BaseKit turns 16: Key milestones, lessons and aspirations

For over a decade, we have built up our expertise and delivered a world proven, scalable platform designed to meet the needs of small businesses. Throughout our journey, we have gained valuable insights and are thrilled with our progress to date.

Today, CEO Simon Best reflects on significant achievements, learnings, and ambitions for BaseKit as we celebrate our 16th anniversary.

“It’s been an incredible journey turning our vision into reality. Our goal has always been to develop great products that millions of people would use every day, and I am more proud than ever to witness this accomplishment 16 years later. Looking ahead, we are thrilled to continue building upon this vision.”

What key milestones have marked BaseKit’s 16th year?

Our partnerships continue to thrive with a diverse range of companies. A leading European hosting company will soon roll out BaseKit’s products across their various hosting brands. Sri Lanka Telecom successfully launched earlier this year, and we eagerly anticipate the upcoming launch of a leading telco in Pakistan.

Additionally, a leading POS company in the US is set to revolutionise their services by integrating websites into its restaurant booking SaaS solution. We are thrilled to collaborate with these dynamic organisations and look forward to the success that lies ahead.

We have also started to roll out various AI features across our products, empowering small businesses to craft unique product descriptions in BaseKit Store and produce compelling website content through text generation in BaseKit Site.

We have been largely underwhelmed by AI offerings from other players so we’ve taken a more cautious approach. We’re continuing to work on our product onboarding flow and using a mix of AI and curated content to provide what we believe will be the best experience for our customers.

Not only are we proud of how far our partners and product has come, after achieving B Corp certification last year, we are continuing to champion this across the business and ensure that social and environmental issues are considered with every decision we make.

We are launching a new initiative to help drive our mission for tech democracy. We will be working with purpose-driven partners and providing BaseKit’s tools to their communities. Stay tuned as more will be announced soon!

What three key lessons have you learned throughout your journey with BaseKit?

I’ve learnt so much over the past 16 years but firstly, building a strong, positive company culture is the backbone of a successful business. A mission-driven, supportive, and inclusive culture keeps the team motivated and aligned with the company’s goals and inspires our team to reach their full potential. We endeavour to provide an environment where creativity and collaboration thrive and where every individual’s contribution is valued and celebrated.

Secondly, I strongly believe that our partnerships thrive on collaboration across all areas of our business from project and account management, to marketing and support. When partners feel supported they are more likely to be successful and continue to grow year after year.

And finally, in the tech industry, while creativity and intuition play a crucial role, data must guide major decisions. Measuring everything and leaning into that data allows us to make informed decisions, reduce risks, and ultimately lead to the best outcomes.

What can we expect from BaseKit in its 17th year and beyond?

There is so much planned for the next 12 months but I am especially excited about launching our new onboarding flow later this year. Whilst leveraging AI tools behind the scenes, we can seamlessly curate images and content that will be dynamically pulled together to generate unique templates on-the-fly. We believe the results from this approach are significantly better than using 100% AI, which can give erroneous results. I can’t wait to shout about this when it’s ready!

From a sales and marketing perspective, we’re continuing to expand our reach into new sectors. This year, banks and payment providers are showing a strong interest in providing and empowering small business customers with the necessary tools to help them thrive online.

We have some huge and exciting new partnerships with major global brands lined up, and we can’t wait to share more details soon! More will be announced on these as soon as we get the green light to share them!

Happy Birthday BaseKit.