Partner Spotlight: Cloudbakers

Company: Cloudbakers
Location: Chicago, IL
Market Served: SMB
Website: www.cloudbakers.com

This week we heard from Mitch Greenwald, Founder at Cloudbakers, a North American reseller, to find out more about his organization.

BetterCloud: When was your organization founded?

Cloudbakers: On July 1, 2010 Cloudbakers became a reality. In the first few months we were a company of two with no clients and just an idea. Since then, our team has grown considerably and we’ve helped over 200 clients. During this time we stayed tried and true to our company’s most important aspects: our clients and our team.

BetterCloud: What led to the founding of your company?

Cloudbakers: Before we founded Cloudbakers, I was a midmarket CIO for a $400M company researching, experimenting and implementing numerous cloud solutions. When I couldn’t find anyone in Chicago to help transition my company to the cloud, I decided to have some fun and start what is now Cloudbakers. Founding the company allowed me to revisit my roots in programming, product development and leadership and help companies apply technology to increase the value of their business.

BetterCloud: How has the market changed since you started as a Google Apps reseller?

Cloudbakers: The market, especially in the Chicago and Midwest, has progressed a lot since 2010. Businesses that were once scared of the unknown, now have a ‘how do I get it done’ mentality. They are adapting to new environments more quickly and easily, making the idea of change a lot less cumbersome. We learn more and more everyday that to be successful, your business needs to be agile.

BetterCloud: Does your company have a certain specialty – Industry? Location? Size?

Cloudbakers: Cloudbakers was born in the cloud and is 100% focused on the Google Apps Platform and complementary cloud solutions. Because of this focus, we’ve become Google Apps experts with enterprise experience. We are based in Chicago and mostly work with SMB companies that have between 50 and 3,000 employees.

BetterCloud: Can you tell us one thing about your company we wouldn’t find out from your website?

Cloudbakers: Our website says it all. We are about two things: our clients and our team. If our people are successful, our clients will be successful and vice versa.

BetterCloud: What is your favorite BetterCloud feature? Why?

Cloudbakers: The ability for an end user to upload profile information. We quite often build intranets for our clients and they always want end users to maintain their own profile information. BetterCloud’s end user profile editing feature makes doing so easy. There are a ton of other features in BetterCloud that have tremendous value, but we are always thinking about the end user.

BetterCloud: What do you hope to see from BetterCloud in 2014?

Cloudbakers: It would be great to have webhooks available so that actions that happen in Google Apps or FlashPanel can trigger events in other business systems.

BetterCloud: What do you hope to see from Google Apps in 2014?

Cloudbakers: I’d like to see Google+ more baked into Google Apps for Business. We use Google+ a lot internally to share interesting articles, but because it’s not a core feature of Apps, I don’t think organizations are really encouraged to take full advantage.

BetterCloud: What are your company’s plans for 2014?

Cloudbakers: First and foremost, our plan is to continue to add extreme value to our clients, and to continue leveraging the Google App Engine. We’ve made some great partnerships over the past year and look forward to making our clients’ technology even easier for them to use.

BetterCloud: Favorite cloud service your company uses, other than Google Apps?

Cloudbakers: One of my favorites is Zoho CRM because it allows us to streamline our business processes, integrates extremely well with Google Apps, it’s so simple to use and gives us the ability to work as a team and accurately forecast our revenue. I also enjoy using Xero Accounting because I can run all my business finances from one place.

BetterCloud: What’s the best thing about working at your company?

Cloudbakers: We call ourselves the “un”company. We have a strict no tie policy and use ping pong and foosball to de-stress and motivate our minds. Sometimes the greatest ideas come when you least expect them. Everyone on our team is extremely unique and we’re learning new things from each other everyday. We have a lot of fun together!

BetterCloud: Why should someone looking to “Go Google” work with you?

Cloudbakers: Our clients benefit from our focus on the mid-market and our experience, which is reinforced by our client evangelists. Having been a CIO in the mid-market, I’ve been in our clients shoes and inherently understand their concerns.

We give our clients everything we’ve got. Aside from being a Google Managed Premier Partner, our proven Change Management process makes it possible for businesses to “Go Live” with absolutely no productivity loss on that first day. Cloudbakers is there with you every step of the way and our expertise makes your Google Apps transition a seamless, yet fun one, while adding value to your business.

For more information on all of our partners, visit bettercloud.com/partners.