Greetings from sunny Brisbane, where I’ve spent the week with customers, partners, and prospects in town for the IFLA Information Futures Summit. While making payroll for six years isn’t why a founder starts a startup, doing so in such a turbulent market is something we’re quite proud of. Releasing over 20 new versions of our software, earning multi-year contract renewals, increasing our average organization size, and expanding to new countries has been equally validating. Below are a few highlights that make the past 12 months our best yet.
Highlights over the past year
- Increased total hours of training by 32%
- Added support for Sign In With Google and Microsoft
- Introduced personal progress tracking
- Introduced people search and people browse
- Expanded into Australia, Qatar, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Canada
- Added over 2,000 trainings to the Skilltype Index
- Ability for consortia to target staff at member libraries with training and events
- Launched individual subscription offerings
- Introduced self-service, starting with payments
From Training to Networking
A new theme you’ll start to see from us is evolving from a platform for training, to one also used for networking. While many of our skill needs can be met by a resource or an event, sometimes its easier just to speak with an expert who can serve as a consultant, coach, mentor, or a study buddy. And everyone knows that the main value of attending conferences is not the presentations, but who you’ll meet in the hallways in between.
Finding the right person at the right time is made simple with our new search functionality, whether that’s someone to learn with, or someone to work with. It leverages our controlled vocabulary approach to find people across your networks with a specific combination of skills. We can also see who across our network is currently learning about skills we are interested in. Check it out and let us know what you think.
Skilltype for Individuals
A popular request for years has been to enable people to sign up for Skilltype without an institutional affiliation. We hesitated to do this in the beginning for a variety of reasons, but have recently surpassed a few of the milestones we wanted to with the product to create a meaningful user experience without an organization.
We’re proud now to offer the single best use of $199 on the market, above any conference registration fee, or individual course fee you can find. And who knows: you’ll probably be able to find it in Skilltype anyways 😎
Use our birthday code SKILLTYPETURNS6 by October 31st for a discount.
New Investment from Build with Shift
October 5th turned out to be more than our birthday this year. It also marks the day we signed a new investment and partnership agreement with a Louisiana-based investment and strategy firm called Build With Shift. Founded by serial entrepreneur Corey Tisdale, The firm specializes in improving startup operations and leadership team performance. The challenges we face in this next chapter will look quite different than the last, and we’re excited to have local support here in New Orleans as we continue marching towards 2030. I’m personally excited to work with Corey, and welcome him to our team as a Board Observer.
Thanks to Our Community
Of course we wouldn’t be able to do this work without our team, our customers, our partners, our investors, and the support community that has built up around Skilltype over the years. We appreciate each of your commitment to our success, and willingness to entrust us with your time, careers, and resources. As always, feel free to contact us at at success [at] skilltype [dot] com.
Until then, happy Skilltyping!
Tony