SINCE 1998

Turning 25 & What It All Means

A look at the 25-year history of Acro Commerce, how we got to where we are and a glimpse into what the future holds for this dynamic company.

---

Only a few companies in the world make it to their 25th anniversary. As we've matured as human beings, we've had the fortunate opportunity to grow as a company. Let's take a look at how we got here.

In The Beginning: A Few Guys & A Dream

Acro Commerce was founded in Kelowna, BC, in 1998 by a few fresh-faced college kids and two local realtors who wanted to get in on "this new internet thing." 

The investing partners put up some cash for computers and a few months' expenses. We got to work and never looked back.

Shae Inglis, Jason Poole & George Andres are the remaining partners of the seven co-founders who have managed to survive the relentless pursuit of entrepreneurship. There are many great stories and learnings about partnerships for those who dare to ask.

Our first business model was as a one-stop-shop for website development, digital marketing, graphic design (you should see our Nascar wraps) and Flash development.

With every new project we took on, we learned new things and managed to grow along the way.

A Transformative Journey

We realized early on that proprietary software was very limiting — if every client required its own version of our platform (Store Box), we would never be able to scale. 

That epiphany led us to Open Source, specifically Drupal and Ubercart (which became Drupal Commerce). We became leaders within the Drupal community and continued to grow and learn. 

Ubercart's change to Drupal Commerce changed our path slightly as we got more involved and eventually acquired Commerce Guys. This acquisition became our gateway into ecommerce. With Drupal and Drupal Commerce as our core, we landed clients like Telus and Yellow Pages and built the foundation of a world-class digital commerce and website development agency.

Once in the ecommerce business, we further focused on defining our niche. Realizing that B2B selling would need all the same tools and integrations that B2C already had, we shifted our mindset to help organizations improve or move their sales processes online through ecommerce and digital transformation.

Our mission: To shift outdated traditional sales processes to digital experiences.

Over the last five years, there has been a significant adjustment in the enterprise software industry. A new technical architecture based on modularity is replacing proprietary platforms: Composable Commerce. The essence of this shift is for an organization to use best-in-breed and best-of-need in a plug-and-play fashion, building the exact tech stack they need to grow their business.

With this fundamental change in how a business can build its technical infrastructure, we realized there was an opportunity to create something new — Gesso, our development accelerator. 

Gesso was conceptualized three to four years ago and required a lot of work and research to create what we now use as our frontend decoupled accelerator. Gesso brings development projects to launch faster with cleaner code and a superior user experience for frontend or backend users of commerce websites.

At the same time as we were fine-tuning our development skills, we also continued to hone in an ideal client profile — our target market today is mid-tier B2B manufacturers who need to transform their businesses to meet the demands of their clients.

The right influences at the right time 

Growing a company means constantly educating ourselves. You are never too old to learn a new and better way to improve your services. Over the years, we have brought in many experts to help us along the way.

• Sandler — Sales training from the best in the world changed the foundations of how we sell and serve our clients
• Gartner — Experts analysis improved our business acumen and gave us insight into our vision.

Speaking of our vision, we have a very simple idea that drives us every day:

Reduce time-to-market, complexity & costs for manufacturers looking to sell online or digitize sales workflows.

Growth, Growth, Hiccup, Growth, Growth

Starting from our very first year, Acro experienced healthy growth. As a company, we worked hard, played hard and held ourselves accountable. Those principles bore fruit in solid growth numbers year after year. (Except during the Global Financial Crisis of 2007/2008. We persevered and came out the other side nonetheless.)

• 1998 - 2003 - 135% growth
• 2003 - 2008 - 333% growth
• 2008 - 2013 -  (12%) growth 
• 2013 - 2018 - 154% growth
• 2018 - 2023 - 86% growth

This kind of growth doesn't happen without a hardworking, dedicated team of people who want to succeed.

We are people, so we put our people first

We couldn't have made it through the past 25 years without our outstanding and talented employees. In fact, since 1998, 239 employees and 40 contractors have graced us with their dedication to excellence, including:

• Six employees with over ten years of tenure
• Fifteen employees with more than five years of tenure

In 2016, we hired our first fully remote employee, and since then, our remote-first policy has expanded so that our teams can work how it suits them best.

Our current workforce distribution:

• Fully remote in Canada — 48.8%
• Hybrid (in-office & remote in Canada) — 25.6%
• Fully in-office — 9.4%
• Contractors from around the globe — 15.2%

Our dedication to giving our people what they need to grow and succeed pays off. This is why we have evolved into a remote-first workplace, allowing our employees to work in a way that works for them. But it isn't just about the work; it's also about how we treat each other.

Company Culture & Core Values

We have seven core values baked into our DNA. These aren't just nice-sounding words that we think we should have. They define who we strive to be every day. From the top down, our core values represent who we are, and we align as one on these intrinsic values:

• Empowerment — We enable others to come up with the answers on their own.
• Responsibility — We are serious about setting and meeting expectations; be upfront with a solution should the unexpected happen.
• Competition — Be best-in-class in everything we do. We thrive on competition. We don't always win, but we always try our best.
• Flexibility — Value work-life balance. A healthy, rested mind influences productivity.
• Curiosity — Investigate the unknown. Seek the truth by asking great questions.
• Relationships — Be self-aware. Approach others in a nurturing and empathetic way.
• Contribution — Act on facts, not fiction. Even if you go with your gut, you need evidence to back it up.

These core values influence everything we do at Acro and will serve us well as we embrace change and move into the future.

Looking to the future: Acro Commerce

Twenty-five years have flown by, and we couldn't be more excited about the road ahead and what it has in store. 

Stay tuned in the coming weeks to hear more about our plans for the future.