WeRoad year 7: pairing community and scale

International growth, a Series B round, new business lines and marketing stunts. Chronicles and reflections about what happened in the last 12 months.

Aloha!

As tradition commands, punctual as every 21st of March to celbrate WeRoad's birthday, here's the story of our journey over the past year.

When I started thinking about this year's post, I was unsure if I'd still have enough (and sufficiently interesting) material to share. After all, I've been doing this for quite a few years, and the startup became a company. Will I have as many stories, anecdotes, and updates to share as in the startup's early days? Will the story be less thrilling? Because, let's face it, launching a business is a whole different ballgame compared to running a scale-up.

Also, as I began drafting the post, I found myself a bit lost in time, pondering, "Which birthday is this?" The seventh? What?

You know, seven years feels like a long time. In some ways, we could almost consider ourselves an "old" company by now. But "old" is a somewhat silly concept when you think about the way you live. And we've kept living fast, as we've kept doing many new things.

So, let's see what happened in the last 12 months.

But first, if you're interested, or if it's your first time coming across this series of articles, you can read the previous episodes of the WeRoad story, year by year, at the following links: Bootstrap (year 0/1), Start-up (year 2), Scale-up (year 3), Dancing time (year 4, aka the first pandemic year), 5 years in a row (year 5) and Adventures in Technicolor (year 6).

My usual suggestion: if you're in the mood for a novel, you can read them all. Otherwise, just read the first and last one to see the difference between the bootstrap (just an idea) and a real company.

As always, I'll try to be as sincere and transparent as possible. It's a tale of passion, success, and struggles.

Read on.

Tequila for breakfast: 1 month x 1 year

I’m starting this story from the end. Something happened just a couple of months ago.

It’s a picture of one morning in which Paolo improvised a celebration.?

The toast was very spontaneous and somewhat naive, as only Paolo can be, bringing to the Finance team's desk random pastries from the nearby supermarket, and gathering all the booze that we had in the office. Spare bottles of tequila, Japanese whisky, vodka, and other local booze that he and the travel coordinators brought us as souvenirs from their trips around the world.

It was probably 10.00 AM and we toasted and laughed.?

And it was so funny and engaging because Paolo went to the people, one by one, dragging them into the party. It was hilarious. And this wasn’t one of those pre-planned toasts that are a norm in companies. It was spontaneous, reminding me of the startup's early days (yes, I'm hopelessly romantic and nostalgic).

But what were we celebrating?

Something utterly unbelievable, something that just a few years ago would have seemed far-fetched. As I’ve often mentioned, the WeRoad story is one of speed, daring boldness, and passion, yet it's also a story of growth.

That morning, on the 1st of February of this year, we were toasting to our best month ever in terms of trip bookings and, consequently, sales. This achievement was significant for two reasons: psychologically, we shattered a formidable barrier (dare I say it? 10+ Million), and we matched the entire 2021’s results—a year when we rebounded from the pandemic's peak and realigned with our growth trajectory—in just one month.

We had replicated in a single month what took a whole year to achieve two years prior.

Impressive, isn’t it??

So we had some morning booze!

Becoming an European Company

This year also marked a significant milestone for us with the closure of a crucial funding round. We secured a Series B funding of 18 million euros, led by the Italian venture capital firm H14 (I won't share here the details of a round process, the need for finding the right investor, the effort to pour in the process... all stuff that the people who worked on that know very well). In our announcement regarding this Series B funding, we highlighted our intentions to channel these funds into technological advancements and international expansion, to become the market leader across Europe by 2025.

The expansion into international markets is central to our strategic vision.

Expanding beyond our borders is pretty much at the heart of what we're aiming for. While Italy, our home turf, is still growing at an astonishing pace, we've got our sights set on new horizons: UK, Spain, France, and Germany. These two latter, which are the newest playgrounds, just a year and a half into our journey, are already showing strong traction, under all terms. The local Travel Coordinators Communities within these regions are expanding rapidly, and we're seeing an influx of thousands of new WeRoaders from these countries, all eager to explore the world with us.

We've managed to bring the WeRoad brand across the key five EU countries, not just making our mark, but pulling in customers, racking up positive reviews, and crucially, seeing a lot of customers coming back for more. This tells us that we're onto something good with our product.

Now, the game plan is to double down and turbocharge our growth to make each of these markets as big as our original one. But, looking around at the competition, I have to say that, de facto, we're the only real pan-European adventure travel company out there with a solid brand, products operated in the local language for each market, and a widespread network of coordinators.

And then there's the cherry on top: the community and the connections between people that really set us apart from the usual adventure travel outfits. We are unlike any other travel company out there, whether traditional or deep tech and the difference is our ability to scale the community.

A Community Business, that's what we are

Community is paramount.

In fact, among the things I often repeat, is that WeRoad is fundamentally a people-driven business. Which could seem the less scalable factor, unless you manage to do it, tech-wise and human-wise.

There are 2,500 travel coordinators in Europe: big cities and small towns, offices, factories, schools, co-working spaces, bars and restaurants, name a place and you will find a travel coordinator working there.?

It's quite likely you either know a travel coordinator directly or know someone who does, showcasing the widespread and impactful nature of our community.

This is incredible and powerful, under many terms. Coordinators often form their own groups, forge friendships, and sometimes, relationships even blossom. This “non-job,” significantly changed their lives. So I want to share 4 different small tales about coordinators' lives between business and human factor. And I'm starting from what didn't work.

Community 1. // Rotating bananas (or when we messed up)

Managing such a large number of people can be daunting.

But our main worry has never been about selecting the wrong coordinators (we have a pretty strong selection process and an equally good feedback process).

It is disappointing them or letting them down, instead.

And unfortunately, it happened last year, when we tried to improve the process of tour assignment (the workflow that allows a travel coordinator to be matched with a specific tour).?This process used to be top-down and completely manual (one person in the team was in charge of deciding which coordinators were assigned to specific tours). The workflow had two problems: it was extremely intensive in terms of effort, and coordinators could just express preferences but not decide which destination to travel to.

We wanted to solve these issues: automatize a manual process for the scale and make the coordinators happier by letting them choose their preferred tours.?

This led to a comprehensive project involving a new scoring system for coordinators, tour classification based on multiple factors including difficulty, extensive change management (consider 2,500 people!), and a massive upgrade to our technology platform.

A very important project then. And we were very happy when we presented it at the Italian Coordinator Convention.

The project at the beginning didn't go as expected.

Senior coordinators benefiting from their higher score, self-assigned several tours, leaving newer coordinators, eager for opportunities, without options. This oversight resulted in tensions and dissatisfaction, particularly among newer members of our community. Then it got worse and for the general population of was very difficult to get a tour assigned.

And, while we immediately realized the problem, it took a little while to fix it and deliver the solution (spoiler: now it’s working), but I think the most painful part was risking losing the trust of coordinators in us, in WeRoad.

At that point you can tell: "guys, we're working on fixing the situation" but actions speak louder than words. Lucky us (all of us, team and coordinators), the community is amazing, and there are amazing people in it. So, among polemics and complaints, in the informal WhatsApp groups of Coordinators and in the official ones, also some genius coordinator (Federico Murru for the record, it's you!) started to ironically chronicle the “adventure” of getting a tour assignment in those dark “rotating bananas” days. it has been super funny. I’m not sharing the anecdote here, because it’s something, like “rotating bananas” that only coordinators from the Italian community can understand, but I swear it has been very funny. ??????

And for the record, this rotating banana has been the worst nightmare of the Italian Coordinator Community.

Community 2. // WeRoadX?

Despite this mistake, travel coordinators’s happiness is our obsession.

And the project of WeRoadX , which came to light last year, had exactly this goal: make coordinators happier and happier. Not only by letting them choose their preferred tours, but also by enabling them to design their dream tours, giving them unprecedented freedom to create and sell, through WeRoad, their own travel experiences.

The project quickly turned into a curated marketplace through which, the more experienced and high-rating coordinators could offer to WeRoaders, their trips.

The essence of WeRoadX lies in granting coordinators the ability to curate their dream trips from scratch, encompassing everything from itinerary planning to setting the travel mood, choosing accommodations, and determining the price.? This shift empowers them to become entrepreneurs within the travel industry, deciding on their travel frequency and earnings.

The early results were promising but now, a little more than a year later, I can tell that the project smashed.??

More than 500 new itineraries have been designed and operated by travel coordinators, many of them niche ones that would have been impossible to operate at scale, but now available to our customers.?

Our travel portfolio is now so huge that we are going to launch thematic trips (more than 10 categories) mainly made of WeRoadX tours.

The recipe for success??

Again, starting from people.

The marketplace hasn’t been developed just as a solution for scalability and attractiveness to investors, characteristic of tech-based companies, but as a true desire to fulfill the community's needs and encourage an entrepreneurial spirit among the coordinators. Without the people, without the Coordinators' community, we would have been just another marketplace. We should have invested time and money in building (and vetting) the supply, and it would have taken months and months. WeRoadX instead, has been an immediate, viable way to empower even more coordinators, expanding our portfolio and moving towards a lighter operations layer typical of marketplace and tech companies.

Nowadays WeRoadX has been rolled out in Italy and Spain as source markets, it is worth about 30% of our business and it counts on a dedicated team.

Community 3. // The WeRoad Festival

Being a travel coordinator doesn’t mean “only” traveling.?

As per the whole WeRoad approach, it means meeting new people, getting in touch with people you never imagined getting along with, and creating new friendships.

Being a coordinator means extending your network of friends way beyond your regular network. And these friends are not only fellow travel companions, WeRoaders who join the trips. They also are other travel coordinators.

Across Europe, spontaneous groups of travel coordinators form like local chapters, small and big groups of friends: people to get around with, spend time with, have fun with, and also share social projects with.?There are a lot of bottom-up, spontaneous activities, and events coordinators self-organize. There are local, regional, and national events.

There are also key moments during the year organized by the company, both national and international.

Every year, for example, we organize a 3-day Reunion event where thousands of our travel coordinators, from all over Europe, gather together to have fun. We call it ‘WeRoad Island’ because it usually takes place on an actual island. This year has been massive.

And it slammed me in the face what a community is.

How overwhelming it is.

Try to picture it.

1,200 people from 5 countries, 12 nationalities, gathering together in one place.

And this it's just a tiny bit of the 100,000 people that traveled with us. Think about all the stories and all the relationships that we contribute to.

The 3-day long event included market-specific all-hands, sports tournaments, photographic and travel design workshops, and yoga sessions.

For this year's edition, moreover, we came up with the idea to upgrade it, by organizing a real festival, complete with food areas, artist performances, makeup sessions, and a massive stage where coordinators were performing and DJing with amazing visuals.

Personal note:?

probably one of the best moment of last year for me has been when in an arena plenty of coordinators and the community from each country shouted out loud to make feel their presence. Guys, I can tell it’s huge.

And you ask yourself: how is it possible that we built all of this?

Here is the full video of what happened:

Community 4. // Porous communities

There's one more thing I want to share with you when it comes to community. Or, better, communities. Plural.

The community of WeRoaders, those who travel with us.

The community of travel coordinators, the heart and soul of our trips.

The community of team members, who are just as passionate about traveling and embody the WeRoader spirit (did you know? about 1/3 of our team doubles as travel coordinators).

These communities are incredibly interlinked. They're like a mesh, allowing folks to move fluidly from one role to another, or even juggle a couple at the same time. WeRoaders sometimes step into the shoes of travel coordinators. Some coordinators find their way into our team. Team members, driven by their love for adventure, often take up the coordinator t-shirt. Even former team members who've moved on professionally, still join us on trips as coordinators. And sometimes, WeRoaders themselves jump on board, becoming part of the crew.

So, let me share a tale that's quintessentially WeRoad, showcasing one of these unique journeys.

Take Clarissa for instance.

About a year and a half back, she was working at JPMorgan in London when she first stumbled upon WeRoad, joining a trip to Costa Rica. That adventure sparked something in her, leading her to become travel coordinator and lead three of our trips to Mexico, Jordan, and Slovenia, all the while keeping her day job.

Then it happened that we opened a position for the UK Country Manager role, and Clarissa Cappelletti applied. She didn't just bring a compelling business case to the table; she brought a wave of enthusiasm, a passion for travel, and an insider's grasp of what makes a coordinator tick. Having someone who's experienced WeRoad from the perspectives of both a customer and a coordinator is invaluable. She gets the customer's needs because she's been there, and she knows the nuts and bolts of pulling off a memorable trip.

Here's a fun fact: in our marketing, we only spotlight real WeRoaders on actual trips. Clarissa was one of those faces. So, imagine this -her first week on the job- and she's not just in charge of the UK office but also smiling down at us from billboards and tube ads across London.

People meeting people (did we say "Connecting People, Cultures and Stories"?) + Singles & Couples

About 6 years ago, when we sat down and formalized our Vision (Connecting People, Cultures and Stories) we had in mind that innovating the way of traveling was just a means to this end.

Truth to be told, we saw immediately these connections forming.

Years later connections are still happening, but they are waaaaay more! And the effect of the magnitude of travelers and coordinators is exponentially higher. Any kind of relationship, whether friendship or romance. And since critics are labeling WeRoad as a dating company, that's where I dive into stories about romance and connections made on the road.

We've always had this line on the WeRoad site, saying "80% of our travelers are single but hey, we're not Tinder LOL" . A few months ago an article came out in the Italian newspaper "Il Fatto Quotidiano," diving into this whole phenomenon, with stories from folks who've journeyed with us. The article by Beatrice Manca , nails the whole scenario, why finding that "special someone" (not just a fling or a "situationship") is such a challenge and why group travel's become a hot trend lately. She points out "These trips are a hit especially with those hitting that life phase where syncing vacation time with friends becomes a mission impossible, thanks to mismatched schedules, coupling up, and kids (not yours) getting in the way."

That's exactly the vibe we tuned into when we dreamt up WeRoad: aiming for those in their thirties, or really anyone at a similar life stage or age group. And it's catching on with the 40 to 50 crowd too. The coolest part? A bunch of people have actually found genuine love—talking about real-deal relationships, even weddings and babies.

And for someone like me, who's pretty much a staunch single and usually allergic to all this mushy stuff, it's still pretty awesome reading what a WeRoader told the journalist: "I'm so grateful for that Facebook ad that kept showing up every day."

I haven't really dug into the stats, like how many single travelers ended up in a relationship after a WeRoad trip. That'd be an interesting number to look at. But one thing's for sure, love, the real kind, it happens on these trips.

Take for example this post in our Facebook group, for instance (it's a place where travelers can connect, share stories, and ask questions). One couple, who met on a WeRoad adventure, shared their wedding news with the community. And the response was heartwarming, comment after comment of "us too" , "us too". What really hits home is seeing that enthusiasm, that joy of sharing their happiness with other WeRoaders and the post exploded getting thousand of likes and comments.

.

But hey, in times of friendship recession, it's not all about finding love. It's (even much more) about forging new friendships. Proof of this all the thousands of reunions meetups that WeRoaders self-organize after the trip. Or testimonials like this one: when I shared a couple of screenshots on LinkedIn about these love stories, one girl commented, "I didn't find love on a WeRoad trip, but I met loads of awesome, real people with shared interests. And that's pure gold. Oh, and yeah, I travel too." That's what it's all about.

And the others? The ones that already have found their soulmate, the ones that already are in a couple? Are they traveling with us?

Is it true that WeRoad is a place for singles only?

Nothing is more false than this (sorry haters!).

WeRoad is for everyone from 25 to 49.

Every time that I joined a WeRoad myself I found one or two couples in the group. There even are people in couple to decide to travel solo because (maybe because their partners are not adventure travel types) and we keep seeing soar inquiries like "Can we join the trip as a couple?". And the answer is YES, absolutely. And if there are doubts like this, for sure we have to improve our communication on this matter.

In the meantime, we are working more and more to make couples' experiences more comfortable. In fact, we recently rolled out a new feature on select itineraries allowing duos to get a private room at no extra charge. We're all about being inclusive, and respectful, and ensuring everyone, no matter their relationship status, has the best experience possible.

Marketing stuff

And here it comes the part about marketing.

I think the most difficult thing in your job is to keep the standards you set for yourself while looking for new references, new levels to admire.

It's like being in a band where the second album has to hit as hard as the debut. Then the third, the fourth, and so on. There's this lurking risk of not living up to expectations or, even worse, becoming a repeat of yourself, falling into a sort of self-imitation trap. And honestly? That thought scares me a bit.

So, one of my everyday concerns with marketing is about keeping our vibe as high as we've always had it. Can we keep it up? It's not too far out to worry about running dry on ideas, especially with an in-house team. Sure, being this close to the heartbeat of the business gives us speed and space to play fast and loose sometimes, but it could also lead you to hit a creative wall.

But, turns out, my worries, even for this year, were completely misplaced. We just upgraded our skills to manage more a complex setting (more markets, more languages, partnerships across more markets, the soaring costs of ads in these new arenas), and new channels to reach untapped audiences while being super marketing-efficient. Basically we are pairing more a creative approach with a "scientific" one.

Just to give an example: Paolo and I had a confrontation while we were discussing the marketing plan for 2024.

A consistent slice of the budget pie was meant for a TV campaign (keep in mind, our TV incursions were limited to special projects, like sponsoring the Italian version of Peking Express mainly with placements). Paolo wasn’t thrilled about pouring cash into TV: “Anyone with enough money can buy ad spaces in TV! It’s just a matter of money, not of making people engage with the brand and be memorable love brand. I’m worried that your team thinks this is the way to go." He was kinda worried our team was straying from our "creative" path.

That stung a bit because I thought that, marketing-wise, we had grown and matured, beyond just flashy stunts. We’d become super efficient at digital marketing while keeping our wild side, and at the same time, professional enough to consider media that are not so close to us like TV.

He worried about the fact that we were talking money and media planning, not how to impact people, how to be relevant, and memorable to people.

But even amidst our growth at WeRoad, we continue to do cool stuff, often starting with the question, ‘What if we do this?’ Great ideas are more often born out of a spark, an intuition, a ‘what if,’ rather than a plan.

This is so cemented in our DNA that it would be impossible for the WeRoad marketing and brand, to be just about numbers or planning or efficiency.

So I want to share with you some of the activities that we carried out with this mindset.

Ponti Campaign (Bank holidays campaign)

Some might recall the “Ponti Campaign” about making the most of bank holidays, creating long weekends that we launched in the Milan metro back in December 2022? It went totally viral, lighting up online spaces, news sites, and even dark social. I mentioned it in last year’s wrap-up, but the story didn’t end there. It’s had a few cool developments since.

First up: we tried to echo that buzz for the Coronation Day in the UK with a nifty campaign in the London Underground. We crunched the numbers again, showing how, by taking just four days of annual leave in April 2023, Brits could swing a whole 10 days of travel. A golden opportunity, considering ?t?h?e? ?q?u?e?e?n? ?d?o?e?s?n?'?t? ?p?a?s?s? ?a?w?a?y? every year, with the last occasion being in 1953. I still think it was a pretty neat idea, but honestly, it didn’t quite stir up the same frenzy as the “Ponti” campaign did in Milan.

Secondly: we won an Effie Award for our efforts, which was a bit of a feather in our cap, especially since we were the only scale-up, or non-traditional brand, for that matter, among the contenders.

And then, we did it again this January for the 2024 bank holidays, taking the campaign to the Rome underground network. Initially, we were a bit hesitant to rerun something we’d already knocked out of the park, but we just couldn’t help ourselves. The feedback from our community and partners was too compelling—they loved it and thought it’d be cool to bring it back, kind of like our version of “Spotify Wrapped” but for holidays. Plus, we decided to spread the word even further by featuring the campaign on the back cover of Internazionale magazine.

I was a little hesitant to rehash something we had already done (not the team that proved itself to be right). The feedback from our community and partners was, in fact, too strong to ignore. Some even suggested it could be our “Spotify Wrapped” for holidays. And we amped it up by featuring the campaign on the back cover of Internazionale magazine.

If you don't kwow about the campaign here the video explainer we created for the submission to the Effie Awards:

TV Commercials

For the third year in a row we sponsored the Italian TV version of Peking Express, which is the ideal space for a WeRoad insertion and product placement: WeRoad coordinators accompanying contendents in some of the experiences of the show. The placement is paired with a series of commercials aired on SKY at the beginning of each episode of the show.

The point is that those commercials are not-so-typical TV commercials at all.

And why call them not-so-typical? Well, it all kicked off with a video sent over by Silvia, one of our WeRoaders, totally unprompted. She was just shouting out loud her joy about her experience in Morocco.

When I first saw it we had already pretty much closed the "original" commercial and I thought: this is the perfect TV commercial. Let's throw out everything else we've been working on and use this as a tv spot*.

It's super genuine, it tells our product like it couldn't be done better, it's so spot-on in showcasing what we're about. There's nothing else to add. And it works precisely because it's not a commercial.

It completely breaks the grammar and the canons of traditional TV spots.

It breaks the flow and stands out among other brands.

It also leaves viewers wondering "Wait, what's this about?". It blurred the lines, almost feeling like it was part of the show itself.

And it's social proof on steroids.

Riding that wave, we ended up creating a total of five unique videos, each capturing snippets of our vibe from different corners of the world. Below, you’ll find a couple of these gems.

Silvia in Morocco

Christian in Japan

I think that we could’t have a marketing and content strategy more UGC-based that this. Spoiler: our adventures on TV have just started. Stay tuned for what's going to happen in the next months.

Crosswords / content marketing?

Marketers!? Do you remember when the whole Content Marketing trend began? Everyone was mentioning the early days of content marketing picking examples of magazines, radio shows, calendars, almanacs, and soap operas?

We've always believed that content marketing sits right at the heart of our way of doing marketing. Beyond just social media content, we've thrown our stories onto everything from coasters in bars and table mats in restaurants to water bottles at events, fortune cookies delivered with takeout, bakery bags, and even chocolate bar wrappers, the list goes on and, honestly, I can't remember of all the places we've left our mark.

But this time around, we landed on something that feels like quintessential content marketing. It might just be the coolest project we've ever pulled off at WeRoad.

As often happens, it all started with spotting the right opportunity.

We teamed up with ParkinGO Group SpA , the company managing parking spots at airports across Europe.

The initial idea was about "doing something together", but we wanted to step up from the typical promo code swap. So, we cooked up this plan: why not craft and hand out a travel-themed puzzle/crossword magazine to folks parking their cars at ParkinGO before jetting off?

The concept was simple yet packed with value (and friendly on the budget). It hit the sweet spot of targeting seasoned travelers, added a neat twist to the flying downtime, and importantly, engaged people in a meaningful way instead of just hurling ads their way.

The output?

Far beyond what we imagined. What started as a simple idea blossomed into a full-fledged 20-page printed magazine brimming with crosswords, puzzles, stereograms, sudokus, join-the-dots, "spot the difference" challenges, trivia, horoscopes, in 4 editions / 4 languages.

It combined the potential target (people already accustomed to travel), the context (time to spend flying), and most importantly, offering value and engaging with people (instead of bombarding them with commercial ads).

Did we outsource it?

Did we hire people to do it?

Nope.

Just us, people from our Brand and Content team, full of enthusiasm, who, over the weeks, worked behind the scenes (and along their daily activities) on this project. After dozens of puzzles, printouts, proofreading, quality checking for any typos or error we went to print.

Now, we're spreading 10,000 copies across 14 airports in Italy, Spain, France, and Germany.

Ah, and we called it "CruciRoad" (in Germany Kreuzroad R?tsel, in France Crossroad).

In the pictures below: one of the mockups we used to proofread everything, some page layout designs of the French version, and 4 final printed copies for the different markets.

Breaking the mold: our not so-standard path to creativity and impact

Jotting down these thoughts, I found myself flipping through photos of the cool stuff we've pulled off, like our showcase at the Interbrand event (see the pics in the slideshow below). That's where we got spotlighted in the "Next Generation Italian Icons " report, ranking us among the top-tier emerging Italian brands making waves.

Looking in retrospect at all these activities, I reckon that what made the difference it has always been the approach. It’s the idea and the execution. It's the lateral thinking, that spark that allows you not to do stuff like others do.

If others hire agencies to plan, we continue to do it on our own, securing the best hand-picked placements.

If others outsource their creativity, we prefer to rely on our internal resources, without even having a team dedicated exclusively to creativity, because it's always a collective effort of each individual from the Brand and Content teams.

And, in a nutshell, it's doing exactly what others wouldn’t do.

Do stunts at a shoestring budget (or even zero cost).

Take risks, always.?

Be everywhere.?

Don’t be afraid of losing the control of the brand if the community take over your logo for instance.

Over communicate.

Only do stuff that gets people talking. ?And train yourself to do this kind of buzzworthy stuff to seize every opportunity to etch our brand into the minds and hearts of our community and customers.

Be consistent: drop the bomb, load the new one, and drop again. And repeat.**

And, of course, while doing this, do not lose the enthusiasm and the hunger to exceed yourself.

Last bit: the only thing that matters

As you can see, it's been a phenomenal year for WeRoad. We've seen new markets gaining traction, secured a significant Series B funding, and witnessed impressive growth and public acknowledgment. But it's not just about these achievements.

There's something deeper, beyond the business milestones.

I’ve often shared that the best part of kickstarting a business is looking at the traction: seeing metrics grow is like an endorphin rush, I swear.

But running a community business is a whole different story. You are forced to shift your mindset from a dashboard to real life and realize that what you're looking at is not just numbers. They are people.

When you read reviews you totally get it.

However, growth isn't universally welcomed. I recall a critique from a long-time WeRoader who felt we'd grown “too big” losing our "innocence".

I swear we are conscious of what growing means and the risks and threats it entails.

Being aware of this, I believe, is the antidote to becoming "just another company". Growth allows for greater impact, connecting more people and expanding our vision. Of course, growth can somehow threaten your nature. But you can choose to be a super cool small niche player or someone who has an impact. It's a choice and choices always come with a trade-off. Again, being aware of this can be an antidote to the normalization.

Culture is another, even stronger, antidote.

Indeed, culture is a topic I care deeply about

It's so embodied in my approach to business that gets "physical" sometimes. I can feel it. Seriously. In my gut. I can feel the pain, a physical pain, every time I see it being neglected. And when I saw this diagram by Abhishek Maran it immediately hit me.

If your Culture is what transformed an idea into a scale-up, if it's what enabled you to stand out in the market, find your product-market fit, and ultimately succeed... shouldn't it be considered your most precious asset? We must remember this every time we encounter a trade-off that could put our Culture at risk.

Culture is your most valuable asset.

Your unique way of doing things.

Your unique way to work with people and stakeholders.

You didn't get so far by chance.

You got so far because of the Culture you've built.

Our Culture Manifesto begins with these lines:

"We’ve always done things a little bit differently, and over time we’ve come to realize just how important our culture is to our success. Our way of doing things is a kind of trademark. It gives us superpowers. It’s gotten us to where we are today and it will get us where we want to go in the future".

And this is among the things I'm most proud of.

To myself, to my colleagues, to everyone who is building a company, a project, a dream: please, remember every day, every hour, every minute what your Culture is.

Make your new colleagues understand it, embrace it, and be part of it.

Foster it through the mails you write, the documents you prepare, and the interactions you have with your customers, partners, and stakeholders.

Keep it the sense of marvel that you have that time when you got your first customer, the excitement you had when you hit your first 100 customers, the happiness that moves you when you read satisfying customer reviews.

Please act like every day you're building something magnificent.

Foster the Culture.

Foster our Culture.

And dear readers, it's all for now. See you in a year!

Notable credits and acknowledgments

Here are just some random bits that would have made the story too long or too complex to explain (but those mentioned will understand): the "spicy" sparring sessions with our CPTO, Simone Basso (I love you anyway); countless pints of beer shared with Domenico Manna , Luca Cozzarini , and Riccardo Cova ; the incredible journeys across Europe by our Chief Commercial (who's fairly the COO now!) Andrea Lamperini aka Lampe; the Country Managers of Germany and France Tobias Girard and Guillaume-Emmanuel Doerflinger leading tours as travel coordinators; the inexhaustible energy of the tireless Michela Finazzi leading the travel coordinators team; the upcoming app for travel coordinators; the release of our new 2.0 booking system by Monkeys (a story for another time); the Good Resolutions campaign; loads of new brands we partnered with; the debut of our merchandising in a dedicated online store (www.weroad.shop , go grab something!); the WeRoad Collection tours ; the new in-depth content formats on our Instagram profiles; What a pretty little retard ( Margherita Galluzzo and the whole marketing team know why); the actual voice of our copywriter Chiara Bertorelle aka , dubbing all our brand videos and spots; the incredible production of the WeRoad Festival made by Isabella Bussi , Michele Pasini , Sirio Rotatori ; my fav CFO Elena Giombelli who worked tirelessy off the clock on the Series B; our CEO Andrea D. embarking on two WeRoad tours (while opening our minds on WeRoad next stages); the marketing team bombarded with my latest obsession ( Liquid Death marketing stuff); (myself traveling incognito among WeRoaders; myself missing the flight for the Reunion (but brilliantly solving the problem ??); and Paolo designing and leading his own (extreme) WeRoadX to the Svalbard Islands. And apologies to all the ones that I didn't mention, it would have taken the space of a book :)

A couple of notes

* To be honest, Silvia sent us the video last year, when we were up to finalize the spot for the previous season of Peking Epxress and we didn't make on time. But, saved for later, this year that video blossomed in a full campaign:)

** "Be consistent: drop the bomb, load the new one, and drop again. And repeat." This is not mine, I borrowed it byJames Watt from his book Business for Punks.