Paul Weinert, founder of GRAYBOX, received the award in 2018 for stewardship of his digital consulting agency that helps businesses improve through technology.
Each year the Portland Business Journal identifies forty of the top entrepreneurs in the city under the age of forty who are making a significant impact in their related fields. Paul Weinert, founder of GRAYBOX, received the award in 2018 for stewardship of his digital consulting agency that helps businesses improve through technology.
In his nine years since founding GRAYBOX, Weinert has successfully built a team of people that are simultaneously at the top of their craft and also care tremendously about what they do. Weinert, a native to the Portland area, hopes to continue expanding and positively impacting local communities, then eventually expand to areas of the Midwest.
—It's crazy to me at this point that we have, in 9 years and in a volatile industry, built a team of people that care so immensely about the people they work with,— Weinert explains, —and their work speaks for itself.—
During the initial few years of building GRAYBOX during the recession, Weinert was the only employee and would work with contractors as they were needed. When it was time to expand and the recession was approaching an end, Weinert would go to coffee shops and harvest young talent to join his team.
—I would continually just find myself at these coffee shops having conversations with people who did amazing work, but just happened to work as freelancer or had just been laid off. It was an opportunity for growth,— Weinert said.
It was afterwards that Weinert brought on a partner and began Digital Industries, the parent company to GRAYBOX. Weinert and his team are always looking for ways to develop new technologies and implement current technology into partner's businesses.
Weinert is humbled by this recognition and wants to continue producing elite work for the businesses he partners with. Weinert wants to continue to foster a team that supports each other, works together, and trusts each other.
—Our team is our best asset and our culture helps us prioritize helpfulness, collaboration, dependability, accountability and holistic thinking in everything we do,— Weinert said. —Growth doesn't drive us, quality does.—