Smart training drives DevelopIntelligence

LOUISVILLE – In an industry steeped in off-the-shelf training, DevelopIntelligence stands out from the crowd, with customized training, higher profit margins and a lean organization.

“Why are we the best? The honest answer is, as a company, we have a good intersection of staff versed in training as well as in technology,” said Kelby Zorgdrager, president of DevelopIntelligence LLC. “The intersection of those two worlds is what we bring to the table. Most companies we compete with are just based on the training.”

The company, founded in 2003, originally provided predesigned training. In 2009, the company switched to customized training with differentiated training for the employee expected to produce code using software tools such as Java, JBoss and Apache versus a manager’s interest in a higher level understanding of how the technology will impact a project.

DevelopIntelligence has increased annual revenue 631 percent from $226,470 in 2010 to $1.7 million 2012, placing it No. 1 on the Boulder County Business Report’s Mercury 100 list of fastest-growing companies in Boulder and Broomfield counties for companies reporting less than $2 million in annual revenue.

In the past year, the company has matured with further customization of its private learning solution, strategic new partnerships and the opening of an office in Boston. Zordrager estimates his company has trained 1,400 engineers in the past year.

In addition, he said, in the past year, “we have forged a few partnerships with some very well-known companies” that are driving the company’s growth.

Chief among those is a partnership with Safari Books Online, the leading on-demand digital library for technology, digital media and business professionals. Through the agreement, DevelopIntelligence will bundle one-year subscriptions to Safari Books Online’s 10-slot bookshelf, a $299 value, for new students attending their software development training courses.

“We are the only technical company that has that relationship with Safari Books Online,” Zorgdrager said. “That was a pretty big win for us.”

While growth has skyrocketed, staffing has remained lean, with the number of core employees remaining at five. The company also uses approximately 30 quality instructors or “practitioners,” as Zorgdrager calls them, who split their time between software development and teaching.

Zorgdrager projects continued growth in the next year with expansion into mobile and cloud computing and a continued emphasis on marketing and sales.

“One of our big pushes is to provide more free online resources,” Zorgdrager said.

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