#425 Parabol Wrapped 2024

This week was our first full week back in the virtual office at Parabol.

As we get started with our work this year, this has been a great time to reflect back at our growing relationship with customers and our achievements together as a team.

We’ve seen a good year with highly engaged teams, folks upgrading into paid tiers, and lots of constructive user feedback. Here are a few highlights of what Parabol usage looked like in 2024.

Altogether users started almost 250k meetings this year on Parabol. While a good number represent folks trying the product, roughly 150k were meetings run with 2 or more people, and over 40,000 meetings were on paid accounts. Here’s the breakdown of number of meetings run (with 2+ participants) by type:

Here’s a look at our most popular templates including their change in ranking from 2023 to 2024.

Users from 187 countries logged into Parabol in 2024. Here are the top 5:

Here are some of the highlights for us as a team in 2024. Last year we shipped numerous valuable enhancements, many of which were shaped by direct feedback from our customers. Equally important, we made efforts to focus and bond as a small remote company.

Here’s a look at what we shipped in 2024:

This year we were able to meet up on a few occasions. The Product team held a retreat in San Diego where we prototyped AI-enhanced features, bonded over meals, and explored the coast including surf lessons.

The Growth team met up in Minnesota to explore strategies to better reach and serve customers, while enjoying a wonderful time at the Minnesota State Fair.

Our PubSec team had many successful outings, from meetings in San Antonio with customers to visiting with DoD customers in Hawaii.

We wrapped up 2024 by shaping our bets and plans so that we could hit the proverbial ground running in 2025. What excites us most about our plans is the strong alignment between our customers’ needs, having the right team for the mission, and having concepts that inch us closer to empowering how people work together using software. Stay tuned, as we look forward to sharing the journey ahead.

As expected, our sign-ups and usage cool around the holidays. We are seeing the numbers returning to normal. In the area of customer success, we’re already seeing a healthy number of upgrades to paying tiers and renewals as many are starting their new budget cycle.

…had many check-ins with new and existing customers. As everybody is ramping up for the new year, we are making sure our customers are getting what they need and continuing to gather feedback on how our software and best serve their ways of working.

…began planning for upcoming DoD trade shows. In 2024 we were remind how important it is to meet in person with our customers in the Department of Defense and our partners serving in that market. We look forward to getting out of the virtual office as much as possible this year.

…kicked off Shape Up Cycle 6 as a Product team. In this cycle we’re looking to ship the next version of our Mattermost integration, improvements to our activity timeline based on feedback from customers, add the ability to use GIFs in discussion threads, and continue prototyping a totally new product feature yet to be announced.

…we’ll do the same thing. It feels good to be on the right track. We’re busy making, meeting with, and learning from customers. We’re planning our work cycles and travel. And we’re staying focused on new features, enhancements, and our future product direction.

Have feedback? See something that you like or something you think could be better? Please write to us.