Today, Built In Boston named Pixability as one of the best places to work in Boston for the third year running. This is an extra special honor this year because of what a difficult and unique year it has been for companies in Boston and throughout the world. Everyone has a 2020 story, and it’s probably most appropriate to start ours when we moved into a brand new headquarters office in Boston in March. The beautiful space was filled with light pouring in through tall windows, and sits in the middle of Boston’s thriving North End, overlooking TD Garden. We painted the walls with our mission statement, got amazing new furniture and rising desks from Poppin, and set up cozy nooks for quick meetings or private work — it looked amazing. Everyone loved the space and we celebrated as a team, and included team members in our different locations around the world in a virtual celebration. Two weeks later, we’d all leave the office to work remotely and have not been back since. Sigh. It’s there waiting for us, and we can’t wait to go back.
But despite a challenging year, we were able to come together, and adapt and grow as a company. When we started to work remotely in our homes, we showed that our company is not about a fancy office, or even about our amazing software — it’s about our people. It’s super cliché to say, but the team proved it, and here is how:
First off, we created a really great rhythm of company-wide virtual meetings, not just for communication purposes, but for pure fun. We included celebrity guests (including my high school friend Mike O’Malley) in our virtual happy hours, had employees give lightning talks sharing recipes they’ve learned, and we did it all in a way that it didn’t feel like forced fun — which is not easy. We instituted much better ways for employees to communicate things they felt should change about the company, and we saw our internal NPS score rise.
Most importantly, we invested more deeply in diversity and community. Our employees founded a diversity, equity, and inclusion team to promote discussion around injustice and how we can bring change to our industry and world. We also held a Day of Volunteering to give the team a full day to give back to their communities. The team organized donation drives to animal shelters, helped out at food pantries, helped non-profit organizations with their web presence and marketing, and cleaned up litter in public parks. We also sponsored donation drives to underprivileged schools, and contributed to the EDF, NAACP, and Feed America.
Our team also really won the trust of our customers, when, in Q2, they guided advertisers on how to pause their campaigns in a smart way rather than telling them everything was okay. As a result, Q3 and Q4 saw a huge increase from past customers and huge influx of new customers, leading us to the best year our company has ever had, not just financially, but culturally.
While our Boston office is closed until it’s safe to return, we’re proud that our team was not only able to adapt, but to grow during this truly difficult year. While the world has still not solved all the problems of 2020, we’re going into 2021 knowing that the Pixability family can come together when it matters the most.