Validated, accountable, and stoked! These are the top 3 feelings I’m shuffling through recently and they lend themselves to sharing a brief backstory, our exciting news, and where we’re headed with Youreka. But, before I do that I need to say, “Thank you.” Thank you to the team. You’re an incredible bunch of individuals and I’m fortunate to work alongside each one of you every day. Thank you to our customers. Your faith in our team is our driving force each week, our sole goal is to ensure you are all successful. Thank you to our partners. Your collaboration drives our shared success and creates more value for our mutual customers. And finally, thank you to our investors. You have positioned our team to achieve new heights. Youreka would not be on it’s current trajectory without all of you.
Validated. Youreka has been a relatively small but capable team to date. With just a few talented team members we launched a product in 2016, ran a few years of experiments, found our product-market fit, and aligned with product roadmaps at Salesforce. We were fortunate to have success along the way. We doubled all of our meaningful SaaS metrics each year, the good ones at least, and this consistently provided a sense of comfort that we were headed in the right direction. We gained the trust of many customers, including several Fortune 100 companies in key industries such as, Health and Life Sciences, Manufacturing, Energy, and the Public Sector. With each new customer we continued to gain confidence as a bootstrapped, rapidly growing startup. We were joined by our now CEO, Bill Karpovich – serial entrepreneur, tech-titan, and former GM of IBM Cloud. Bill’s passion for Youreka confirmed that we were well-positioned to win a sizable market.
This brings us to today, our Series A, Co-led by Boulder Ventures, Grotech Ventures with participation from our strategic friends at Salesforce Ventures. The investment by these organizations is enough validation in itself, however, the amount of support we experienced during this process by our partners, customers, and Salesforce employees was overwhelming. I knew we were gaining ground in the Salesforce ecosystem but I can’t help but feel a tremendous sense of validation when I realized we’ve found champions across C-level Execs, General Managers, VPs of Product, SVPs, AVPs, RVPs, and Account Executives. Oh, and perhaps our loudest champions of all, the Solution Engineers! I have always believed in our team, our mission, and our product but it feels incredible seeing that so many others believe in us too.
Accountable. As a founder, employer, leader, manager, you’re always accountable. Our Series A presents a new level of accountability. Youreka has historically been a streamlined team, funded by the success of our former parent company, Synaptic Advisors. Now Youreka is out on its own as Youreka Labs, Inc. A company that is now operating with other people’s money. These organizations and investors have placed a great deal of trust in our quickly growing team. We do not take this responsibility lightly. We will deliver.
Stoked! As the Chief Product Officer, I have a strong passion for innovative technology. This investment will allow us to continue reimagining what is possible with a mobile device. We have some game changing new capabilities on the roadmap and, thanks to our investors, we will be able to deliver them sooner than we originally hoped. We’ll bring new AI-powered capabilities to our customers and enhance technician guidance with robust Augmented Reality experiences. In addition, we’re going to take full advantage of our alignment with Salesforce and create some incredible mobile experiences within Salesforce’s mobile apps.
I’m pumped for the hardworking Youreka team, who have been playing twice their actual size the last few years, to meet new teammates as we take this opportunity to scale. Lastly, I’m stoked for our partners and customers to benefit from our accelerated pace, enhanced support, and innovation right around the corner!
Thank you,
Dan
Founder, Chief Product Officer
