Company:CallFire, Santa Monica, CA
Entry Submitted By: Dotted Line Communications
Company Description:CallFire provides user-friendly, intuitive voice and text connectivity products to over 100,000 businesses. The company is dedicated to providing high-availability systems, intuitive user interfaces, furious developer support, and unparalleled customer care. Our customers include small business owners, nonprofits, political groups, insurance agents, and marketers.
Nomination Category:Company / Organization Categories
Nomination Sub Category:Company of the Year - Telecommunications

Nomination Title: CallFire

Tell the story about what this nominated organization has achieved since January 1 2014 (up to 650 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms.
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CallFire has been an innovative force in the telephony industry since it was founded in 2006, however 2014 was a year of significant growth and change. The company has experienced year over year growth since inception. In December 2014, CallFire announced its international expansion with the acquisition of UK-based FireText. 2014 saw strong product growth for the company with the release of a freemium product, Free & Ez, and the release of a new cloud call center product, which provides agents with capabilities of automatic dialing, automatic voicemail messaging, and busy tones to streamline calling and business processes. CallFire also released the beta launch of a new MMS product that allows users to send images, audio and video via text messages to their customers. The company currently has over 160,000 active users on the platform, ranging from small businesses to large enterprises, with volumes in the millions of calls/messages per day.

CallFire won a number of awards in 2014, including the Deloitte Fast 500 (for the second year in a row) and was named one of Los Angeles Business Journal’s Best Places to Work. The company also was named a finalist in the 2014 Cloud Awards. The company’s CEO, Ron Burr, and the larger CallFire team have provided thought leadership and commentary pieces to publications like TechCrunch, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Smart Business, a number of mobile marketing sites, and more. The company recruited new executive talent in 2014, as well as appointing new board members. CallFire has a focused business model that services very small organizations up to large scale enterprise clients, and they are focused on steady growth and innovation.

In bullet-list form, briefly summarize up to ten (10) of the chief accomplishments of this organization since the beginning of 2014 (up to 150 words).
>>>> Acquisition of UK-based FireText
>>>> Release of freemium product, Free & Ez
>>>> Release of new cloud call center product
>>>> Beta launch of new MMS product
>>>> 490% growth from 2013 to 2014
>>>> Reached milestone of two billion messages sent from the platform
>>>> Was designated as a CLEC (competitive local exchange carrier)
>>>> Ranked as a Deloitte Fast 500 company
>>>> Appointments of new members on the executive team and board of directors
>>>> Named Best Place to Work by the Los Angeles Business Journal

Of the following measures of success, which ONE do you want the judges to most appreciate about your organization's story of achievement since the beginning of 2014?

Fast Growth