Submittable – How One Tech Company Built A Successful Business In Missoula

In 2008, Michael FitzGerald was a Web developer in Missoula who didn’t like his job. He was also a writer with an MFA in fiction. But whenever he tried to send his stories out to literary journals, magazines and potential publishers he ran into problems.

"As a writer sending out work, it was just kind of a jumbled process," FitzGerald says. "Some places accepted email, some places had these expensive enterprise systems, some places had these kind of home-made hacked-up forms, some places only accepted mail. And I just thought it was such a crappy, disjointed process there had to be a better way."

So FitzGerald and his friend, Bruce Tribbensee, another disgruntled Web developer, sat down to talk about starting their own business. That conversation launched Submittable http://www.submittable.com , a Missoula-based company that now has more than 9,000 clients in 35 countries. Submittable employs 14 people. FitzGerald says it wasn’t easy getting here.

By Chérie Newman

Full Story: http://mtpr.org/post/how-one-tech-company-built-successful-business-missoula