Celebrating my first year with Ribbit

Today marks my one year with Ribbit. Those of you who have white-knuckled your way through a first year with a startup probably know what a gratifying milestone it is. It feels pretty good and special.

I’ve enjoyed more support in my current role at Ribbit than any other job I’ve ever had. My ideas are most always met with positive and/or constructive feedback. My manager and much of the executive team are encouraging. The experienced and brilliant operations and marketing teams, especially, seem to always find the best ways to take what I do (or want to do) and deploy it just the right way. As a result, so many of my initiatives have seen such amazing light internally, throughout our developer community and on into the marketplace.

Before I walked in the door, the Ribbit Developer Platform didn’t exist. There was no developer community and the amazing voice platform that is Ribbit was still wrapped in the box, waiting to blow open. Now, we have a strong community, thousands upon thousands of eager developers, actively building on and participating in our developer platform community. The one-of-a-kind Ribbit Voice components for Flash will launch soon, marking what may be the single coolest thing I’ve ever envisioned actually come to life. To see that actually happen and come full circle is a true reward in itself.

It hasn’t been an easy year. The volatility and constant-shifting of a small company is always bumpy. Strong leadership can usually tilt the table in the right direction, so the right talent and resources fall into the right places. What seems like long hours and weeks usually yields pretty impressive results that unite the team and let everyone rally around a common goal (or several different common goals).

Ribbit is off to a strong start. It still seems like we’re still starting up – still in boot up mode. But things are starting to materialize. Killer apps will be launched very soon. More components are coming out. The team is growing. Sure, common startup hopes are high — that the giant corp will walk in with a huge check and we’ll go the way of YouTube and Skype. Or maybe we all stay on and ride this thing to wherever it can take us.

I know that I am grateful for the opportunity, the chance to truly carve out a niche as a premiere Developer Platform leader. There’s a lot of exciting technology out there — here’s hoping Ribbit establishes its place with plenty of success for all of us.