Thank you 2019!
Diario del capitán, fecha estelar d513.y38/AB
2019 has been one of the most interesting rides of our career. We managed to turn around one of the biggest setbacks we've ever had and finished the year in the most perfect health.
We want to send our thanks to everyone who's been riding along with us!
We're about to wrap up the year, and as we did last year in our post Thank You (and See You in 2019)!, we would like to repeat the experience this year, too.
First of all, I'd like to thank our incredible team at MarsBased. Not only do they make things very easy for us to manage, but they are extremely loyal. For the second year in a row, we haven't lost any team member to another company. In almost six years as a company, only three people have quit the company to pursue their goals somewhere else, and that's extremely reassuring.
We've grown our team to 15 people, which is a very good accomplishment given that we started the year losing our biggest client. Another great accomplishment is that some of them will turn five years working for us during 2020 and we can't even begin to express how thankful we are for this trust they have placed on us.
Being a 100%-remote company makes it more difficult to bond with the rest of our peers than if we were all in the same office, but we do our best by meeting every two months in our Martian Days and in our annual retreat. When we meet, we feel as if we had met the previous day. Time flies, when you're working happy!
MarsBased goes beyond our core team. We've got a set of individuals and companies who complement what we do when we need it.
Some of them have been working for years for us, such as Swwweet, while others, we've met more recently, like the folks at Capsule Corp. Some help us bringing new technologies and skills to the table while others provide us with more profiles like ours when we're short.
This year will be the first one that our extended family is invited to join us for our X-mas dinner and we can't think of a better way to thank them for their good service and their loyalty.
The Startup Grind BCN chapter has also had an interesting year. We started with a financial crisis, after our third annual Startup Grind Tech Conference, but we've finished the year fantastically: we've sold out 10 of the 12 monthly events and we've managed to raise enough sponsors to be prepared for next year and our upcoming 4th edition of the annual conference.
We've successfully organised 71 monthly events (see them all here) in little over five years and can't foresee an end to it. A couple of really important members left this year, after five years being there month in month out, but we've solidified an incredible team nevertheless.
Thank you Marc, Stela, Victor, Leire, Nasia, Paula, Jan and Ferran!
By the way, here's the video with the highlights of our Startup Grind Tech Conference:
If you're into tech, grab your tickets for Startup Grind Tech 2020!
I couldn't finish this section without thanking our Startup Grind Andorra team and the partners and sponsors who supported us for our year and a half there. As we've announced recently, Less Is More: Stepping Down from Startup Grind Andorra
Despite the initial setback, we have had a pretty successful year, when it comes to sales. We have managed to land five new clients: Everis, Spin (a Ford company), Pivot Analysis, ValuationMetrics and GSCC (Strategic Communications at European Climate Foundation).
But most of all, we're over the moon with the fact that our existing clients renewed their contracts and let us accompany them for the long ride. In fact, in about a month, we will have been working for Naiz for five years!
MarsBased would definitely be a smaller company without the community around us.
There are people who follow us on social media, attend our events, read our newsletter (over 600 subscribers already!), share our articles on Twitter, reach out for help in our Office Hours, participate in our Slack community for startups in Barcelona or recommend us to companies who need development services, while others do all of this and much more.
We are absolutely overwhelmed by the sheer amount of love we have received this year.
This is what keeps us going. A huge THANK YOU to all of you!
We're also thankful for the technologies and services we use, so huge thanks to Angular, React, Node.js, Postgres, RSpec, Redis, Redux, Rubocop, Ruby on Rails, Ruby, Kubernetes, Sass, vi, vim, Sinatra, Github, Docker, 1password, Slack, Google Drive, Basecamp, Heroku, Netlify and Cloud66 among others.
Having hosted lots of events this year means having met a lot of interesting people. I'd love to give a quick shoutout to the speakers we've hosted this year at Startup Grind Barcelona.
Thank you Javier Suárez (TravelPerk), Magnus Gaarder (Cidron Ventures), Borja Breña (Nauta Capital), Tanja Kufner (Dynamics.vc), François Paulus (Breega Capital), David Tomàs (Cyberclick), Cecilia Tham (MOB), Josh Feldberg (Feldberg Associates), Mar Alarcon (SocialCar), Derek Andersen (Startup Grind / Bevy), Carlota Pi (HolaLuz), Laura Urquizu (RedPoints), Sergio Gago (Zinio), Juan Margenat (Marfeel), Christopher Pommerening (Active Venture Partners), Eduardo Manchón (Mailtrack), Shruthi Chindalur (Criteo), Erik Brieva (Strands), Daniel López (Bitnami), Guayente Sanmartin (HP), Laís de Oliveira (Startup Genome), Jaime Novoa (K Fund), Jorge Herrero (eBay), Lina Chong (Target Global), Paul Campillo (Typeform), Ferran Martínez (Globatalent), Carlos Pierre (Badi), Laura Martínez (The Hotels Network), Chad West (Revolut), Elisenda Bou (Vilynx), Juan Zamora (Signaturit) and Bernat Farrero (itnig)!
Our events wouldn't be as great without the tremendous support we receive from our sponsors: Ikoula, SendGrid, CaixaBank, CMS Lawyers, ValidatedId and Revolut.
Equally important are our partners, which for the most part, they have been supporting us for years (some from the very first event in 2014!): Movistar Centre, Las Muns, Estrella Damm, ACCIÓ, Catalunya Emprèn, Barcinno, O'Reilly Media, Bourbon Creative and Spaces.
If you like the media from our events, this year they've been provided for the most part by Destaraxia Photography and our videos by Asimetric Films.
2019 has been an exceptional year on many fronts, and as such, I want to exceptionally thank people, too.
I'd like to express my gratitude for the opportunity to write my first book Camino al éxit(o) & all the support Editorial Base has given me. Special kudos to Agustí Sobrequés for being the best person ever in this process.
Last, but not least, I'd love to thank my two partners and co-founders Xavier Redó and Jordi Vendrell for being the best business partners and friends one could ever dream of. Every year, you make it easier to be your partner and more exciting to take the MarsBased spaceship to the next level.
Thank you all, and see you in 2020!
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