The Corona pandemic had us firmly under control again this year: we had to restrict contact with family, friends and colleagues, we were confronted with new variants of the virus and many of us are still struggling with the health or economic consequences. We all hope to close this unpleasant chapter as soon as possible and return to normality.
As the year ends, we would like to take a look back at the past twelve months: What milestones did we achieve? What progress did we make with Stackfield? How do the current developments regarding data protection influence our vision for the future? And of course, we also look ahead to the upcoming year and share with you which long-awaited features you expect and where our journey will take us.
Here's what we've accomplished in 2021
Another very successful year is coming to an end for us. We experienced huge growth and managed to nearly double our revenue for the seventh year in a row. In Deloitte's renowned „Technology Fast 50 Award“ ranking, we would have been the 4th fastest-growing technology company in Germany this year – as we have grown by almost 2,000 percent over the last four years. This has shown us once again how lucky we are to have been able to celebrate such successes despite the current situation.
New office, an award & many Stackfield updates
The demand for project management and communication tools has increased enormously since 2020 and the trend has continued unchanged for us in 2021. Therefore, one thing was already clear at the beginning of the year: we also wanted to grow as a team. To do this, we needed a larger office as a first step.
Moving into our new office
Sendlinger Straße was our home for three years, and in May we finally moved into our new home at Maximiliansplatz. We are more than happy to have found another office in the heart of Munich. Here we have enough space for new team members who want to shape the future of Stackfield with us. We will give you first insights into our office space in early 2022.
Expanding our team
In order to continuously develop Stackfield, expand to new areas and grow as a company, we are always looking for talents, all-rounders and creative minds - more than ever since the beginning of the Corona crisis. We also had to learn that the job market is highly competitive. We are more than happy that we have strengthened all our departments with great new colleagues who have become an indispensable part of the team within a very short period of time.
Award as Top Start-Up Employer
In a survey conducted by Business Punk and Statista last October, we were ranked among the top 10 employers in the field of "Business Products & Software" out of 1,500 start-ups. For us, this was a great success and a strong sign of how attractive Stackfield is as an employer and how satisfied our employees are. Our credo has always been not only to attract new talents to us, but also to retain them for the long term.
Sustainability and climate neutrality
The climate crisis is one of the greatest challenges of our time, which is why we want to act responsibly and climate-consciously. Compensating our CO2 emissions is just as important to us as using efficient data centers or avoiding unnecessary business trips. We motivate our employees to act sustainably and will of course continue our efforts towards climate neutrality in the new year.
Major Stackfield updates
Over the past twelve months, we have continuously optimized Stackfield and added many new features. With our project portfolio update, we wanted to noticeably relieve project managers and all those who have to keep track of projects. This means: an improved project overview, reliable alerts for critical deviations and automations wherever possible.
We also launched a comprehensive telephony update (virtual background, emoji reactions, and conferencing with external people without a Stackfield account) to make communication even easier. We gave the Page module a complete redesign and took a big step towards accessibility, for example with the Dark Theme, Shortcuts and Screen Reader.
Data protection more important than ever: We remain a pioneer
Of course, there have not only been internal changes at our company; the topics of data privacy and data security have also evolved decisively and become much more relevant in 2021. For example, the new German government has named digitalization, data protection and IT security issues as key topics for the legislative period. For the first time, aspects such as security-by-design, the right to encryption, and international technical standards are given such importance.
The path of European companies toward data sovereignty also shows a clear route: Among other things, the use of U.S. cookies on German websites was prohibited by the Wiesbaden Administrative Court, and the use of U.S. tools is becoming increasingly problematic. It is to be expected that the courts will deal with the issue even more intensively and that further decisions will be made in the future against unauthorized data transfer.
What does this mean for us? These developments reinforce that we at Stackfield have been following the right path since our founding. Data protection is an integral part of our DNA. Our decisions not to use third-party tracking or other external tools, for example, have also proven to be spot on.
What's in store for you at Stackfield in 2022
One of our main goals in the new year is to massively expand our team and fill many open positions. This will ensure that we develop Stackfield in the best possible way, stay ahead of our competition, and provide the best support to our customers as usual.
We often get very good feedback on the product, but compared to the top dogs like Microsoft, we still lack a bit of visibility. That's why we will continue to increase our brand awareness. For example, in 2021 we have already sponsored many of the podcasts with the widest reach in Germany, including Doppelgänger TechTalk, t3n Podcast and digital kompakt. In early 2022, our sponsorship will go live with the OMR Podcast, which will put Stackfield on the radar of many more - keep your ears open!
And what will be new within Stackfield? Our list is long, but we want to tell you about three new features that will be available to you early 2022:
Whiteboard: With the whiteboard, you can gather ideas with your team faster, brainstorm more creatively, and better represent complex processes.
Surveys: No more “isolated solutions” like Doodle or Survey Monkey! In the future, you'll be able to create surveys and capture opinions directly in Stackfield.
Deletion rules and simplified compliance management: We want to extend Stackfield with so-called deletion rules. For example, depending on your company's policies, you can have a task including all file attachments automatically deleted after a deadline. One use case: companies are required by law to delete an applicant's resume or notes after six months. So with this feature, you can make sure that certain processes are compliant and, most importantly, DSGVO compliant.
We want to become the leading provider in Europe
We have a lot of work ahead of us for 2022. We have set ourselves big goals and will do everything we can to achieve them: We want to become the European market leader for productive and secure collaboration and communication. Our aim is to continue to meet the highest standards of data protection and data security in the future.
Last but not least, we want to use this blog article to say thank you. Thank you to our customers, colleagues and business partners for your loyalty, cooperation and solidarity.
We hope that we were able to give you a little bit of excitement for 2022 with our outlook and wish you a happy new year!