Our Story

Ross was frustrated. He was trying to find a way to meaningfully grow his real estate business while also spending as much time as possible with his new baby. He was paying $19 to $2000 a month for seven different tools, none of which were integrated with each other, and none of which moved the needle much or solved his core problem.

Hayden knew nothing about the real estate but had spent the last 15 years running innovation incubators and loves challenging new problems.

In the three years since we launched Sphere, Ross’s business has grown more than 400%. And he is not alone. Sphere’s retention rate is over 90% with those who try it (which we define as entering a single transaction).

We still have a long way to go, but we’re very excited about the path, and the clients and team we’re sharing it with.

Founders

Ross Seligman

Ross is now one of the top producing agents in Portland. From the moment he arrived in Portland in 1999, Ross fell in love with the vibrant energy of the people, gorgeous homes and neighborhoods, and exploding arts scene. He decided to become a real estate broker because he loves working with people and it gave him the flexibility to pursue his passion for music. In fact, it allowed him to take a year sabbatical when he got the life-changing opportunity to perform on Broadway in New York as Janis Joplin’s guitarist in “A Night With Janis Joplin”.

In addition to his passions for people, Portland, and music, Ross loves new technology. He’s constantly exploring new tech for his business, which led to his collaboration with Hayden in 2016. Sphere completely transformed his business into a referral-generating machine, growing it by more than 400% in the last 4 years, and he’s constantly looking for ways to improve the Sphere to grow it faster.

Hayden Hamilton

After going to Pitzer College and Oxford University, and spending a year in the mountains of Nepal, Hayden moved back to Portland to start the innovation incubator Bright Light Ventures in 2007. Bright Light’s goal is to solve compelling problems. Among more than a dozen projects are Zafirro, a sapphire blade razor that lasts about 50 times as long as a steel blade, and GreenPrint which helps reduce printing by 20% by eliminating anything unwanted.

What really appealed to Hayden about Sphere was the potential to help millions of entrepreneurs/small business owners. There are more than 2 million agents in the US alone.

Bright Light projects have been profiled in hundreds of publications around the world including The Economist, The New York Times, Time, and The Wall Street Journal and Hayden was named one of Inc. Magazines “Top 30 Under 30” and ComputerWorld’s “Top 40 Under 40”.