Team of Owners

How I watched our company transform in 12 hours | Team Letter | February 16, 2026

February 16, 2026

On the flight home from our time together at the National Conference on Education in Nashville on Saturday, I had to take a minute to write down what we learned and did together this week. It’s why I write Team Letter — to not forget the little moments of the company that I feel we’ll look back on one day and say “that was a turning point.”

Last Friday was one of those turning point days.

I try not to lean into hyperbole, so you know it’s genuine when I say — I feel like the ground shifted underneath this company last week, in the best possible way.

I have always believed that our product has important work to do for schools and districts. And I have always believed in our brand, our mission, our values, and the opportunity ahead of us. But this week, I watched something new emerge in the company:

I watched our team go from being a group of people who work together to a true team of owners.

I will say, it didn’t happen in a glamorous way. It actually happened because we struggled and sweated through some things. Early in the week, we struggled to get our presence set up at the conference — it took us hours longer than we expected, and included a trip to a production studio, several emergency Amazon orders, splitting up the team for dinner, and making some last minute changes to make everything work. Thank goodness for portable steamers.

We struggled, too, the first day of the conference. We watched the companies whose success we aspire to fill up their booths with conversations and connections and booked meetings, while ours floundered a bit. We took a stutter step. We didn’t engage. We got scared out there and then we got in our own way.

Worst of all, we attempted to rewrite the narrative. We briefly decided that because our results were “better than last year,” that meant that we were winning, even though we were clearly short of our goal. So when we talked about it, we were proud of our day, and proud of the improvement over last year.

But we all knew it…we weren’t winning.

It took until the last moment of our first conference day for someone to say it. But then, thankfully, someone said it: “I’m really disappointed about where we are against our goal right now.”

And little by little, the truth came out — “there’s a part of our product that isn’t resonating with this audience.” “I don’t have a way to show someone what we actually do.” “I’m afraid to strike up a conversation.” “I got discouraged, and then I ran away.”

And right then, sitting around and feeling realllllly tired in our VRBO after a big day of conference (and before an even bigger one), I watched something in our company change. I watched us listen to the hard truth that we weren’t on track to hit our goal, and then I watched us mobilize, re-organize, and make a new plan.

I watched us give and receive feedback — and nobody died or threw up.

I watched us ask “What’s my exact number for tomorrow? I’m ready.”

I watched us say “Let’s go earlier than we said tomorrow, to give ourselves the best chance.”

It was so cool to see it. I had goosebumps. And on Friday, it all clicked.

I watched you wake up and get in front of our customers 5 hours before everyone else, in the most creative, hospitable, totally-us-kinda-way. It was so fun.

I watched you get brave and help each other get brave, too. You helped me!

I watched you teach each other things, and teach me things. Thank you for that.

I watched you make great use of our company’s resources, and then I watched you take risks when you believed there was an outsized reward available to us. (I’ve never purchased more lattes in my life!)

I watched you never take a single moment of the day for granted. THANK YOU.

Your hospitality for our customer was genuine and perfect. Your focus on asking people for the opportunity to work together was hard work, and you did an extraordinary job of getting comfortable and going for it.

And yet — none of that is the transformational part. The thing that was different — that IS different about our company now is that you didn’t do any of this because someone asked you to or said you had to.

Nobody got in the minivan at 5:45 am because it was in your job description. Nobody on our software team booked sales meetings because you were told to. You did it because you figured out what it would take for the company to win, and what part of that you could play, and then you did that thing.

And we won — we started Friday 35% to our goal, and ended the day 102% to goal. We were talking to customers before 7 am, and we were the absolute last team on the floor to shut down the booth, and it paid off. Our calendars are full from start to finish for the foreseeable future. We added more pipeline, booked more demos, and had more meaningful conversations than we ever have in a single day in the company.

At a start-up company where teams are small and resources are limited, taking ownership matters. A team of owners has 10x the impact over a team of employees, no matter the size of the team.

The reward for taking ownership is more time with customers. Because we decided to own our luck and win the day, we got the opportunity for more conversations, with more current and future customers, than ever would have been possible. We owe them our gratitude for that opportunity, and I know we will all show that in the weeks to come.

I cannot wait to see what each of us will own and transform in the weeks to come. I hope you’ll look back on our week and see the kind of impact we have when we say the hard thing, take ownership, and own our future together. I’ve truly, actually, never been more proud of our company — and that’s really saying something.

Gratitude x A Million,

KB