People say “Time flies when you’re having fun.” And they’re right.
One year ago this week Wildfire came out of private development and into public beta. We opened our doors to the world, and it has been an amazing ride ever since.
One year ago there were five people huddled around one desk, sharing an office with the great folks at the FBfund. Over the year, Wildfire’s suite of applications grew, and so did it’s headcount. We grew into our first office, and within 6 months found ourselves having outgrown it. When the walls seemed to be busting out of their seams, we split the team and moved the overflow into another space on the same block. The time it took for us to outgrow that space was much shorter than the first--within a month we were packing a u-Haul and moving to downtown Palo Alto, giddy as schoolchildren to move down into the center of the startup tornado, where all the cool Silicon Valley startups live.
In one year Wildfire went from 5 full time employees to 40. By the end of this calendar year there will be many more. With each added body, our team is enriched with more intelligence, more enthusiasm, more engagement, and more tenacity. With each addition, we become even better.
In one year we raised a round of funding, acquired tens of thousands of customers (including hundreds of major brands), reached many millions of consumers, grew to over 12,000 Facebook fans, and leveled up from 6-packs on Friday evenings to our own office kegerator. We are thrilled.
And you know what else? We couldn’t have done it without you. And several others. Thank you very much to everybody taking the time to read this post-- your support, kind feedback, comments, and questions let us know that you are enthusiastic about and supportive of our growth.
As for the “several others,” there are many:
Thank you so much to everybody at Facebook for their continued support and friendship; to Harrison Miller, Andy Collins and the rest of the team at Summit for their enthusiasm and attention; to Dave McClure, Jeff Clavier, Aydin Senkut, and Gary Vaynerchuk for digging our product and wanting to be involved in our first round of funding; to Yee Lee, Hiten Shah, Om Malik, Sebastien de Halleux, Ro Choy, Javier Olivan, Matt Monahan, Joe Beninato and many others for your invaluable advice and support; to the entire Wildfire team here and abroad for being the best team in the world; and most of all, to our clients for appreciating our product and spreading the word!
Here’s a virtual toast to an even better year to come! And better yet, if you're in the Bay Area, come to our roof this Friday, August 13th for a proper birthday party!!
[caption id="attachment_1023" align="aligncenter" width="368" caption="A Toast! To a Great Second Year, and Many More!"]
[/caption]