Who is Slingshot?
Recently, we asked this question in a very pointed way. We’ve had a lot of change over the last 4 years, triggered by our first major down year in company history back in 2015. For a minute, our faith was shaken, our model questioned. We lost a business partner and a couple of long tenured employees. We didn’t know if we were going to make it.
We decided we would, but we weren’t sure where to start. We had talented people; we had passion. We were in the business of building software, and everyone needs that… right?
So we moved forward; made difficult decisions and questioned everything. We changed our offering and how we offered it. We moved offices. We changed our name. As a bunch of software developers, we hired designers and a new CIO. We were going all in and we would be back.
Fast forward to today, where we came out of the near wreckage and thrived. 2019 was our biggest year in some time. And 2020… well of course things have changed a bit… but we are going to weather this storm because of who we are and what we’ve done.
The interesting thing about all this is that while we changed seemingly everything about our company, who we are never changed.
Our company turned around by getting back to who we really were and why we did this to begin with, because for a minute we had forgotten.
Let me explain.
When I was 10, I rode down “Suicide Hill” on a scooter because someone dared me too. I made it down, but crashed at the bottom. Cuts and bruises aside, I survived. When I was 15 my brother and I skied out of bounds and nearly ended up stuck in a ravine: we made it out.
I raced go-karts when I was young, and I was pretty damn good at it. I only prospered at these things because I pushed no matter what to be better.
Slingshot’s original goal was to be the best at building software and to build software that was the best. To do so requires a bit of daring. You have to push constantly. You’ll fail along the way and get some cuts and bruises, but those who persist will make it to the other side and be better for it.
Before we re-invented ourselves, we weren’t pushing; we were walking the line. Maybe we were pressing forward when we started, but the world around us changed. We stayed comfortable and nearly failed because of it. That wasn’t us.
So we started pushing again, hard, to win for ourselves and our clients. The people we work with want to be the best, just like us. Winning could mean delivering software that will drive new business, open up new markets, open up new capabilities, or drive so much efficiency that a company can smash their competition.
This is who we are and we are succeeding because we dare to.
We are daredevils.
But we are also more than this. We are curious and fun-loving. We want to explore; we’re fascinated by so many things. We want to learn, whether it be new development languages and techniques, new design patterns and processes, a better way to run projects, or ways to make more of an impact on our clients.
We have a craving for self-improvement, and we want to enjoy the journey of learning while having fun along the way.
We are big kids.
As a company, we know the best thing we can do to get to the next level is double down on who we are at the most fundamental level, never forgetting.
That next level is here, and it’s going to be good.
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