A couple years ago, Simple Thread founders Al Tenhundfeld and Justin Etheredge saw an opportunity to grow their software consulting firm by putting an emphasis on user experience and design. Ultimately, that resulted in 166% growth over the last three years and a ranking of No. 3,208 on the Inc. 5000 list charting the country’s fastest-growing private companies.
The two founded the company in 2010. Both had backgrounds in software engineering and started working as independent software consultants. They worked with other consulting companies and small clients and said they built a nice portfolio.
Etheridge said the evolution to be more design- and user experience-oriented was gradual. As they did more work, they saw many of the challenges development teams faced. Often, a customer had a vision for an application but had no data. The partners conducted early user research on their own. They would talk with stakeholders and incorporate the research into the design. The partners quickly…
Read the full story from the Washington Business Journal.
