Two anniversaries for FBS have just passed and I want to acknowledge them publicly, because I think they’re both pretty cool and important:
- Ten years ago in December, our first customer went live using flexmls Web. In those ten years, many more MLSs have placed their trust in us and I’m proud to say we’ve delivered as the system has changed remarkably with many more features, speed and reliability. Ten years is a long time in terms of software development but in many ways it still feels like we’re just getting going. I’m very much looking forward to the next ten years.
- On January 1, we marked our five-year anniversary of being an employee-owned company, which also means that the original twenty-four employee owners at FBS are now vested owners. When we first became an employee-owned company, we all signed a “Declaration of Independence” to commemorate the event. Yesterday, we celebrated with a cake including the names of all twenty-four people who signed the initial declaration, and we handed out some special “vested” pins to each person.
These small acts are about right for us in terms of celebration. We’ve increased the value of FBS by more than a factor of ten in the last five years by doing more than celebrating, and that’s why, even after ten years of success, it feels like we’re just getting started.