The more we listen, the more we learn.
Team Letter | March 17, 2025
March 17, 2025
Happy Monday, Alpaca!
This is a really fun moment — this week, we’ll be relaunching our website, and in a way, our company — what we make, who we sell it to, and our vision for the future. I wanted to take a moment today to remind us of where we’ve come from, and where we’re going.
When we started Alpaca, we set out with this mission: Make it easy to support teachers.
Why? Because there is no profession more critical to the strength of our communities and our future workforces than educators. And because we’re seeing unprecedented teacher shortages combined with new levels of burnout and mental health challenges for educators. We like a good challenge around here, so while K-12 education companies aren’t the easiest place to play as a start-up, we knew one thing going in: making it as a company in this space would mean making a real impact in the world.
To understand where to start, we interviewed hundreds of teachers. Usually after school with a cup of coffee or a Diet Coke. We didn’t know the best place to make an impact, and we most certainly didn’t know how to handle the biggest challenges in the profession, so we just asked teachers “what would help the most right now?” And then we listened.
And the more we listened, the more we learned.
Alpaca started with a very small solution – we sent out little care packages of supplies, care, and gratitude to educators, paid for by parent organizations, school leaders, and community members. Those little packs came with a quick check-in, asking teachers anonymously what they needed more of, what they needed less of, and how they were doing, right now. We put it in there so we wouldn’t choose items for the packs that nobody wanted.
And the more we listened, the more we learned.
We learned quickly that teachers were happy to have their voice heard, especially if we just asked them how they were doing, in their own words. No 1-5 scales, no scores, nothing that takes 45 minutes. So we got good at asking educators three questions:
How are you doing?
What do you need? and
What else would you like to share?
Over time, we heard thousands of words that teachers use to describe work. They were the ones we all know from the news – like “fatigued” and “burned out.” But what surprised us were the words that never make it to the headlines. Words like “supported” and “inspired” and “growing” and “ambitious.”
Last year, we asked principals and district team members if they’d like a better way to listen to their teams. Not to replace the annual climate survey that acts as a deep dive into a school’s culture, but a simple check-in to understand what teachers need, right now. The result was a unique check-in called Alpaca Pulse — a simple way for school leaders to check in with their teachers in a safe, anonymous way.
And the more they listened, the more they learned.
Suddenly, we had a new request: “Now that we know how they’re doing, what can we do to support them?”
Luckily, the educators on our team knew exactly how to help. They began building a library of resources specifically to support school leaders interested in building fantastic school cultures. Our resources take a page from the world of employee engagement in the private sector, and combine them with the realities of being a school leader. Sometimes they’re as simple as a fun icebreaker for a staff meeting. Sometimes they dig deep into support for educators as employees.
The popularity of these resources blew us away — today, more than 10,000 school leaders make up our Little Wins community — sharing resources and ideas through our newsletter and finding some truly amazing “little wins” along the way.
And the more we listen together, the more we are learning. About what to build next, and how to continue to build this support system.
Don’t worry, our delightful packs haven’t fallen away! Today, our packs hold a new role in the overall plan. First, principals have a way to listen to their teams and understand how they’re doing. Next, they have fantastic resources to support those needs. And finally, they have a completely delightful way to celebrate team members in their building every month. Alpaca’s re-imagined Celebration Kits make teacher recognition easy and fun, while saving principals and school leaders time.
I’ve never been more proud of what we sell, who we get to sell it to, and how we’re growing.
Alpaca has grown from a small solution for teacher recognition into a platform to listen, support, and celebrate educators. That has the opportunity to make a huge impact, and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for us.
There is one thing that hasn't changed at all: the more we listen, the more we learn. We’re here for the future of education, and we know it all begins with listening to the extraordinary men and women standing in the front of the classroom, out on the field with the band, in the nurses’ office, traveling across the city to multiple schools, or supporting students in the million unseen ways that educators do.
Alpaca is here to make it easy to support teachers. And it all begins with listening.
