At Inversoft, we spoke with CEO Brian Pontarelli. 

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Inversoft sells a software product for filtering and moderating online communities. It started off as a profanity filter, and now offers a full suite of tools for filtering and monitoring, taking actions on problem users and looking at user history. The company also recently added moderation services, so that companies can outsource their moderation needs. 

Where did the idea for Inversoft come from?

I was working for a smaller social network, and we discovered a need for some filtering software to look for certain words and phrases. We did some looking to see if there was one out there that we could just buy, but there really wasn't. So I took it home as a side project and built one myself, and we put it into use. 

A few years later I moved back to Colorado, and eventually was downsized. I took a job with a company in Boulder, and was still selling my filtering software. Eventually, I started making enough revenue that I was able to quit that job and run this company full-time. 

How long has the company been around? 

We officially incorporated in 2007 and I quit the "day job" in 2009. 

You were in Boulder, but now you have this great office in LoDo. Why the move to Denver?

We moved here last February; our office was actually in Broomfield. Marshall (our Technical Support Engineer) and I both live out there and we found an office that was literally halfway between us. We stayed there for a year or so, and then decided we needed to move where there was more energy and activity. Boulder didn't feel like the right scene for our company anymore, so we started looking at Denver. 

There are so many new companies, and many that are bootstrapped like us. I was always hesitant to do stuff in Denver because it didn't used to be cool, but that has really changed. Things are picking up, there are companies that have been here for 10+ years, both the city and the startup scene are just growing like crazy. We love it. 

What would you say was your greatest success or a major turning point for your company? 

Going from a single member business to a corporation with an executive team. Currently there are two of us on the executive team, myself and our COO, Michael King, and then we have Sean Bryant who is in charge of Content Marketing and Business Development, and Marshall Bauernfeind, our Technical Support Engineer. 

We're going to be growing a lot this year - we're currently looking for a developer (see their job posting here) and expect the team to grow to about 20 by the end of the year. 

That all sounds great! So, have you had any failures or made any mistakes that you've learned from? 

Mostly around HR issues. Building a team can be really challenging - it's hard to know at first who is going to fit the best, who's a leader, who's a manager, and who can just get the work done. We definitely made a few hiring mistakes early on, but now we have a really solid core team and a much better idea of who and what we're looking for. 

How would you describe your company culture for those who might be interested in joining your team? 

We're all about producing high quality work and striving for excellence. "Do more with less" is one of our big tenets. We are really easy to work with - both internally and externally - we find it important for there to be very little friction, both on the client-facing side and in our office. 

Also, we're all Mac junkies. It's not quite a requirement, but... 

Haha. What advice would you give to an aspiring founder? 

Build your management and executive teams first if you can afford it. It's always hard to have enough money to hire those folks right away, but if you can get people who really believe in what you're doing and can make decisions without having to ask - that's really key. 

Learn more about Inversoft in their company profile, via their website, on LinkedIn, follow them on Twitter @inversoft, Google+, or like their Facebook page. 

This week we also visited BlogMutt and Choozle. Learn more about the 90-Day Startup Tour and find links to past weeks' profiles here.