Happy Birthday, Textio!

One year ago today, Textio was born. We started with an idea about the way artificial intelligence could reshape the future of text and user experience. We had input from HR leaders and hiring managers about problems they were having with hiring. We saw a way we could turn what was in our heads into something magical — a simple, powerful, and all-around delightful experience that could solve their problems and disrupt the future of text.

And so with that, Jensen Harris and I quit our corporate jobs and went for it.

So much has happened in the last twelve months. Not long after we went for it, we convinced a few other strong engineers (and superb humans) to join us. They left amazing jobs to take a bet on what we were doing. Person by person, eight people took the leap and brought their talents together to contribute to Textio’s first year.

We saw potential everywhere. As we moved from a set of ideas to working code, we felt so energized. We started showing people what we were making.

The first time we let someone outside the company try our alpha, she couldn’t put it down. She kept trying to rejoin the conversation the rest of us were having, but she would lose herself mid-sentence as she thought of something else she wanted to try. There we were in an early investor meeting discussing our beta plan, and Shivon Zilis wouldn’t give our laptop back. She was too busy trying to get a high Textio Score.

We left that meeting giddy. We had a lot of work to do, but our first user was hooked. We were on to something. We launched our closed beta a month later, and three months after that we launched the full product. That was ten weeks ago.

Today, on our first birthday, over 1,500 companies have used Textio. We are so grateful to you. You come from startups and from the Fortune 100. You are in widely varying industries, from tech and finance to manufacturing, sports, and retail. You are from non-profits and universities as well as major corporations. You have made our first year gratifying and worthwhile. There is so much more magic we have planned for you.

We’re just getting started!