2017 was a special year at Bold. It's now been five years since launching our first app on Shopify and boy has a lot changed!
Little milestones like that help us reflect on where we've come from, and where we're going. This surprise video from our staff was something that really put it into perspective!
Our mission statement at Bold is to "Empower entrepreneurs to achieve success by building the best company to attract the best employees who truly give a shit." And with that as our mission, to go from our basement five years ago to over 170 employees and 90,000+ merchants using our apps today, is truly humbling.
We'd like to say a special thank-you to all our staff who have seen our vision and joined us on this wild ride! We'd also like to say thank you to all our clients, friends, family, spouses, partners, and all of the amazing Shopify store owners - you've helped make 2017 our best year ever!
Take a look at the video below and scroll down to see a few highlights from 2017. It was truly a great year, but as good as it was, we are even more excited about 2018!
- Eric, Yvan, Jay & Stef (Bold's co-founders)
First School of Commerce lesson
In January we launched Bold’s "School of Commerce," designed to help entrepreneurs become eCommerce experts. It's a live discussion on everything related to eCommerce from CRO, to product sourcing, social media, and more! And just like an actual classroom, attendees are able to ask questions in real time as the lesson goes on, with recordings available on our blog a few days later.
Innovate or Die
#InnovateOrDie is the motto by which we live, and every now and then we need a little reminder! That’s why twice a year our staff spend two days building the coolest projects they can think of from start to finish. This past February we had 21 AMAZING projects completed, ranging from Chrome plugins to search Shopify files, a Counter Strike game modelled out of our building, automated Slack bots, a Multi-Currency app that's now live in the app store, and many more!
Bold Black launches
The classification of “Black Label” is usually reserved for the most refined things in life; Black label whisky, the Black credit card, Black car service, you get the idea. So this past March we announce the launch of Bold Black. It's a ‘Black Label’ approach to our Professional Services process, a service designed for larger enterprise brands with a focus on driving growth based data-driven design.
Reached 1,000 partners
Two years ago we launched our partner program, and this past March we hit 1,000 active partners! We started the program to give priority support to our amazing Shopify Agency Design and Development partners along with awesome benefits, like an ongoing revenue share and extended trials for clients. We couldn't be more excited to keep building new relationships and strengthening our existing partnerships in 2018.
Winnipeg Free Press: Made in Manitoba
This year Canada celebrated it's 150th birthday, and Manitoba celebrated 150 years of business. We were extremely honored to be featured among heavyweights like James Richardson and Sons, Sony Corp, Ford Motor Co and others! And it just goes to show: never underestimate three guys holding nerf guns. 😝
Celebrating 5 years with Shopify
We can’t believe it: 5 years ago we submitted our first app to Shopify, and today we have 19 apps in the app store and over 90,000 stores that rely on our apps and services daily to run their businesses. It’s truly humbling going from 4 friends working in a basement to over 170 employees. We don’t know how we’ll top it, but we can’t wait to see what the next 5 years brings.
Awesome april fools joke
This is a fun one. This past April we put together a little video announcing our newest app PUMMBA Plus; one app that would combine ALL of Bold’s apps into one. Of course, it was just an April fools joke, but that didn’t stop a couple people from believing us! So to those people, please accept our sincerest apology. And in case you missed it, click the video above to find out all about our life-changing “new” app. 😄
Two Scoops with Mike is born
It’s hard to imagine a time when “Mike from Bold” wasn’t giving us our weekly dose of what's new here at Bold. It started as a challenge, and Mike accepted! These quick videos now bring awareness to our products, new features, and anything else our merchants should know about. Each one is under a minute, which makes them perfect for sharing on social media, and have quickly become a fan favourite.
Want to know more about what we do?
We’ll keep this one short and sweet: take a peek at our new video we made back in May to find out more about what we do on a daily basis.
Bold heads out to IRCE
The Bold Commerce team found its way to Chicago for IRCE 2017, the world's leading eCommerce conference and tradeshow that helps merchants keep up with the latest and greatest for their online stores. We had a new booth set up this year and loved meeting each and every store owner who stopped by!
Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award
Bold was selected as a finalist for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the year award in the Prairies Region, recognizing entrepreneurs who dare to take risks, dive into uncertainty, and overcome challenges with innovative solutions. Ranging from healthcare to tech to manufacturing, we were honoured to be nominated alongside such an amazing group of people.
Keep scrolling to find out if we won!
The Bold Brain
This was a special one for us because this app started as an Innovate or Die project. We took the work done in those 48 hours and put a team behind it, developing one of the most impactful apps in the Shopify app store. It uses hundreds of data points such as order history, trends, interest, and intent and actually learns from your store to make personalized recommendations.
United Way Plane Pull
So far in 2017 our staff has volunteered roughly 500 hours at 17 different events and raised over $25,000 for local charities like the Children’s Hospital Foundation and Wildlife Haven Rehabilitation Centre, and the United Way Plane Pull was one of the most memorable ones! We joined thousands of Winnipeggers and 68 teams at the 14th annual Plane Pull and Kickoff for United Way Winnipeg’s 2017 Campaign.
Shopify Partner Program: Spotlight on Bold
Check out our very own Jason Myers and Yvan Boisjoli being interviewed over on the Shopify Partners site. Their Partner Program helps freelancers and agencies start and scale their businesses, and they wrote a pretty awesome case study on Bold and how we’ve been able to scale our growth so far. Plus there’s some pretty awesome pictures and a video to go along with it. 😊
Hired our 150th employee
In the past 5 years we've moved 5 times! That doesn't include three different basements, and it's looking like we'll be moving again in the new year! We still can’t believe we hired our 150th employee this past October.
Our favourite review of the year
Recurring Orders ★★★★★
I was honestly really dubious about trying out Shopify. I am a bit of a control freak and without knowing code, it's hard for me to get the customization I want on my website.
ENTER BOLD. This company and their incredible slew of apps have made the difference for me between feeling like an ecommerce idiot to at least *looking* like a pro with literally just a few clicks.
I remember thinking it was going to take all this coding and research and money and blah blah to set up a subscription service for our herbal koffee product. NOPE. I clicked some buttons. They set it up for me (FREE, I might add). BOOM I was selling subscriptions. Like that!!
When I had a problem customer service was AWESOME. Fast and helpful and educational and patient. I really love Bold and find their apps so worth the money.
- Rasa Koffee
EY Emerging Entrepreneur 2017 award
We attended this year's gala as finalists for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the year award in the Prairies Region, and were blown away to win the EY Entrepreneur of the Year in the Emerging Technologies category 🎉
Ranked 12th on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 list
This one really made us feel all the feels: The Fast 50 program recognizes Canadian technology companies for their entrepreneurial spirit, innovation, rapid revenue growth, and world class achievements, and we were humbled to be a part of their list.
1st Annual Bold Partner Awards
Congratulations to the winners of the first annual Bold Partner Awards! These awards are an opportunity for us to highlight the awesome work being done with Bold's apps in our network of over 1,400 Partners.
Another awesome Christmas Party in the books
Shout out to our Client Success team!
They answered 60,652 Support tickets, helped 26,711 Customers on chat, and a answered a TON of phone calls this year. ❤️
- Topics:
- Bold Life & PR
