2022 at Carted: Successes, Stumbling Blocks, and Next Steps

It was only yesterday that I said to a colleague that I don’t love this time of year. Why? I’m a founder, and I always want to go-go-go.

I love what I do, I love my team, and I don’t want to stop. But, I know it’s essential. And when the year comes to an end, it’s the opportunity to pause and reflect on what we have accomplished as a team over the last twelve months.

It’s never easy being a startup, but that’s why I love it. I feel that I am made for the chaos, and the ones that join a startup are made for it too.

In 2021, I wrote about building out the team. And in 2022, it was a year of growth and learning as we built an incredible product and launched it to the world — Carted Elements.

Like all startups, there are bumps, twists and turns along the way, but the one thing I have realised is the resilience of the team.

This year I am so proud of the work we have done to really understand our customers’ needs and solve very complex technical challenges. It took a few iterations to get there — but we got there!

We kicked off this year by bringing everyone together at our first company offsite in Sydney and made big plans for the product, had some incredible new Carters join us on the team, launched our multi-merchant checkout product, hosted community events and meetups at our office (Carted House), travelled across the world to the UK, USA and met in Thailand for major product planning sessions, had thousands of video calls, huddles, and slack messages sent to keep communication flowing. We overcame technical and team challenges and made it to the end of 2022 with a bang!

There were many other highlights from the year, and I wanted you to hear them from the team:

“Meeting everyone IRL during our Sydney offsite was definitely a stand-out moment for me. We were able to make deep connections with each other and truly come together as one team, setting us up well for the exciting journey ahead!” — Kara

“One of the most satisfying moments in the year was becoming PCI DSS compliant. This was an enormous task for the team — extra huge shoutout to Shane and Calum for their work. This will have an incredible impact on our product and business. Wins all round!” — Gaby

“There were so many key moments at Carted this year, from speaking to hundreds of businesses who want to embed commerce into their platforms, to going live and placing our first real order. But my favourite has to be seeing our first contract signed shortly after go-live!” — Kimia

“Working alongside our product designer and the team of engineers to bring the first iteration of Carted’s vision to life was definitely my highlight this year. It was rewarding to hear the first feedback from customers seeing real-life demos and imagining the opportunities for their own product.” — Adriano

“One of the stand-out moments was bringing all of the Aussie-based carters together for Blackbird’s Sunrise conference: we had heaps of fun, saw some really inspiring keynotes, and this was in the lead-up to our first successful product launch! Needless to say, the energy was electric” — Che

To every single Carter — Thank you for sticking with me through the ups and downs of this wild and exciting journey. I couldn’t do this without you!

Thank you to our investors and advisors for your support.

We have big plans for 2023, and I can’t wait to show everyone what’s to come!

Enabling contextual commerce means having support in our checkout for the products shoppers love. We’ll be doubling down on merchant coverage and prioritising support for the merchants our customers share the most.

We’ll open up our Carted API so developers can mix, match, and entirely reinvent what shopping means inside their apps. We can’t wait to see all of the creative experiences that our technology unlocks and to watch our API bring contextual commerce to more shoppers.

Our vision is a global one, and we’ve been lucky to hear from customers around the globe that are excited to work with Carted. In 2023, we’ll be taking steps to move beyond the USA and make Carted available in more regions — stay tuned!

There is huge opportunity — and challenges — when you’re building something with so many different use cases. I always joke that we are building five companies in one, but it is true.

I wish you all the best for the holiday season. Enjoy the time with family and friends. This is also a reminder to my fellow founder friends who are reading this… stop, take a break. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. See you in the new year. ✨

Read about Carted’s vision here. Follow our updates on LinkedIn and Twitter.