CompanyCam Flourishes Thanks to Insight From Roots in Local Business

Luke Hansen is no stranger to running a successful business.

Hansen’s family owns and founded Lincoln’s White Castle Roofing, a longtime local business staple. Hansen said he grew up working for his dad and has worked in the construction and roofing industry for nearly his whole life.

Hansen, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate, now owns CompanyCam, a software service that allows contractors to easily share pictures and keep track of renovation progress with coworkers. Hansen said the software is unique in its capabilities and is the number one app in the roofing industry.

The company is currently headquartered in the Haymarket, where Hansen and his seven employees work.

Hansen sat down with Downtown Lincoln to discuss his origins of his business and why he chose to get started downtown.

Downtown Lincoln: How long has CompanyCam been operating?

Luke Hansen: So we officially became a business last March; we’d been working on it for maybe about six months before that as something for White Castle to use. It’s really an app or software for contractors.

DLA: Did you start with your family?

Hansen: I got put in charge of our siding and gutter division at White Castle Roofing. I didn’t know as much about that as I did about roofing, which I had been doing forever. I wanted to know more about the jobs, and to keep better track of things. Essentially I wanted to be able to look over our projects and talk to our guys before we went out to do the work. But we didn’t have any good ways of keeping track of our photos. Guys would go out, take a couple pictures and hand me their memory card from a phone or e-mail me and it was just a hassle. I kept thinking there’s got to be some better way to do this, but I just could not find anything made for a company like ours. And so I came to the conclusion that we need this [software] and even if we just make it and use it ourselves, that’s something, but I’m pretty sure other people need this too. So we started working on it just for White Castle and then last March we hired Chad, who was working at Hudl, to be the CTO. And that’s when we really got serious. Then we released it last July. So we’ve been in business since then.

DLA: How’s the response been?

Hansen: Really good. You wish things would go faster, and then things sound easier than it’s going to be in actuality, but we’ve signed up a lot of companies. We feel really good about it right now. We’re the fastest growing app in the roofing industry.

DLA: Has it always been known as CompanyCam? How did you come up with the name?

Hansen: I came up with some truly terrible names. CompanyCam is at least explanatory for some degree. I’ve found it’s always better to be clear than clever.

DLA: Is it an app that you use with a website or how does that work?

Hansen: The category would be software as a service, meaning you subscribe and we store all these photos for you. It’s kind of like Facebook in that you can log in on the computer, see all the photos, photos reports but the idea is to use the app on the phone to take photos. A business would pay for their account and then they would add employees as needed to the account.

DLA: Is CompanyCam only available for businesses or can people use it for personal use?

Hansen: Almost everyone who uses it is associated with a business. That being said, my designer/web developer has been using it to chronicle the renovations for his house. Our average customer size is about eight to 10 users per company. You can use it for personal use; it’s just not very practical. We do stuff like give a project feed so back at the office they can see the recent updates, almost like a Facebook feed for all of the projects going on.


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