Bellevue Wash.-based Loft 9 was founded in 2010 by Edward Beals and Mark Birzell to fill what the two saw as an unmet need in the marketplace for premium services in project coordination and business analytics. The two men had been working on the business plan for Loft 9 a full four years before its launch, back when they were consulting at Point B, the 400-person, Seattle-based firm.
"Our first thought was to figure out how to do this within Point B, but the leadership there decided it wasn't the right fit for the firm at the time," Beals says. "We still have a great relationship with them and consider ourselves a complementary service provider. We have many of the same clients, and we support each other." While still at Point B, Beals says, "the supply and demand was right in front of our face. After spending a lot of time sharpening pencils and formulating a plan, we decided to give it a go."
Initially, Beals says, he and Birzell leaned on much of what they had learned in their time at Point B. "We pored over a lot of our lessons learned from Point B," he says. "We have a similar culture. Culture is non-negotiable for us. If we think that culture is breaking down at all, we'll shut down recruiting for a while until we get it back. We have to get that right."
