April 1st means much more to Team Teleport than the usual jokes - it's our birthday. Last year we were busy looking forward (and we still are!), but this year we've got a set of first achievements to look back on as well. Here's where we've come in our second year.

First things first - we might be a remote team, but that doesn't mean we can't celebrate together - cue Team Teleport Google Hangouts cake party!

bday1

And at least one of us, appropriately enough to our mission, had to call in from a plane, with the implicit side-effect on the quality of plastic-wrapped baked goods available:

bday2

Here's the timeline of the most important events in Teleport's history:

And just because we've never had a week as good as this birthday one, let me just give you a sneak peek of what the Year 3 blog post will start with...

  • Second birthday - April 1st, 2016
  • Reached 70k users - April 3rd, 2016
  • Reached 90k users - April 5th, 2016
  • Reached 100k users - April 7th, 2016
  • ...

While fun, statistics and launch dates are output metrics for vanity -- more importantly the input into which is the hard work of some amazing cruising from milestone to #milestone (this is how we tag them in internal Fleep chats to be able to find them later). As we did on our first birthday, we went around the team again to ask for what's on some of our people's minds on this birthday:

Thomas Schinabeck, UX Designer:

It sounds so simple: discover a great place to live and move there. It's really not. There are so many reasons why people don’t even consider moving to a new place that could enrich their lives.

It's a real privilege working on this huge task with all these people every day. This year we are one step closer to not only inspiring people to move by recommending places that fit them, but also to making it much easier for them to make this move actually happen.

Thomas K. Running, Scouts Community Manager:

While it seems like the political discourse these days is mostly about building walls, I am really proud that we are moving in the opposite direction. Little by little we're tearing down barriers to living the life you want, no matter where that may be.

I am also very happy that in the last year we have gone from only helping with discovery, to now (with Scouts and Zen) also helping people through the entire moving process. And in the coming year I hope we will not only get much better at those things, but also help connect our users with each other in more meaningful ways.

Ardo Illaste, Data Scientist:

Research shows that for transformative ideas to succeed they often need to be disguised as more tempered and incremental steps to avoid clashing head on with existing deep rooted convictions. I see the second year of Teleport of having been comprised of precisely this - packaging our vision in palatable portions and validating the need for what we're working towards.

It's been thrilling to hear back from users who have found a new home city via Teleport and we'll be pushing forward to ensure more and more people get to their ideal place.

Karim Heredia, Software Engineer:

In one year, I have noticed more and more people sending us messages to tell us how useful what we do is for them. This is probably the best reward from this year. In the end, it is about the people who are moving or at least dreaming of moving.

Silver Keskküla, Co-founder:

When pulling together a list of our employees for one of our documents, I found myself in awe (again) of the team we've been able to put together. Hiring outside Silicon Valley not only gives us a bigger pool of the best of the world, but it allows us to optimize for cultural fit and passion for our mission in ways that would be considered a luxury in Silicon Valley.

A year ago I would have not imagined onboarding folks to the team that have held key roles in the most progressive banks in EU or who were appointed to their previous job by President Obama. That's just amazing for a seed-stage company!

I also lived in 4 countries last year and learned to speak another language.

The plan for the year is to keep rolling out the freedom to move to more people so they can build teams like us or feel excited about their quality life like me.

Elen Veenpere, Content Marketing:

Exactly a year ago we launched Teleport Cities mobile app and I was already ridiculously excited because I thought this will be our biggest and most important game changer move in helping people relocate. Little did I know… Today, we’ve got a full suite of products that not only complete the circle of relocation - discovery to execution - but also take care of issues related to remote working. I'm still baffled at how far we've come in just twelve months.

Not only am I inspired every day by the absolutely amazing, devoted and hilarious team who has made all of this happen, but we’re also starting to hear from more and more people who have made huge life changes with our help - the people that we do all of this for. If the coming year is anything like the previous, I’m pretty sure we’re up for world domination soon enough.

Kristjan Lepik, Partnerships:

Teleport is swimming in completely new waters - nobody has done a similar project before. So although the amazing engineers and data scientists from our team have built a I-can’t-sit-I-must-jump exciting platform, we still might have had some doubts - how big is the market? Is the world ready for this kind of product or is it too soon?

And then you start seeing people from all over the world sharing the excitement. 15000 new users one day from France, a bit later a similar rush from the US, then Greece, Iran... The feeling of having built something useful gives a sugar rush like nothing else.

Sten Tamkivi, Co-founder & CEO:

All that's been said above is a humbling privilege. Here's to Year 3!