Zenman is looking to add front- and back-end developers, creative director, and account managers by the end of the year.
CEO Keith Roberts started Zenman in his living room in 1998. He graduated to a real office and added one employee at a time, "bootstrapping" the company through the early years. He started working with
Bonanno Concepts in 2003. About a dozen Bonanno restaurant websites later (including that of
Lou's Food Bar), Zenman has firmly established its presence in the local dining market.
"It's really a cool vertical, but it's not very profitable," says Roberts. "It's a labor of love."
Roberts says while restaurant websites are not profit drivers, they act as a public face that attracts customers in the healthcare and technology verticals. Since 2007, Zenman has developed "several dozen" websites for dentists, orthodontists and other medical practitioners (
example), as well as development work for
CafeWell, the health-oriented social network site for local startup Welltok. Other technology clients and partners include
Pivotal Labs in Boulder and Denver-based
Ibotta.
"We do a lot of local business," says Roberts. "That's really our brand. We're really Colorado-centric."
Zenman is so named because Roberts is Buddhist. "We apply principles of karma to business, like I do in my personal life," he says. In the tech industry, doing the right thing and doing as you say "goes a long way."
Contact Confluence Denver Innovation & Jobs News Editor Eric Peterson with tips and leads for future stories at eric@confluence-denver.com.
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