Happy New Year!
Dear Friends,
Welcome to the new decade!
The end of a decade seems like a great place to reflect; I’d like to share some of my thoughts with you about where we’ve been as a company, where we’re going, and what that means for you.
10 years ago, during the holiday season of 2009, I remembered going to parties excited to talk about our new product. “We have over 100 users!” I told some friends excitedly. I quickly realized that was a very small number. After all, most tech start-ups brag about having millions of users in a few months. In the decade to come, we would slowly realize that we were not “most tech start-ups.”
Over the years I was told that we would need a clear exit strategy. An exit strategy represents one’s ultimate goal. Without one, a company would simply go “nowhere,” they said. I was confused. I thought a company’s ultimate goal was to serve its customers, forever.
We were also told that we should “go big, or go home.” The right way to run a tech company, they said, was to get outside investments and grow. Then, get more outside investments, and grow even more. The idea was to grow at all costs, even if it meant running at a loss. The concept of running at a loss never sat right with me. Call me old fashioned, but my idea of running a healthy company is simply to make a dollar, spend 80 cents, and repeat. We didn’t go big... but we also didn’t go home.
Today, you can hardly go through any airport or hospital in the US without somehow touching our software. We finished the decade with our highest annual revenue and profit of all time. We did this without an exit strategy, without going big, and without going home.
In 2019, we formalized our profit-sharing program. From here on out, we are committing 33% of EBITDA back to the team. That is an equivalent of 50% after-tax net profit. Imagine what the world would be like if all companies did that... (hint: A lot less unequal). We have this freedom because we only answer to our customers and our team. Together, we want to create a great long-term company and a great community.
In the coming year, we will continue our quest to allow you - our customers - to operate even more efficiently. Whether it’s data collection, inspection, safety compliance, or any other workflow that we have the privilege to work with, our goal is to enhance your experience, increase your efficiency and help you drive results.
Once again, I appreciate the opportunity to continue to serve you.
Happy New Year!