People

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