Five years ago, I had just returned from a humanitarian trip to Nicaragua with a simple idea: To found a company that would be a force for good in the world.
Today, that vision has been realized beyond what any of us believed was possible.
In just five years, Spaulding Ridge has gone from an idea to a thriving company with 500 people around the world. Last year we hit 500 total clients and $100 million in revenue. Just as important, we did it while staying true to who we are and what we believe: that all business is personal. That efficient execution makes life easier for everyone. That company culture matters.
I give a lot of credit to our people team. If you hire people that fit your culture, they’ll grow the company and grow with the company. We’ve learned some things about who to look for: People who are humble, hungry, and smart. Finding those people, especially in a tight labor market, is crucial, and so is rewarding good work. We don’t get it right every time, but we especially try to reward those that can develop and mentor talent.
A lot of that success happened during the most difficult years for business since the Great Recession. I’m proud of how our team managed to thrive even amidst the pandemic. We were there for them, they were there for our clients, and because of that, we were able to keep investing in our team.
The bigger a company gets, the harder it is to maintain its culture. But coming out of the pandemic and into economic headwinds, our culture has never been stronger.
We’ve achieved a retention rate we can be proud of. Multiple outlets have recognized us as a great workplace. And we’ve practiced what we preach by requiring 20 hours of service per year from each bandmate and donating more than $175,000 to charity since our founding. You can feel the rapport and feeling of camaraderie just by walking into our offices. It’s an incredible thing to see.
So where are we going? In short, if we keep living our values, we’ll keep succeeding.
A big part of that will be staying focused on client impact. We’re already being more strategic on what we can do for the offices of the CRO and the CFO, and we’re better prepared to deliver for enterprise clients in key industries. Last year we saw more $1 million clients than ever before, and what makes me so excited is the impact this shows: You don’t build that kind of relationship without delivering serious value.
I like to think about the impact we could make for our people, clients, and partners as a $1 billion independent company. If we could reach that scale, without compromising on our values, what more could we do? What kinds of services could we offer, and what kind of benefits could we deliver? All I know is that we’ve built something special, and it can be the foundation for bigger things to come.
In the meantime, we’ll keep making sure we’re centering our clients’ needs.
Our current solutions are giving our clients lots of useful insights already, but there’s more we can do. Clients need us to help bring it all together, use this data together to make more integrated decisions, and to get to cross functional insights. This means building our capabilities in data analytics and AI, and helping our clients discover what is possible with these tools.
Whatever we achieve, we will do it as we have done everything so far: together. With integrity. And with a little fun!
Thank you all for your faith and your hard work thus far. I can’t wait to see what another five years brings.
Proudly yours,
Jay Laabs
CEO
Spaulding Ridge
PS: Spaulding Ridge wouldn’t be what it is today without the people who have been here since year one. A very happy fifth year at Spaulding Ridge to:
Constantine Adams
John Beringer
Shane Betlinski
John Booth
Kyle Boston
Angela Breard-Chen
Kate Busi
Ryan Elble
Emil Fernandez
Jake Fletcher
Matt Foote
Reggie Gentle
Cara Halladay
Eric Jacobson
Sarah Katz
Sam Kubek
Marc Laabs
Mansha Monga
Sean Murphy
Karthik Nagarajan
Nate Nelson
Aaron Overfors
Rich Quevedo
Kyle Rish
Mike Rohan
Jenn Ruder
Tassos Siatras
Chip Tondreau
Kevin Toner
