In the valley of Gault, which lies 40 miles north of Austin, an archeological site provides glimpses into the areas past that predate any modern history by thousands of years.
Previous digs at the Gault site had uncovered stone tools dating back to the pre-Clovis era. However, archeologists discovered something even more unprecedented last year: the skeleton of a 14,000-year-old home. While this “home” is a ways away from our luxurious modern understanding of the concept, it has the making of a structure built to withstand time: a raised foundation, an entrance and exit, and 63 square feet of space.
While the city of Austin may be brand new within the context of these findings, the area continues to be a hotbed of innovation and growth: Austin has become an unofficial capital for the tech industry in recent years, drawing top tech talent and companies to the city.
In 2021 alone, venture capital groups invested over $5.5 billion, doubling investments made in 2020. Despite economic uncertainty, 2022 has been a year of continued growth, with startups raising $4 billion in the first three quarters.
Built In Austin talked to four of these companies’ leaders to learn more about how they’re preparing for a period of rapid growth, what strategies they have in place for scaling, and which projects they’re most excited about.
We’re thousands of years removed from the area’s original inventors, but these companies are ensuring that this spirit of innovation isn’t going anywhere.
Arrive Logistics, a multimodal transportation and technology company, provides data-driven digital solutions that are tailored to the needs of shippers and carriers.
What do your hiring plans look like in 2023?
Arrive Logistics is prepared to hire 800-plus new employees next year across our growing North American locations: Austin, Chicago, San Antonio and Tampa. These roles will support growth on many teams, including sales, client success and technology.
As companies scale, so too must their processes. What steps are you taking to ensure this period of rapid growth goes smoothly from an employee experience perspective?
We have grown accustomed to scaling year over year but never across so many different locations. The preservation of our culture is top of mind right now, and our people leaders are driving initiatives that will set all employees up for success regardless of their location. Culture is driven by strong leadership, so best-in-class management is the most important ingredient for each of our new locations.
Our talent acquisition team is responsible for setting hiring managers up for success and works closely with them on making good hiring decisions. We have more leadership development opportunities in place now than ever before to get future managers ready for expansion roles. Senior leaders at Arrive are intentional about visiting new locations regularly to foster connectivity and visibility. It has been exciting to see the new offices take shape, and I look forward to even more offices in 2023!
We have spent the past few months ensuring that we have the right team to support every part of the recruiting process, from candidate sourcing to pre-boarding engagement.”
What’s a project you’re really excited to tackle this year, and what impact will this project have on the business?
The talent acquisition team always gets excited about new locations, and 2023 will be full of interesting opportunities to learn about new talent markets and expand Arrive’s geographical footprint. New locations challenge us to scale our processes without sacrificing the high-touch customization that we pride ourselves on. We have spent the past few months ensuring that we have the right team members in place to support every part of the recruiting process, from candidate sourcing to pre-boarding engagement.
Additionally, the relationship between recruiters and hiring managers will be more important than ever as we work together to secure the right talent for each new location. While our recruiters cannot physically be everywhere, we need to be experts in each of our new and existing regions.
Atmosphere’s streaming service is focused on providing businesses with various programming options to suit the mood of any environment, from a veterinary office waiting room to a lively restaurant.
What do your hiring plans look like in 2023?
This past year, we’ve seen our headcount double, with the majority of that growth being in sales and support functions. As we continue to augment our existing teams, will be adding marketing, sales, advertising and technology professionals that will drive innovation and results aligned with our overall business strategy. Atmosphere is a growth stage company, and our 2023 forecast demands we add hundreds of new hires to the team.
Our rapid growth means that providing a valuable employee experience is a big focus for Atmosphere.”
As companies scale, so too must their processes. What steps are you taking to ensure this period of rapid growth goes smoothly from an employee experience perspective?
Our rapid growth means that providing a valuable employee experience is a big focus for Atmosphere at the moment and our efforts start with listening to feedback from our employees. We’re fortunate to have an executive team that emphasizes the need for an inclusive and fun work environment for all. We’re consistently looking for ways to optimize existing processes and team structures so long as it makes sense and doesn’t change who we are. Our HR teams are working diligently to refine our offerings, from onboarding and training for new hires to mental health and parental leave programs for existing employees.
What is the most interesting challenge facing your team at the moment, and how are you working to overcome it?
In 2022, Atmosphere grew from a company of roughly 200 coworkers to a headcount of well over 500, including new offices in Chicago, New York, LA and London. We also became the fastest-growing streaming service for businesses. We’ve accomplished so much in one year, and I feel that we're just getting started. While so many are familiar with the Atmosphere platform here in Austin and other major cities, we’re eager to raise the level of brand awareness across the nation and beyond!
BeatStars is a pioneering music marketplace that connects recording artists to producers and hosts discovery tools for major and independent studies. Over 5 million beats can be found on the marketplace.
What do your hiring plans look like in 2023?
In 2023, I anticipate growth across the product, user experience and business insights teams within my department. We will be opening two or more roles on the product side to support growing lines of business. Along with that, we will be adding a lead UX designer and another UX team member. For the business insights team, we are building from the ground up, including an analyst and a data engineer.
We are designing an organizational structure that is built to scale.”
As companies scale, so too must their processes. What steps are you taking to ensure this period of rapid growth goes smoothly from an employee experience perspective?
Business growth also means employee growth for us. For current team members, we are investing heavily in education, mentoring and training so they can grow with the company and help onboard the next team members. We are designing an organizational structure that is built to scale. That means bringing in leads in areas we need expertise and experienced leadership. With several growing lines of business, we are also beginning to create squads around those areas for focus and agility. Our goal on the product team is to be agile ourselves, including our internal processes and structure. We check in frequently on the systems we are using and what we can improve. Continuous improvement is core to both the software we build and our frameworks to do so.
Our technology and communication strategy is remote first. We have team members in four countries and six time zones, so we remain highly vigilant about how we communicate. We have patterns in overlap time and also how to document and manage several initiatives going at once. Part of that strategy includes hiring to make sure the resources needed day to day have enough live time together for daily problem-solving.
What’s a project you’re really excited to tackle this year, and what impact will this project have on the business?
This year is winding down, but I am excited to continue the development of the new producer studio application. We upgraded the underlying services and have a lot of opportunities to build a great experience for our producers to create new music, sell tracks, distribute those tracks and manage the publishing rights across consumer platforms. This is part of our mission to make sure producers are paid for their work and bringing it all together in one studio application is a challenging and exciting project.
Fintech company Methods an API that works with over 15,000+ financial institutions to enable data retrieval and debt repayments to any type of consumer liability.
What do your hiring plans look like in 2023?
We are beyond excited to continue our current growth momentum into 2023 with hiring across nearly every job function. Our team of nine will add more than 20 positions in 2023, more than doubling its current size. This growth is fueled across engineering, business development, customer success, operations and compliance, among others.
Growth across these areas will allow us to scale alongside our partner companies, launch new and enhanced products, and continue powering a seamless experience for fintechs to interact and push money to their user’s debts.
At Method, our mission is to improve the financial lives and outcomes of millions of Americans. As we quickly grow and onboard passionate teammates to join us in pushing this mission forward, our focus remains on creating an environment that emphasizes professional development, transparent communication and a healthy work-life balance.
At Method, the employee experience is far more than simply the standard biannual check-in or performance reviews.”
As companies scale, so too must their processes. What steps are you taking to ensure this period of rapid growth goes smoothly from an employee experience perspective?
At Method, the employee experience is far more than simply the standard biannual check-in or performance reviews. As we look to quickly scale in 2023, we’ve set in place a robust employee experience plan that captures feedback and nurtures the relationship as early as an application is submitted. This begins with a holistic recruitment process, an employee-driven onboarding experience, and effective feedback systems across the organization once a new hire joins.
From a technology perspective, we offer our teammates $3,000 per year for making their work-from-home setup comfortable — buying a standing desk, ergonomic chair, a co-working subscription — as well as the means to expense $1,000 per year on their personal development and learning like Headspace, MasterClass, books and more.
Our virtual open-door policy allows teammates to drop a line to discuss anything on their minds: if they ever need anything specific to be successful in their role, they can just ask!
What is the most interesting challenge facing your team at the moment, and how are you working to overcome it?
While communication requires an extra push in Method’s hybrid remote model, we’ve implemented the right planning and preparation for our team to feel as close as ever to their peers.
Our daily team meetings give everyone the opportunity to provide division-specific updates and keep their colleagues informed on any major developments unique to their job function. Additionally, our asynchronous communication via Slack allows for questions to be answered in real-time cross-functionally.
Our growth year-to-date has been a tremendous team effort. Every team has been firing from all cylinders, with engineering, sales and operations hitting full capacity following the recent growth momentum. As we look to quickly onboard new hires to the team, our focus on hiring bright, driven and honest people while creating great career and skill development opportunities for them has never been higher.
