It’s been a big week for us here, to say the least. We’ve reached many milestones over the past year, from our 2020 LIBA ribbon cutting to the launch of new services like TapOnIt, but this week will serve as a major demarcation for us all moving forward.
We began the week with news that our founder and CEO, Renee Sobotka, was named among Forbes Magazine’s Next 1000 “entrepreneurial heroes” who are “redefining the American Dream.” This list was created to shine a spotlight on America’s upstart entrepreneurs across every region of the United States. According to Forbes, Renee “founded True North Technologies to help small to medium sized businesses develop mobile apps in an affordable way. Despite the onset of the pandemic last year, Sobotka invested $100,000 by growing her team from three part-time employees to nine mostly full-time employees in six months.” Renee was chosen alongside another Lincoln-based business owner, Brent Comstock, CEO of BCom Solutions, and both were recognized on Monday in our popular local newspaper, the Lincoln Journal Star.
This announcement hit like a ton of bricks and still seems surreal to many of us. The support we’ve already received from countless members of our community has been overwhelming—Renee’s phone has been ringing off the hook all week with calls of congratulation from friends, clients, family, and acquaintances. Our team is incredibly humbled and grateful to celebrate our company’s continuous growth and unbelievable success together.
This week, we also added two new full-time employees to our team. For the first time in our company’s short, two-year history, we now have nine(!) full-time team members, a 200% growth over the past 12 months. Wesleyan University graduate and Imperial, Nebraska native Emma Bauerle was recently brought on as Executive Assistant; her resourcefulness, adaptability, and communication acumen will undoubtedly have a long-lasting positive impact on our organization. Beatrice, Nebraska native and Hastings College graduate Brady Achtemeier also joined our ranks this week as Graphic Designer, and is beyond excited to leverage her artistic skill, style, and experience to contribute to the success of our team and clients. These two ambitious individuals have hit the ground running, eager and willing to participate from day one, and it’s our sincere belief that they will both find their stride and their own true north beside their upbeat colleagues. We invite you to join us in welcoming Emma and Brady to our crew!
To celebrate our collective growth and success, Renee took the whole team out to lunch on Wednesday. It was the first time we were all together in the same space, and we shared laughs, stories, ideas, and a colossal, frosted cookie from Eileen’s. We snapped lots of photos to mark the occasion before finally departing to our respective offices and prospective sales meetings.
The future shines ever brighter for our growing team of determined young professionals. To have our efforts recognized by colleagues in the wider business community is endlessly encouraging to us all—it goes to show that hard work and dedication definitely pay off in the long-run. “Work hard, play hard” is a consistent theme here at True North, and each of us embodies this in our own way. We all aim to lead by example, personally and professionally, and serve as a lighthouse of inspiration to anyone lost in chaos. If you’re on the fence about committing to a new hobby, lifestyle, or bold business venture, let this be your sign that absolutely anything is possible. We hope our story will motivate others to push their limits and continue to reach for the stars despite any odds.
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