Here at Piktochart, we recently celebrated a big milestone. Across the world, 7 million people have tried out Piktochart to design and create, inspire others, and tell their stories visually.
For a small startup with 55 team members, this was an exciting accomplishment. To us, this signified that we had made a popular global product by embracing a truly global team.
Doing things the unconventional way
It turns out that some of the things we see as strengths aren’t very common in the startup world. Our headquarters is on Penang Island in Southeast Asia, not in a traditional, well-known tech hub like Silicon Valley. We opted to forgo funding to continue bootstrapping a great product that people love. Our CEO Ai Ching Goh often talks about the value of the people on the team. From being deliberate about hiring to viewing each and every person like a family member, we do things differently here at Piktochart.
12 nationalities are represented on our 55-person team, and a whopping 15 languages are spoken in the Piktochart family. English however, is the language of choice within our workplace and our product.
Connecting with users across the globe
It’s this global mindset that got us thinking 18 months ago: How can we more intimately connect with Piktochart users around the globe? Inspired by brands like Hootsuite, Buffer, and Unsplash, we launched an event series to foster community with Piktochart users. We decided to call it PiktoTour.
In August 2015, our team hosted our very first PiktoTour event in Las Vegas, Nevada. Since then, we have held PiktoTours in 33 cities in 18 countries spanning 5 continents!
Tailoring formats to every community
PiktoTour formats have varied as we’ve learned more about the value provided to Piktochart community members. We’ve organized marketing panels, hosted fireside chats with tech leaders, led infographics workshops, and even met groups of community members for coffee at local cafes!
Shortly after launching PiktoTour, we decided to empower eager Piktochart users to host a PiktoTour in their communities. Over the last year, we have worked with six Piktochart community members, providing them with the resources and knowledge they need to host their own PiktoTours.
Calling on engaged students
Today, we are thrilled to announce a call for community-driven PiktoTour events in your neck of the woods. If you are a college or university student, passionate about Piktochart and visual storytelling, and would like to work with us to bring a PiktoTour to your campus, we’d love to hear from you. We even have a place on our website dedicated to everything you need to get started!
