When we hear about Strapi, we have many things to say about what the open-source product stands for and the community that contributes to it. But behind it, there is a multicultural organization filled with talented and kind people, all gathered around the same mission and vision. We have so many anecdotes to tell, the role each Strapier plays (this is how we affectionately call our teammates at Strapi that have completed the onboarding process), and what it is like to be part of building the rocket while flying it. Today, I am grateful for them, the Strapiers - who help Strapi be a better place to work every day. That is why we are thrilled to announce the new blog section: "Strapi Life Blog."

What drives us to share about the Strapi Life?

Strapi's story started in France as an open-source project with the three founders in 2015. Since then, Strapi has gone through three fundraisings. It went from being an office-based company to a worldwide remote-first organization. It started with three people who built Strapi as a side project, to a team of 60+ Strapiers located across seven countries.

This week, we released Strapi v4 stable, StrapiConf 2022 is coming, and this is just the beginning. The team thrives with an ambitious mindset; we are a growing company becoming more into a diverse group of people building the foundation of one of the best headless CMSs.

While this is happening in everyone's eyes, other achievements that may not be so evident are happening simultaneously, such as how we are evolving and maturing as an organization. Almost all the teams have at least duplicated the number of Strapiers, as is the case of User Success, Marketing, Engineering, People, and Product. We started 2021 with 25 Strapiers, and soon we will be 55 in total with over 13 nationalities. All these people are in different places worldwide: Zambia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Spain, Germany, France, La Réunion, and the United States. Evolving from an office-based to a remote-first organization opened the door to diversify the talent behind the product we build every day. This change has been an opportunity but as well as a big challenge.

At the same time, we launched programs, policies, and events that are becoming the core of the company culture at Strapi. Some of the major programs implemented this year were mental health for all through Moka Care, a learning and development policy, parental leave mission, global company training, career path, and management; the first Virtual Retreat, a new career page, the Strapi Handbook, and more.

We share our achievements as a team, learnings, as well as the unavoidable mistakes that are part of the journey. We are growing a diverse team representative of the users we serve. We are committed to building a safe workplace where everyone feels empowered to bring their authentic selves. It is a unique experience, bonding with your teammates remotely and at the same time aligning ourselves to the same mission that is to empower the community to build millions of tailor-made projects.

What can you expect from this blog?

The challenge behind building Strapi's company culture remotely gave us the retrospective of the value that lies in sharing all the learnings and challenges we have faced along this path. At the same time, sharing Strapier's perspectives about their role at Strapi, their strengths, experiences, and challenges they face day-to-day. This may be useful to other people building a company, deciding on a career path, or a potential candidate applying to Strapi (find the open positions in our career page).

As true believers of open-source, aligned to Strapi's value transparency, this is another step we are taking to make more accessible to the Strapi Community, Partners, other companies, and candidates on how we are building Strapi as a company. If you want to see a specific topic in the Strapi Life blog, feel free to leave your suggestion in the comments section.