“I think people are very surprised at the company's growth,” Mike Ode says, since they specialize in software for construction companies, and no group got hit harder by the housing collapse. “One of the decisions we made early on was we were going to maintain and even increase funding for research and development when everyone else was cutting back.” Foundation officials also kept up funding for marketing efforts so that when those economic clouds lifted, contractors would think of them first.

These strategies seem to have worked. In 2011, when the economy was undergoing a very modest recovery, Foundation's sales increased about 49 percent and last year more than 20 percent, according to Ode. They currently provide roughly 3,000 clients in all 50 states with accounting and payroll software that can handle contractors' unique requirements, such as calculating job costing, and the effects of union and prevailing wage rules.

“Our goal is to stay in the construction niche,” and Ode expects even more expansion. Their new home can eventually accommodate as many as 285 employees. Foundation and Payroll4Construction.com, its sister firm, currently employs about 105. As long as the construction industry continues a modest recovery, he believes the firms will grow at about 16 to 19 percent per year. If the economy starts to really roar back to life, growth could hit 25 percent. “But I try to be realistic. I don't think we'll see a bigger recovery until 2014 or 2015.”