I was employee #20 at the first start-up and the first engineering lead. Over the course of two years, the team and the company exploded to close to 200 employees. This is when I discovered that growing rapidly teaches you one thing well: how communication continually finds new and interesting ways to break down. The core issue being the folks who’ve been around longer who also tend to have more responsibility. As far as they’re concerned, the ways they organically communicated before will remain as efficient and simple each time the group doubles in size.

They don’t. A growing group needs to continually invest in new ways to figure out what it is collectively thinking so anyone anywhere can answer the question: “What the hell is going on?”

That was Michael Lopp in “The Rands Test“. Communication is some non-trivial percentage of the success of any operation. When your job involves communicating on a day-to-day basis with multiple separate clients each with internal teams and expectations, it’s easy for things to get out of hand. We get along right now with Basecamp, Campfire, Skype, Gmail, bug trackers, version control, and face-to-face conversations, but it’s hardly a perfect solution. Each engagement brings its own challenges. Processes need to evolve continually. Managing the design and development of a brochure-ware site is a almost almost indistinguishable from that of a large web-based application—which itself is different in degree if not kind to designing and developing an iOS application and working as part of a larger team. Point being: invest in process and communication if you care at all about the quality of your product.

Let your designers obsess over typography, usability, and aesthetics; as the founder, your job is to step back and obsess over how your customers feel.

A few highlights:

Culture.

Matt Chambers officially joined the team June 1 of 2010. With his help, we’ve gone from static and simple CMS-driven websites to complex applications and iOS development. While we enjoy designing and building content-driven sites, crafting the UX for applications is an entirely different challenge—one which we enjoy immensely.

After two enjoyable years of working from home, we found a sweet space in Pittsburgh’s Strip District to call our own. It’s only been a few weeks, but it’s hard to imagine life without an office.

In March, we made our first trip to the place the industry gathers once a year to listen to speakers hang out and talk, SXSW. Good times. We’re looking forward to going back in 2012.

Writing.

Writing is part of our DNA. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that we’re ready and willing to comment on any topic. We’ve had a few posts receive some attention during this time. The top five according to page views in the last two years:

1. An iPhone + Google Voice Solution.
2. The Withering Away of Flash.
3. Big Cartel Review.
4. In Defense of Comments.
5. So You Want to Make T-Shirts.

Or maybe you want to read all 329.

We also had the privilege of publishing articles on two popular sites. First, Typekit. We’ve pointed every client we’ve worked with to the Typekit blog  as the ideal company blog. They’ve got a smart, friendly tone and have a wonderful mix of product news and educational resources. We were honored to contribute a Type Study about our United Pixelworkers design and programming decisions.

Second, A List Apart generously offered to publish an article I wrote on crafting proposals. We’re proud of our process and glad to have had the opportunity to share it with the ALA audience. And, hey, it even got a mention on The Big Web Show #53 from Zeldman himself.

Happy Clients.

We started with one client. Since then we’ve had a dozen-and-a-half, some of whom can be viewed on the home page and several more that will be live in the near future. And we treat ‘em each the same. Respect, firmness, integrity. That’s what brings the next customer in the door and lets us sleep peacefully at night. We know who we are, and so do our clients.

On the Side.

In and around client work, we managed to build a few things for ourselves and our friends.

United Pixelworkers. We’ve been floored by the community’s response to the pretend union we dreamed up. There’s a real desire for solidarity among those in the greater web industry. We see it in the conference attendance, the Twitter and blog discussions, the Dribbble camaraderie, and the local meetups. It’s been a blast providing regional shirts that allow our colleagues to represent their home base and enable some exceptionally talented guest designers to flex their creative muscles. We’ve got big plans for the future, and we know you’re going to like them.

We also released Traceable, an iPad app that simulates a light table, and Two Letters, a mobile web application for looking up two letter words for use in Scrabble or Words With Friends. Neither earned us any money, but both were well worth the time investment. In the case of Traceable, the experience we gained designing and building an iOS application led directly to client work which will be in the app store soon. That’s a powerful testament to the value of pursuing interesting side projects.

That’s it and that’s all.

Two years. Full Stop has been a thing for two years. It’s fun to say it out loud. Two years ago we took a gamble on building a company in our image: insolent, dedicated, ambitious. That we’re still here (and thriving) is a testament not to misplaced confidence but the value of fanatical devotion to good work and good relationships. We can’t wait to see what happens next.