Glympse co-founder Bryan Trussel is stepping down from his post as CEO as the company gets set for a major growth spurt.
Trussel isn’t leaving the Seattle location sharing startup entirely. He will continue to be involved as chairman of the board, and he isn’t moving to another job. Taking the reins of CEO is Chris Ruff, formerly chairman, CEO and president of connected car company Xevo, which used to be called UIEvolution before it acquired machine learning startup Surround.io Corp last year. Ruff has been advising Glympse for a few months now, and brings experience growing a small company into a much bigger enterprise.
“This is my baby we’re handing off, so I am pretty picky about where my baby is going,” Trussel told GeekWire in an interview. “Chris from a leadership and a cultural standpoint and strategic standpoint is the perfect guy.”
Ruff said he doesn’t plan to make big changes at Glympse. The company has a “robust product roadmap,” but Ruff wouldn’t say much about it. Glympse began as a consumer-focused company, but later expanded the business to include enterprises. That has paid off in recent months as Glympse recently struck deals with Microsoft to help users of Dynamics 365 Field Service track house calls and Samsung to bring its location sharing service to smart TVs.
Glympse last year reeled in a $12 million round to accelerate growth and add to its headcount. Glympse had begun to expand globally under Trussel, and those efforts will continue as Ruff takes over. Ruff tells GeekWire that his biggest challenge will be narrowing down the variety of directions the company could go and finding the right focus.
“Glympse has more opportunities than we can effectively cover today, so the first step is vetting out the best opportunities that we can focus on that will give us the most growth, the best experience for our customers and in the end create a valuable company out of it,” Ruff said. “That’s what my day one task is going to be, to help align the priorities against this robust product roadmap that’s coming and then get all the people in place to help reach all of our goals.”
Founded in 2008 by Trussel and his former Microsoft colleagues Steve Miller and Jeremy Mercer (who left the company in 2011), Glympse offers location-sharing technology to consumers, partners and businesses that range from car-makers like Ford to retailers like Pizza Hut.
Glympse, which is headquartered in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, is hiring, and aims to have more than 50 full-time employees by the end of the year.
