Offsites are the cornerstone of remote work
Offsites are the cornerstone of remote work
BoomPop Team · 11/17/2022
We make it one-click easy to do offsites and events.
Here’s how we got here, and what’s next—from BoomPop CEO Healey Cypher.
True Platform offsite planned by BoomPop
Core belief: it’s important to have fun at work
My first job out of college (mgmt consulting, NYC), my engagement manager pulled me aside.
“Healey, I’ve been hearing you laugh a lot at work...”
“Yeah,” I said, “I try to have fun at whatever I do...”
“Well,” she said, “if you want to have fun, maybe consulting isn’t for you.”
First. Job. Ever.
Ever since then, I’ve been on a mission to help people see for themselves that creating strong social connections at work isn’t just “okay,” but that it’s actually important. Studies find happier teams are more productive, quit less, and are more profitable.
Remote work can be challenging
At Atomic, where I’m COO, when we embraced distributed work it became clear the change would far outlive the pandemic. But while people loved having 2 to 3 times more freetime every day, it took a toll on the crew: less cohesion, less banter, and more transactional interactions.
So we did zoom activities: wine-tasting with sommeliers from Napa, magician acts for the kids, even custom-built games for virtual leadership retreats. People loved it. And a lightbulb went off.
Blake Hudelson, Vaibhav Chauhan, Jack Abraham, and I launched BoomPop—a curated marketplace of virtual offsites. By our first year we had grown to 2,500 clients, 60,000 employees had attended events, and we had sent millions of dollars of new business to our small business partners.
Ameelio team offsite planned by BoomPop
But there’s nothing as great as physical get togethers
When the world started opening up in 2022, the BoomPop team started doing IRL offsites. We were SO excited to finally meet one another. Regular offsites, it was clear, would be a cornerstone of the new operating drumbeat of remote teams. So we introduced fully-planned offsites-as-a-service.
Fast forward to today, November 2022, and we are helping 4,000 brands and 150,000 employees with events - everything from coworking offsites to all-company retreats to client summits. And they are really compelling: glamping in Death Valley, surf ranches in LA, rustic retreats in Colorado, or even just beautiful urban spaces in NYC, Austin, Miami, and San Francisco. Leaders of all shapes and sizes are refocusing their efforts on getting together IRL on a regular cadence.
Offsites are already the new office, just look
Paul Graham tweeted a graph that caught my attention. It showed Kastle expects office occupancy to eventually stabilize at 43% nationwide. This is a tectonic, $1.7T shift.
The most forward-thinking companies, like Airbnb, Shopify, Salesforce, and Canva, have announced their employees can work from anywhere, forever. But there’s one condition: they must come together for offsites 4-6X a year. So they’ve begun assembling internal teams with names like Ground Control, Bursts, and Vibes that help organize offsites and events.
Every CEO I’ve talked to is embracing a new operating cadence—one that involves remote work to stay competitive and regular offsites throughout the year. But they often don’t have the budget to hire dedicated internal event planners, and they definitely don’t want their heads of engineering spending hours calling hotels and negotiating group rates. Time is the most valuable asset.
BoomPop team offsite
Let’s Gooooo!
Today we’re excited to announce we’ve raised $14M into the business and our Series A. We’re bringing a tremendous new energy and focus on technology to the industry of corporate events. Our team is world class - with alumni from AirBnb, Google, Disney, Twilio, FlipKart, eBay, Apple, and more. Steven Isaac joined BoomPop as our CTO, whose 4-unicorn track record precedes him. In addition to Atomic and ACME, we have a mighty crew of investors and advisors, including people like Aaron Levie and Greeley Koch. I am honored to work with this crew, especially since they “laugh” at my constant stream of dad jokes.
Our goal is to make it easy to book, plan, and host impressive events for teams and clients. You save time (40hrs/event), you save money (10-20% off), and our tech helps to provide seamless experiences—whether it's a 1,000 person annual retreat or a 7 person engineering offsite.
Oh… and hopefully a part of this is that everyone, even my former engagement manager, will find that having fun together at work really is important. Especially now.
Read more in TechCrunch: BoomPop gains traction by designing high-end off-sites for a remote-first world
Featured resources
8 Steps for Planning Your Company Retreat
A resource for new organizers on creating fun, productive, and successful corporate events.
