Q&A: Convercent CEO Patrick Quinlan's lessons learned (and his trusty dog, Jasmine).

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: TECHNOLOGY - Interview

Patrick Quinlan wanted a new challenge after he grew XBRL shop Rivet Software's sales from $1 million to $10 million in just two short years as CEO.

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For an encore, he bought Denver Tech Center-based Business Controls, a provider of cloud based corporate ethics and compliance software, with ex-Rivet cohorts Philip Winterburn and Barclay Friesen in spring 2012. In short order, they raised $10 million in venture capital, developed a next-generation compliance software platform, christened the company Convercent, and garnered ink in Wired, Forbes and The Wall Street Journal. In a little more than a year, the staff has quadrupled from 14 to 60.

Recently the company completed a renovation of an old car dealership in Denver's Golden Triangle into one of the city's slickest new office spaces. So we thought it was a good time to catch up with Quinlan.

CoBiz: Why did you opt to revamp the Convercent space?

Quinlan: The space stood empty for the last six years. There were lots of big offices and cubicles everywhere. It was very unwelcoming.

CoBiz: You enlisted Ellen Winkler, of Denver-based Drumbeat, to make your cocktail-napkin sketch a $600,000 reality. What did this entail?

Quinlan: Workers knocked down walls, made desks and office systems by hand from beetle-kill pine and local steel, and installed several works of art by Denver artists. We're a startup company and we wanted to feature startup artists. Combining art and technology and getting that creativity going is critical.

CoBiz: You were born into an Army family and served in the military yourself...