Every week, I write a letter to our team.

This is the story of building our company, written in real-time.

In 2022, I started a company called Alpaca with a goal of bringing modern employee engagement tools to a profession I’m passionate about: educators. It’s also a profession facing some biggest challenges around employee morale, attrition, and burnout in our country.

To solve that big problem, we build software, recognition and reward programs, and employee engagement resources for K-12 schools and districts. I love this work, our team, and our customers, and I believe we’re on to something big.

But for all of my enthusiasm, it’s my first time as a CEO — and I’ve got a lot to learn. We try to be intentional about the way we work as a team, the decisions we make, and the culture we’re building.

In early 2023, I missed a weekly team meeting for travel, so I offered my updates, thoughts and ideas via a letter posted in Slack. And our team liked it so much, that I just kept going.

I get why — in every company I’ve ever been in, I’ve wanted to understand more about what our leaders were working on, thinking about, dreaming up next. If a weekly letter helps our team align around the vision and key decisions in real time, we’re better for it as a company, and I’m better for it as a leader.

Startups never have a straight line “up and to the right'“ — companies have fits and starts, wins and losses, good ideas and terrible ones.

In these letters, you’ll find all of those things, along with the goals we chase, the efforts we’re prioritizing, the team members we celebrate, the books we’re reading, and the customers we’re proud to call ours.

Welcome to our story — we’re writing it as we go, and we’re glad you’re here.