BaseKit 2024 year-in-review

As we continue on our mission for tech democracy for small businesses worldwide, through our six core company values, we look back, with CEO Simon Best, on another year of growth and change at BaseKit.

Thrive on change

This year we’ve seen more sectors showing interest in digital products for small businesses, and realising the value in partnering with white-label vendors to enhance their core offerings. 

At the start of 2024 we set out to bring the true value of our BaseKit partnership to life in a more meaningful and engaging way. We wanted businesses to better understand not just how websites, e-commerce, and bookings can benefit their customers and enhance their product offerings, but how valuable and effective the support and partnership is that surrounds it.

“This year has highlighted that a successful white-label B2B vendor like BaseKit not only needs to offer a great product but outstanding service. A platform with robust privacy and security, professional project and account management, technical, operational and customer support, together with product training and marketing is what businesses need. Getting this combination right is hugely important to the success of our partnerships and is something we are proud to be able to deliver at BaseKit.” said Simon.

2024 has been a pivotal year for cementing our credibility in new areas of growth for the company. 

In particular our BaseKit API has become popular among SaaS companies who now use our software for a variety of use cases. As a result, we’ve seen our software help increase user engagement and encourage customer loyalty for our partners, as well as serve as an upsell opportunity for premium features, to help boost overall company revenue.

Last year, for banks, we saw a strong synergy between giving small business customers the ability to sell, as well as bank and transact. This year, we’re thrilled to say the concept of banks becoming a one-stop shop for small businesses became a reality with signed BaseKit partnerships with major global banking and finance brands. 

Simon said, “Signing big partnership deals with major brands in new sectors was a fantastic feeling and highlights the amazing product and team that we have at BaseKit. Our continued focus on small and micro businesses and our simple, mobile-first products are helping to drive interest in these new sectors and attract new partners.”

Whilst gaining traction in new sectors, the BaseKit platform has maintained its competitive edge as a valuable asset for traditional hosting groups and telcos too. 

As hosts diversify and consolidate to maintain market share, the scalability of the BaseKit platform, simplicity of our software and easy integration options, have led to partnerships with several new larger hosting groups. We were also delighted to share the impact of our partnership with SLT Mobitel in their transformation from telco to techco, after launching with BaseKit in just 5 weeks early in the year.

Indispensable partnership

The team behind BaseKit work hard to provide indispensable partnerships for our partners around the world. This year we’ve looked for ways to forge even closer relationships through a more data-focused lens. We’ve invested in a new data platform to help us improve this further in 2024 and beyond to provide more data-driven strategic support for partners old and new.

“It’s important for BaseKit to be as data-driven as we can be both internally as a business and, in particular for our partners. I’m pleased to see the team working even more closely with partners using product data to give them greater visibility of what is working for their customers.” said Simon.

Customer first

In March we unveiled our 2024 product roadmap. Our commitment to empowering small businesses and enhancing the user experience received the best feedback yet from partners at CloudFest, and has driven a series of impactful updates to the BaseKit platform this year.

Designed to deliver on enhancing authenticity with AI, design excellence and creating confidence with first impressions, the roadmap set out to address the increasing demand from small businesses to seek out time back for their business by finding digital tools that are effortless to use in conjunction with other tools they use to run their business. 

We’re currently excited to be finalising our 2025 product roadmap which will be released in March next year.

Simon said, “We have more AI features coming soon, in particular our new onboarding which takes a hybrid approach with carefully curated, AI-generated imagery and dynamic AI content generation sprinkled on top, in order to automatically create attractive and effective websites and stores for customers. We’re also making significant steps to enhance our e-commerce feature set to align with the growing demand we’re seeing from banks and payment providers.”

People before pixels

At BaseKit there’s a strong team behind the platform and service we provide and we’re really proud of our company culture. It’s important for us to create an environment where our team feels like they can bring the best version of themselves to work each day. 

In time for Mental Health Awareness week 2024, we’re proud to have launched our very own ‘BaseKit Mental Health Promise’.

This year, we also brought back The BaseKit Summer Olympics, a competitive sports event that saw the team take on various sports activities and races from volleyball to riding inflatable unicorns on the Durdham Downs in Bristol. For the first time, we also ran an All-hands treasure hunt which saw teams get outside for a morning in Bristol city centre to solve clues around B Corp, BaseKit Software, BaseKit partners and much more.

 “In 2024, for me,  two stand out moments that really demonstrated the power of our values and culture were our Basekit summer olympics and all hands treasure hunt. The team really came together in true BaseKit spirit and it was a pleasure to be a part of those events.” Simon said.

Force for good

In May we celebrated one year of B Corp, and as we continue to drive our purposeful agenda, this year has seen BaseKit collaborate with a number of new organisations to use our software as a force for good.

In June we partnered with Groundbreaker Talents, to support women in financially constrained communities in Africa with the opportunity to start a career in tech.

BaseKit gifted lifetime subscriptions to our website, e-commerce, and bookings software for every woman participating in the Groundbreaker Talents program. This allows them to utilise our software to learn how to create a stunning website during their program and later showcase an online portfolio of their skills to kickstart a successful career in the tech industry.

We were delighted to hear from Groundbreakter Talents recently, who were super excited to share that 100% of the graduates in cohort one found a job in Uganda within just a few weeks after their graduation in June.

BaseKit was also delighted to become Pride 365 Certified this year. A year-round commitment to organic and real improvement when it comes to inclusion.

Our partnership with Pride365 is an extension of our commitment to our team, and the wider community, as we pledge to make inclusivity know no bounds, so that anyone has the best chance of showing up with their best self each day. 

In October the team also participated in a ‘Walk in my shoes’ initiative for our charity of the year, Caring in Bristol. Inspired by the charity’s mission – to create a city empowered to solve homelessness – our team walked the streets of Bristol with Caring in Bristol’s Storytelling Coordinator Alv Hirst to discuss, learn and break down misconceptions about the causes and situation of homelessness in our local Bristol community. 

Keep it simple, keep it smart

2025 will be a year of expansion for BaseKit. New demand for our white-label platform and the service surrounding it, has proven our offering to be highly valuable for businesses supporting entrepreneurs. We look forward to learning and growing from new partnerships to expand further as we evolve our platform to  align with the needs of partners and small businesses.

As our BaseKit platform continues to roll out via partnerships across the globe we’ll be building on the foundations we’ve established this year and empowering our customers to excel at what they do best.

We’re also excited to continue our force for good agenda via our commitment to B Corp. Watch this space for new initiatives planned to help drive our social and environmental impact into 2025 and beyond.