Jul 7, 2016
The starting line
My name is Jeremy, cofounder & CEO of Growbot, a messaging bot on a mission to build better relationships at work through more frequent appreciation.
Ex: Kudos Phil Libin, Robert Siegel, & Manu Rekhi for believing in Growbot!👏🏻 🙏🏽 💪🏿
We’ve been working on Growbot for ~2 years. In search of a big problem that we were excited about and confident we could solve well, we first started experimenting on the web and then inside email. Foraging for the perfect channel for our users, we created a Slack bot and launched version 1.0 a little over a year ago.
To this day, it blows my mind that a few people working out of an apartment can have an impact on the productivity and culture of over 4,800 companies across the world. From small communities to Fortune 100’s, I wake up each day excited that Growbot can make an employee’s day better, help a hard-working team celebrate an accomplishment, or make it easier for a company to live the *values they have posted on their wall. I’m proud to say Growbot has brought over 200,000 positive interactions to these teams.
And although I’m proud of how far we’ve come, our journey is just beginning. Today I’m thrilled to announce the closing of our seed round, and welcome General Catalyst, Inventus Capital, and XSeed Capital to the Growbot family.
Today I’m thrilled to announce the closing of our seed round, and welcome General Catalyst, Inventus Capital, and XSeed Capital to the Growbot family.
On your mark
Thrilled doesn’t quite capture the feelings that accompany taking $1,700,000 of someone else’s money. I’m also afraid. Afraid of making poor product/hiring/strategy decisions. Of going belly up and letting the people that believed in me down. Humbled to have some of the brightest minds by my side. People who laid the foundation for the internet. People who created products I use every day like Evernote & Gmail.
Above all else, I’m excited. Excited to have the opportunity to continue this journey. Excited to explore the wild west of bots with my cofounders and future hires. Excited to contribute to the next wave of software as messaging blossoms into a platform.
Get set
So what’s next? Every day thousands of people use Growbot to spread positivity at work. We’re working hard to find new ways of making Growbot more fun for employees and more insightful for managers. Growbot 2.0, currently in development, will include free enhancements and premium features like leaderboards, dashboards, and much more.
To accelerate that learning, we’re building a small team of passionate people who can help us turn thousands of users into millions of paying, satisfied Growbot customers.
Go!
If you’re on Slack and want a little help celebrating awesomeness at work, check out Growbot. If you’re an engineer looking to make a difference in how we connect to one another at work, let’s chat :)
Please like and share if you love Slack, bots, or Growbot!
Thanks to everyone who helped us get this far. Folks like 500 Startups every single Growbot team and user, the members of GrowbotPals, and supportive family and friends. You will not be forgotten when Growbot and other robot overlords take over the world.
