Beautiful & Good Things at Alpaca

Team Letter | July 27, 2026

Happy Monday, Alpaca!! And to Jenna and Kelly — Happy First Day!!!!

July 25, 2026

A couple of months ago, I had the opportunity to see a Broadway show called Every Brilliant Thing. So, the premise of the show is a little sad: it’s about a son who wants to help his mother see more good in the world, so he starts writing down things that are brilliant, beautiful, and good in the world.
Ice cream.
Sunsets.
Remembering the lyrics to a song from high school.

Over time, the effort catches in his circles and in the end, there is a collection of brilliant things, contributed by so many people, and a reminder of all the good that exists in the world, if we simply look for it.

The result is one of the most uplifting and delightful shows I’ve seen. It was in fact so good that it inspired me to start my own list of the good and beautiful things in my life.

Most of mine are about places I love, friends, family, experiences, memories. Most of them aren’t about work. But as I was coming home from a conference this week, I thought about this type of practice at work.

Why don’t more teams take a moment more often to simply list the good things happening?

Every one of us knows that building a company is hard work, and every single one of us is in the thick of it right now. Big work, big deadlines, big travel, big investments, big call volumes, big expectations, big risks, big rewards.

And we love hard work! So we embrace all of the big things in front of us and the big opportunity ahead of us. And also — sometimes it’s important to remember how FUN it is to build a company. How silly and smart and creative our team members are. How delightful our customers are. How much fun this is.

Keeping track of all of the good and beautiful things at Alpaca is a different way to live our values of Write Thank You Notes. It’s a teeny recognition and moment of gratitude of what’s good, what’s exciting, what makes us excited to get out of bed and come to our beautiful office every day.

And so, I thought I’d get us started. The first one I wrote down was:

The way Marina greets you when you walk in the door

From there, it was an easy list to write! And it’s not done yet — it’s a living note on my phone, and I hope you’ll join me in adding to this list. Feel free to add your own in the comments — and if we like it, we’ll build it somewhere that we can continue to add to over time. With no further ado:

Good & Beautiful Things at Alpaca

• Marina greeting you when you walk in the door

• The moment someone “gets it” on the demo

• Bongo Java

• Our magical plant that sprouts a leaf whenever something important happens in the company

• Working at Millwork Commons

• New hire happy hour!

• Lindsay realizing by accident that she’s a Disney Adult

• A bustling noisy office

• Our supply wall

• When we see a customer at a conference

• Finishing a packout

• Wilson Phillips Hold On

• Seeing our team go for walks together

• Repair and Restore

• “Friends don’t let friends have bad product photography.”

• The sound of the Vestaboard turning over

• When Jessica comes to town

• Road trips with Kaitlynn

• Camp Wandawega photo shoot

• The #happy-customers channel

• Eric Filardi flying from Alaska with his family to spend a week with us

• Hack days

• Hearing Alissa and Maci talk about Costco

• Mariah Carey’s Fantasy

• Ringing the Bell

• Car rides with each other

• Booking a meeting at the booth

• The revolving art gallery in our Millwork hallway

• Mimi

• When Nicholas’s designs hit just right

• Seasonal latte flavors at Archetype

• Fireplace conversations in Nebraska City

• Camp Alpaca

• Spreadsheet School

• Eyes emoji in the #sales channel

• When dogs visit the office

• When babies visit the office

• New Notebooks Day

• The Magic Table at Buvette

• Kimberly’s slide decks

• Birthday happy hours with crafts

• Seeing anyone make their first sale

• Susan freakin Toohey

• Team cooking night in Nashvillle (those cookies!)

• Presenting with a customer

• Our Alpaca head stickers

• When Alissa and Lila get dorked out excited about a pack item they’ve figured out

• Investors who care about the impact we’re making

• Crinkle

• Not putting crinkle in the packs anymore

• Kaitlynn coming in with the low key funniest joke of the day, always

• Seeing Kate take an impromptu demo and nail it

• When someone at the booth says “we need this!”

• Winning the day

• Clean Slate bogo day

• Getting a shout out

• Sending a shout out

• When customers see their data for the first time

• People coming up to the booth and saying they love our brand

• 7:30 am light in the office

• When teachers get new headshots at Alpaca

• The new Little Wins library imagery

• Hitting our revenue goal

• Notebooks

• When a box of finished thank you notes shows up unexpectedly

• Video outtakes

• When investors say yes

• When customers say yes

• When a new hire says yes

• Office potluck parties

• Love is Blind bonding

• That time we caught a possum in the office but for two weeks we thought it was a burglar

• You all Taking pictures of my notebook after a meeting

• My Emotional Support Rainbow Slide

• Mark knowing exactly how to help win the deal

• Launching a big project

• When a teacher gets their first pack

• Little Wins podcast guests when they tell us something awesome happening in their district

• Kate Canales teaching our team

• Maci’s tiny pieces of paper filled with notes

• “Ope, dogs are out” — Kimberly Bailey

• School visits

• Lauren Muller bringing her light and joy to the office

• Marina’s tiny cowboy hat

• Egg bites

• Silly Goose Productions

• Winning

It’s funny how a single word or phrase can bring a smile to your face isn’t it? I hope you enjoy these and add your own. And I hope that if you’re having a tough day, you’ll know that’s ok, and that there are so many beautiful and good things in our work and our days.

Now let’s go GET IT for the last week of the month, Alpaca!!!

KB