An UpKeep Reflection on 2021 and Looking Forward to 2022

The new year is always a time for reflecting back on what we’ve all accomplished, and also a time to look forward to the new year to set challenging and ambitious goals. I remember last year watching the Times Square ball drop thinking, "2020 was a year full of unpredictability; I wonder what 2021 will have in store for us?" A year later, it’s amazing to think about how eventful 2021 truly was.

On everyone’s first day at UpKeep, I tell the new team members there are four things I can absolutely promise: 1. we’ll go through some ups; 2. we’ll inevitably go through some downs; 3. we’re going to learn a lot, but most of all, no matter what…; 4. we’re going to have a ton of fun along the way. We had plenty of each of these in 2021.

This past year:

• We continued to have record-breaking months, quarter over quarter.

• We grew our community of maintenance and reliability professionals to over 5,000 strong. 

• We hired UpKeep’s first-ever Chief Revenue Officer, Chief People Officer, and Chief Marketing Officer. 

• We scaled and doubled down on our Edge product, migrated our dominan to upkeep.com, created the very first platform for asset operations for the entire industry. 

And STILL, this only scratches the surface of what our team of 170+ UpKeepers accomplished over the last 12 months.

Above all, I’m grateful for the new friendships we created in 2021. We had the opportunity to watch and celebrate as UpKeepers accomplished incredible things in their personal lives. Some started families, others purchased houses, adopted pets, or moved to new cities. I enjoyed every second of fun, laughter, and connection we shared through the lenses of desktop cameras and Slack photos.

But 2021 also came with its challenges and changes. With the continuing surge of COVID-19, we committed to our work-from-home and remote culture, leading us to sublease a portion of our beloved headquarters that we had previously spent months building out in 2019. I saw some long-time UpKeepers leave the business to start their own startups, retire, move to new countries, or start their next chapter. 

In these moments of change, I reminded myself of what I tell all new hires: we’ll go through many ups and downs along our journey, and that’s okay. What’s most important is capturing what we’ve learned and making space for gratitude along the way.

2021 was a year full of personal learning for me. Through challenges, changes, and triumphs, I learned how to better lead and to encourage and empower the team to make decisions in their own way. I became more comfortable and confident in my decisions as a leader, and personally, had the time of my life throughout the journey.

Looking forward, 2022 will be the most important year to date for us at UpKeep. I can undoubtedly say that we have a rockstar team with an unwavering amount of opportunity ahead.

As we kick off this new year, we have three goals for us as a company in 2022:

1. Expand the value we provide for maintenance, reliability, and operations teams 

2. Realize our vision for asset operations and transform the future of maintenance

3. Continue to build a long-term, scalable business.

With these three big goals for us and only 365 days in a year, it’s time to get back at it! 

If any of this resonates with you, we are aggressively hiring across all departments. As we ring in the new year, my four promises still ring true. We’d love to have you along for the ride.

Reach out or find us at upkeep.com/careers.