We’re honored to be recognized by Puget Sound Business Journal as the number one fastest-growing private company on Seattle’s Eastside.

As we recognize our progress over the past 11 years and the contributions our team has made to make this growth possible, we reflect on our company’s beginnings. Back in 2007, our CEO Jeff Dance burned through his savings, credit cards, and retirement fund to get Fresh off the ground.

Even in the midst of the great recession of 2007, Jeff saw a growing technology ecosystem in Bellevue. The suburb, just 10 miles east of downtown Seattle, was still growing, as evidenced by the dozens of cranes at work day and night. As the United States economy slowed down, Jeff envisioned a way to help other companies shift into the digital era. Although the timing wasn’t perfect, remaining optimistic and resilient was key to his vision for Fresh, even during downturns.

“Helping companies make that digital shift and change their traditional ways of doing business has worked for him,” wrote Puget Sound Business Journal data reporter Deena Zaidi in a recent article.

Since the beginning, we’ve partnered with companies to help them remain innovative and create products and experiences that are technically robust, creatively engaging, and strategically sound.

Transformative Growth

As a part of their process for ranking the fastest-growing private companies on the Eastside, the Puget Sound Business Journal conducted research on our financial growth over the past seven years:

“This year, Fresh Consulting jumped to No. 1, increasing revenue 358 percent between 2016 and 2018, and 26 places higher than last year. The company had $32.53 million in revenue last year and that is up from just $1.6 million in 2011.”

Our progress as a company so far motivates us to continue using technology to help our clients stay competitive today and innovative tomorrow.

The services we offer our clients range from branding and software applications to hardware, robotics, and virtual and augmented reality. Our teams help customers from companies of varying sizes create cutting-edge products and experiences. We’ve been fortunate to work with household brands like T-Mobile, as well as other clients including Symetra Financial, Moss Adams, Talking Rain, and Ben Bridge Jeweler.

We’ve also done case studies on automation and how robots can be successfully integrated into the workplace and have advised customers in a variety of industries about how to automate tasks in their current workflows to create even more efficiency and productivity. In January of 2018, we acquired SiTech Research and Development. By combining our software development services with SiTech’s experience in test automation and hardware engineering, we’ve created an end-to-end service offering for our clients.

Fresh Values

Ranking number one on this list is a testament to how  Fresh’s values impact our company. One of those values is to be always open to learning so we can stay on top of the latest and greatest technologies. We produce deeply-researched  white papers that dive into topics and industries like automation, industrial design, consumer autonomous vehicles, and more, both to share knowledge and consult on best practices with our customers.

Another important value at Fresh is to articulate solutions along with issues. Whether that’s improving the T-Mobile Towers user experience or building a custom search engine for UW Medicine, our focus remains on solving problems using technology, while also spending time understanding the core problems a company faces.

What’s Next

As our company continues adding more team members, we also continue to build our leadership team and foster mentorship. Our leadership consists of people who’ve had decades of experience in the tech industry. Fresh Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Steve Hulet worked as a software engineer with Amazon. Our Chief Science Officer Jeff Alexander, who founded SiTech, spent nearly a decade at Microsoft. Their deep knowledge of tech helps guide our decision-making every day as we move forward and face new challenges.

“As [the] Seattle region sees more growth, Fresh Consulting faces challenges like growing competition from tech firms, hiring the right people who fit its work culture and adding more office space,” said Zaidi.

We’re excited to take on these future challenges. While bigger companies have the investment advantage, we believe our edge lies in our ability to pivot and adapt quickly to shifts in the technology landscape. Our business model is all about constantly innovating and adapting to build what’s next.