Entrance Out and About: Symphony Young Professionals
Nate Richards, owner of the software consulting company, Entrance was recently caught backstage at a Houston Symphony Young Professionals party. He is joined in the picture by Mark Hanson, VP Business Development – NGLs at BP. Read More
Celebrating Ten Years of Great Custom Software
A Custom Software Extravaganza
The Entrance team celebrated a decade of oil and gas custom software at the Petroleum Club on December 16th. A group of 200 honored guest and Entrance team members gathered together over drinks, dancing, and delicious food.
The menu for the event included lobster bisque, mashed potato martini’s, prime rib, and a make-your-own pasta bar. For desert, guests chose from a selection of mini desserts and a ten year anniversary cake.
Far from being your usual cocktail event, the party also featured a photo booth and a range of video games. Choices ran the board from old school pinball to the latest video game systems.
After guests had their fill of food and fun, Houston band Molly and the Ringwalds took the stage for a rocking 80’s performance. To make things even more fun, party goers received props like wigs, boom boxes, neon gloves, and more.
Entrance rounded out the night by handing out a copy of the Book of Entrance. This pocket sized book commemorates ten years of smart + fun with recipes, photos, interviews, and the coveted rules to Volley Pong.
For pictures of the custom software team and their guests, check out the Facebook album!
Entrance Custom Software Consultants See Doubled Growth in 2013
A Growing Team of Custom Software Consultants
2013 was a landmark year for the Entrance custom software team. Some of the business accomplishments included:
- Doubling headcount
- Increasing revenue by 50%
- Increasing work capacity by 50%
- Addition of several high profile Upstream clients
- Grew the already substantial footprint of oil and gas service company clients
A Bigger Office to Match
As the Entrance team has grown, so too has the need for office space. As a result, the footprint of the business has nearly doubled as well.Many new consultants have taken their place in what the team calls the bullpen.
Desks and cube walls can be moved around at will in this new space. This is meant to enable project teams to work together flexibly and collaboratively.
Most employees can agree that the best part of the phase two expansion is the addition of the Fishbowl. The Fishbowl features a ping-pong table, shuffle board, golf practice areas, and a soda machine, with more fun additions to come.
Company growth is projected to continue at similar rates. As a result, planning has already begun for phase three of the office expansion!
Great Managers for Great Teams
A growing company also demonstrates the need for more managers. In the past six months, Entrance has hired a new HR manager, a sales manager, and four new project managers.
As a result, the team can now benefit from several new skill-sets, like energy warehousing.
The need to keep employees while aggressively hiring new ones has also led to an expansion in fringe benefits. Entrance team members now enjoy a fitness room, locker room, fully stocked smoothie station, gym memberships, and healthy snack options.
Strategy to Lead the Way Forward
While every successful company relies on a little luck, a good CEO will tell you that the strategy behind explosive growth has to be sound. As such, the Entrance management team rolled out a new three year strategic plan in the second half of 2013.
In addition, the team has also developed a new 25 year vision for Entrance to become the world authority on software for the energy industry.
As Entrance closes the chapter on its first decade, the entire company looks towards even bigger and better things in the next ten years.
Said Entrance president Nate Richards, ” It’s exciting to celebrate a decade of successful business! Our success so far really feels like the beginning of the next chapter.”
For more on the growing Entrance team, read this post about quarterly goal celebrations!
Entrance Software Consulting Team Celebrates 10 Years
Happy Birthday to Entrance
On December 16th, the Entrance software consulting team will be celebrating ten years of business. During that time, the company has moved to progressively larger offices, shifted focus to serving the oil and gas industry, and grown to be 60 plus people.
Entrance started out with only a couple of employees and a few solid energy contracts. The company has grown from there based on prudent leadership, a clear focus on customer service, and a deep hands on understanding of what makes oil and gas software different.
Remarked Entrance president Nate, “Growing Entrance has always been a labor of love for me. I wouldn’t have chosen to do anything else.”
Growing Up to Become an Energy Leader
As Entrance has grown as a company, it has become clear to the leadership team that the energy industry is under-served in their access to software that fits their needs and is well integrated. As a result, we have made it our mission to become the global authority on software for the energy industry.
Celebrating in Style
The team at Entrance knows how to celebrate. Every month, we host happy hours, team lunches, and more. A ten year anniversary calls for something special, however. Honored guests, partners, clients, and Entranceans themselves will take part in a party at the Petroleum Club to mark this exciting milestone.
Said Entrance’s director of consulting Chad, “We think this is a fitting location to celebrate how we have grown into our oil and gas software consulting role.”
Head of HR, Amy, had this to say, “We’re all particularly excited about the performance by Molly and the Ringwalds. I’ll probably leave my neon scrunchie at home, but we’ll be ready to get our smart + fun on to the 80’s.”
Entrance Custom Software Developers Awarded Houston Business Journal’s Best Places to Work
Custom Software Excellence Translates to HBJ Award
This past month, the Houston Business Journal announced the winners of their Best Places to Work award. Entrance’s Houston software developers are proud to be on the list for the second year.
The award celebrates “companies that not only are top performers in their industries, but that truly value their talented employees.”
As Entrance has grown from a fifteen person company less than two years ago to 60 people today, the leadership team is proud to rank on lists like the HBJ’s Best Places to Work.
Remarked Entrance’s director of consulting, Chad Modad,”Our consultants are what make Entrance great, basically our most valuable resources. As a result, we’re always looking for ways to be a best in class employer”.
Keeping Up With a High Bar
Entrance is particularly proud to be part of the Houston Business Journal’s list this year, as the standards for this award were raised for 2013. “A firm must have scored at least an 85 in its employee surveys to be named a finalist.”
Particularly in the competitive market place in Houston, it’s not just awards like these that encourage Entrance to keep up. Said Entrance president Nate Richards, “We’re hiring one and two people per week. They’re just not going to stick around if our offerings don’t keep up with the industry.”
See Entrance’s job openings on our website, or visit the Entrance Facebook or LinkedIn pages for a daily peek into the fun!
Entrance Software Consulting Company Wins Best and Brightest Award
Smart + Fun Software Consulting Culture for the Win
The National Association for Business Resources recently announced their list of Houston companies on the Best and Brightest Places to Work For. Entrance is proud to be part of this list for the first time in 2013.
The award, which is based on an employee survey, measures Houston companies based on job satisfaction, benefits, and the like.
Entrance strives to provide a best in class workplace for their software consultants, with perks like paid gym memberships and time off for training, in addition to the more standard benefits like profit sharing and 401k matching.
The Entrance HR team is also proud of their more unconventional offerings, like the fully stocked smoothie station and monthly happy hours.
All of these add up to the smart + fun culture that keeps Entrance winning awards like the Best and Brightest and the Houston Business Journal’s Best Places to Work.
Entrance is Always Looking to Grow and Improve Everything
Said Entrance’s head of HR, Amy Raden, “We’re still on the look-out for new things we can do to make Entrance a great place for our employees to work. I’m thrilled that our efforts so far have paid off!”
Moving into 2014, hiring is a huge focus for Entrance as projects ramp up and new clients get on boarded. Rapidly growing project teams while maintaining a good company culture can be challenging, but Entrance president Nate Richards is confident that Entrance is up for the challenge.
“The teams all are so welcoming of new people. Everyone at Entrance is looking forward to what our growth and expansion will bring to the company.”
Want to join the smart + fun team? Check out openings here, or see what the team is up to every day on the Entrance Facebook page!
Entrance Q3: Software Consulting Wrap-Up
Software Consultants in Oil & Gas
As we look towards 2014, Entrance has spent Q3 preparing to grow as the market leader in oil and gas software. To that end, we created and followed through on a number of new initiatives that will help to grow and improve the company.
Goals for our software consulting organization in Q3 included:
- Growing our team with a goal of two people per week
- Building out partner relationships
- Re-vamped bonus structure for team members
- Improved project management processes
These initiatives should provide the basis for better employee retention and happier clients.
Q4 Entrance Consulting Initiatives
Moving into Q4, we will continue to grow the Entrance consulting team to meet the needs of our many projects. In addition, the company is moving forward with goals to create an energy software lab and database.
One particular focus for the month of October is to find strategies that will improve the quality of our work for clients even more! For an inside view on our internal discussions on this topic, check out our ongoing blog series from the software consultants themselves!
Custom Software Projects: Planning, Projection, and Agile Methodologies
Agile and Custom Software
Starting a new custom software project is both exciting and daunting, both for the customer and the developer. I read a blog this week on Microsoft’s website that highlighted one of the most difficult parts: accurately estimating the scope of a project.
Entrance Expansion: We Have Lift-Off!
A Beautiful Space for Our Growing Team
This past week, Entrance was excited to complete the build-out of our expanded office space. We have rapidly grown in the past year, so this new space couldn’t have come any sooner.
Stand-Up Working: Entrance Gets Healthy!
Working Out While We Work!
I came across on article today called, “Why Changing Your Desk Changes the Way You Work,” on Fast Company. It seemed like a great opportunity to share something new we’ve been trying at Entrance: stand-up desks!
Entrance Software Consultants Getting Ready for Techfest!
Our Software Consultants Speak About SharePoint 2013
We are excited to be a sponsor of TechFest again this year on September 28th. In addition, one of our software consultants, Theresa, will be presenting on the topic of “Who Moved My SharePoint (to 2013).”
Entrance Named Number 2064 on the Inc. 5000 List
Entrance Sees 181% Growth
Inc. 5000 announced their list of the 5000 fastest growing companies in the US this month, naming Entrance number 2064 on the list. This award was given based on 181% growth over the past three years. For the Houston metro area, we ranked number 43.
This is the fourth year since 2009 that Entrance has made the Inc. 5000 list. We join other Houston companies including Willis Group, Cimation, Microseismic, and Strike.
Entrance’s president, Nate Richards, commented on the award, “As we grow into the world authority on oil and gas software, we’re proud to see the steady growth that puts us on the Inc. list year over year.”
Performance the Common Denominator
As Inc. acknowledges in their article, ‘One Thing Inc. 5000 Companies Have in Common: Performance,’ “The Fortune 500 traffics in consumer products, oil, pharmaceuticals, cars, retail, and the kinds of telecom services and software most people use every day. The Inc. 5000 is, by and large, a more esoteric crowd.”
Performance and growth are are the only real commonalities for those on the 5000 list. Entrance is up there with the best of them, providing the oil and gas industry here in Houston with top quality custom software and software consulting services.
For more on the winners, check out Inc.’s infographic on the best and worst company ideas. Or check out our culture blog for more on Entrance and what makes our company great!
A Great First Ride!
Entrance Expansion: Week 2
Walls are up! Demo continues, and the electricians were running wires on Friday. Watch the blog for more to come on the new space!
Expansion Under Way: Entrance’s Corporate Office in Houston
So excited about our new build out at our corporate headquarters! Thanks #1 to all my Entrance Teammates for driving the growth, and welcoming change! Also thanks to our Clients, who drive the market’s demand for a software consulting firm that is truly “fluent in energy.”
Five Entrance software consultants passed Microsoft certification exams
In order to become Gold certified with Microsoft, a company is required to have a certain number of Certified Solution Experts. Five Entrance software consultants have made strides recently towards completing certification by recently completing a number of exams, including:
- Programming in HTML 5 with JavaScript and CSS3
- Implementing a Data Warehouse with SQL Server 2012
- Query SQL Server 2012
- Programming in C#
- Developing ASP.NET MVC4 Web Applications
- Developing Windows Azure and Web Service
Entrance currently has two certified SharePoint development solution experts, and three certified application development experts.
Find out more about how we work…
SQL Software consultant best practices: SQL and Maintenance Plans
Maintenance Plans and Software Consultants
Last week, we shared part one of our internal lunch and learn series led by our software consultants covering SQL Server tuning. This week’s session covered best practices for improving SQL performance. I’d like to specifically focus on maintenance plans and how utilizing them results in a better performing database.
Entrance Consultants Attend SharePoint Saturday
This past Saturday Entrance took part in the Houston SharePoint Saturday. We had a booth at the event because we are always looking for great SharePoint consultants! Several members of our team also attended the event to participate in some of the sessions.
Presentations at the event covered a range f topics, including getting executive buy-in for SharePoint and how to approach user adoption. One of the more interesting presentations was a case study on how United uses SharePoint metadata.
For more on our SharePoint consultant openings, visit our careers page!
Entrance at the Rice Career Fair
Entrance loves that our employees are super smart, fun people. And because our growing company is always in need of good developers, we participated in the Rice Career Fair this past week. While hiring locally is great, we also try to stay involved at
Rice because most of our management, and many employees, are alumni.
What is Software Engineering?
I recently gave a presentation to students at Rice University on the topic of careers in software, with a particular focus on software engineering and software consulting.
In addition to outling the kinds of degrees and training that are required to work in the software business, I explained how software engineering is starting to become a respected field in the world of engineering, with the first ever licensing exam taking place this April.