John Spencer

Background - I spent the first half of my career as a software engineer and then later as a product manager and in enterprise sales. I worked for a variety of companies from Fortune 500 (EDS, Compaq) to early stage startups (Vignette). After Vignette, I took a sharp left turn in my career, heading to Crested Butte, Colorado where I started Brush Creek Flies, a fly tying company in in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I have also worked as a professional fishing guide and lodge owner in south Texas for the last 10 years. I merged these paths into a start up that focused on reservation and product distribution systems for resort communities. As a co-founder of OnceThere, we focused on providing distribution management capabilities to small to medium sized operators that deliver in-destination travel experiences and services. This path led me to Bear Cloud, where we built the leading platform for municipal governments to manage compliance with short term rental ordinances. In less than a year, we deployed the system in over 90 cities and counties and became the fastest growing supplier in the space. Recently, we merged STR Helper with Host Compliance to form the largest provider of short term rental compliance software in the world, supporting 250 municipalities. The combined companies were then sold to Granicus, a global supplier of government technologies.