Celebrating Ten Years of Whitespectre
Our first decade has gone by in a flash, filled with client successes, company growth, and major changes in both the technology we build and the world around us. To celebrate, we’re taking a look back at Whitespectre’s history, covering our origin, the projects we’ve been a part of, and the industry trends that shaped the journey.
2013 - 2014: Hello World
Our journey began in 2013, at the height of the smartphone app boom. At the time, U.S. companies were busy figuring out how to best use native apps and mobile strategies to grow their business. We began working with our first client partner, a large e-commerce player, to launch and scale their mobile shopping and payments app. This helped them dramatically grow sales through the new channel, marking our first major client success story.
The core of our approach remains the same as it was then – helping our partners achieve major results through close collaboration and the combined tech and product expertise of our fast-moving delivery teams.
Recognizing that talent is everywhere, we were 'remote-first' from the start and focused on building robust communication and delivery processes within a strong culture of excellence. In our early days, the largest cluster of our team was based in and around Barcelona, Spain. This made the city a natural spot to host our first company meetup in 2014, a position it's held ever since.
2013 to 2014 — Hello World
The core of our approach remains the same as it was then – helping our partners achieve major results through close collaboration and the combined tech and product expertise of our fast-moving delivery teams.
Recognizing that talent is everywhere, we were 'remote-first' from the start and focused on building robust communication and delivery processes within a strong culture of excellence. In our early days, the largest cluster of our team was based in and around Barcelona, Spain. This made the city a natural spot to host our first company meetup in 2014, a position it's held ever since.
2015 - 2016: Expanding a Solid Client Base
Over the next couple of years, we further cemented our position as a delivery-focused tech and product development partner. We had a cozy office in Barcelona, but the majority of our team was remote, just like today.
Around this time, the tech market was going through a noticeable uptick in subscription services, and wearable tech was also picking up speed rapidly. Our project portfolio was firmly rooted in the lifestyle, fitness and wellbeing space, with Stella & Dot and Beachbody headlining our client list. These were soon joined by The Purple Carrot, one of the pioneers of the meal kit subscription business, as well as FastHabit, an internally incubated project that also marked the inception of Whitespectre Labs, our experimentation and knowledge sharing initiative.
The first ever Whitespectre t-shirt was designed in 2016. Since then, the shirt has grown into an institution within the company, with each new design reflecting our highlights and development stages over the years. Check out the history of our t-shirts here!
2015 - 2016: Expanding a Solid Client Base
Over the next couple of years, we further cemented our position as a delivery-focused tech and product development partner. We had a cozy office in Barcelona, but the majority of our team was remote, just like today.
Around this time, the tech market was going through a noticeable uptick in subscription services, and wearable tech was also picking up speed rapidly. Our project portfolio was firmly rooted in the lifestyle, fitness and wellbeing space, with Stella & Dot and Beachbody headlining our client list. These were soon joined by The Purple Carrot, one of the pioneers of the meal kit subscription business, as well as FastHabit, an internally incubated project that also marked the inception of Whitespectre Labs, our experimentation and knowledge sharing initiative.
The first ever Whitespectre t-shirt was designed in 2016. Since then, the shirt has grown into an institution within the company, with each new design reflecting our highlights and development stages over the years. Check out the history of our t-shirts here!
2017 - 2019: It's All About Data
By 2017, sophisticated recommendation and personalization algorithms had become a big deal for consumer-facing businesses, and streaming technologies were starting to gain enough traction to enable new revenue models in fitness and education. These shifts were also reflected in the work we did toward the end of the decade: In the retail and e-commerce space, we developed consumer apps together with Beautycounter and Merryfield, and built the necessary integrations to help Beachbody harness streaming services to drive user engagement.
Driven by increasingly high-performing data science and analytics solutions, the tech market saw major growth in cloud and data services, which we were actively using across all of our projects. Within the wearable devices domain, the Apple Watch gained popularity, and as a result, we also got to explore the possibilities of HealthKit in our projects.
2017 - 2019: It's All About Data
By 2017, sophisticated recommendation and personalization algorithms had become a big deal for consumer-facing businesses, and streaming technologies were starting to gain enough traction to enable new revenue models in fitness and education. These shifts were also reflected in the work we did toward the end of the decade: In the retail and e-commerce space, we developed consumer apps together with Beautycounter and Merryfield, and built the necessary integrations to help Beachbody harness streaming services to drive user engagement.
Driven by increasingly high-performing data science and analytics solutions, the tech market saw major growth in cloud and data services, which we were actively using across all of our projects. Within the wearable devices domain, the Apple Watch gained popularity, and as a result, we also got to explore the possibilities of HealthKit in our projects.
2020 - 2021: At Home with Remote Work
When the whole world was forced to pivot into remote work, we saw our own ways of working quickly become global best practices. To us, this was a valuable confirmation that we had been doing remote right all along, and it gave us a huge competitive edge as we didn’t need an adjustment period. Instead, we could focus on building on top of what we already had, improving our tooling for example by developing and implementing Slack bots to support remote business.
Around this time, we began working on new IoT-enabled applications in both healthcare and consumer tech. The scaling work we did for The Purple Carrot ahead of time helped them thrive during the pandemic, and the telehealth features we built for Milo also helped drive demand during these unprecedented times.
As remote work became the norm and collaborative tools hit it big, we made the choice to wind down our Barcelona office presence in early 2020.
2020 - 2021: At Home with Remote Work
When the whole world was forced to pivot into remote work, we saw our own ways of working quickly become global best practices. To us, this was a valuable confirmation that we had been doing remote right all along, and it gave us a huge competitive edge as we didn’t need an adjustment period. Instead, we could focus on building on top of what we already had, improving our tooling for example by developing and implementing Slack bots to support remote business.
Around this time, we began working on new IoT-enabled applications in both healthcare and consumer tech. The scaling work we did for The Purple Carrot ahead of time helped them thrive during the pandemic, and the telehealth features we built for Milo also helped drive demand during these unprecedented times.
As remote work became the norm and collaborative tools hit it big, we made the choice to wind down our Barcelona office presence in early 2020.
2022 - 2023: A New Chapter of Growth
The past two years at Whitespectre have been a period of growth particularly in terms of structures, processes and practices. One major piece in this puzzle has been having our COO Rowan Griffin join us. With his support, we’ve been able to put even more emphasis on strengthening and amplifying our culture, and helping our people grow and learn.
In this era of large language models and generative AI, it’s hardly a surprise that many of our own initiatives have also focused on harnessing these technologies – for example, rapidly drafting release notes based on a project’s Jira cards. We’ve also successfully implemented third-party AI-enabled tools that enable our teams to turn Figma designs into finished web pages with less developer involvement.
Some of our recent client projects have included SpotOn’s award-winning connected dog collar with virtual fencing technology, helping The Purple Carrot launch a new mobile app, as well as supporting activewear brand Fabletics in speeding up content management and improving marketing efficiency with a headless CMS.
2022 - 2023: A New Chapter of Growth
The past two years at Whitespectre have been a period of growth particularly in terms of structures, processes and practices. One major piece in this puzzle has been having our COO Rowan Griffin join us. With his support, we’ve been able to put even more emphasis on strengthening and amplifying our culture, and helping our people grow and learn.
In this era of large language models and generative AI, it’s hardly a surprise that many of our own initiatives have also focused on harnessing these technologies – for example, rapidly drafting release notes based on a project’s Jira cards. We’ve also successfully implemented third-party AI-enabled tools that enable our teams to turn Figma designs into finished web pages with less developer involvement.
Some of our recent client projects have included SpotOn’s award-winning connected dog collar with virtual fencing technology, helping The Purple Carrot launch a new mobile app, as well as supporting activewear brand Fabletics in speeding up content management and improving marketing efficiency with a headless CMS.
In Conclusion
This look back has been our way to celebrate both the entire Whitespectre team and the work we’ve done with our clients. In ten years, there’s one thing we’re most proud of – that as our company, team, and expertise have grown, our focus hasn’t wavered. We’re still committed to building committed partnerships and making an impact with our work.
Conscientious and sustainable growth has always been one of our guiding principles, and we are dedicated to fostering it also in the future. We’ve always been driven by doing the right thing, and going forward, we will certainly want to focus on projects that are good for the world around us.
A lot has happened since it all began – but if you ask us, we’re only getting started. There’s a world full of possibilities out there, and we’re excited to see what the future holds for us.
