How was a year 2018 in Droptica?

The new year brings summaries and resolutions. It was a special time at Droptica. There has been a lot going on in the company and we are proud of what we did in 2018. We want to share it with you! :)

Five years of Droptica

In February, we celebrated the company's fifth anniversary. We had every reason to celebrate! 

Within 5 years, starting from a two-person project, Droptica has become a dynamically operating company and a well-known Drupal agency. In the period of the last year alone:

• We have expanded our team from 24 to 32 persons. 
  
   
• We have increased the company revenue by 65%.
  
   
• Our developers were granted 8 Acquia Certificates. Now we have nine certified developers in our team.
  
   
• We have worked for 3,850 man-hours per month on average for our clients. Phew!

Rebranding

The website design, unchanged from the beginning of the company's existence, was less and less suited to our needs and to what we offer our clients. "New year, new us", as the saying goes, so we have made a lot of changes. 

Our graphic designer, Piotr Miarka intensively worked on refreshing the look and illustrations for several weeks, and the developers have been laboriously modifying the website. At the beginning of the year, we have started to implement the changes on the website and social channels. Our actions were immediately noticed. We are pleased that most of you like the new corporate identity!

You can read here about what was our inspiration when refreshing the image.

Awards

2018 has brought us many reasons to be proud. The most pleasing were the awards based on independent opinions:

• The website rebranding got into the finals of the Dobry Wzór competition. For 25 years the competition is being organised by the Polish Institute of Industrial Design, and the products to participate are recommended by experts. 
• The Clutch.co website has honoured Droptica again. Our company was among the 500 best B2B service providers from Poland and Ukraine. It is actually a recommendation from our clients because the places on this list are granted based on the opinions of verified clients.

In the spirit of Open Source

We maintain regular contacts with the Open Source community and participate actively, organising training courses and making our projects available. We believe that Open Source software is the future of IT.

Conferences

We participate, sponsor and organise. Here is where you could find us:

• DrupalCamp London 2018 - for the first time we have sponsored a conference outside of Poland. DrupalCamp in London was an excellent choice! Maciej Łukiański on what has brought us to the capital of the United Kingdom: 
  
  We are absolutely certain that we are going to visit this year's edition of the event also.
• DMEXCO 2018 - we have visited the largest digital marketing fair in Europe. The annual event taking place in Cologne gathers such exhibitors as Google, Amazon, Deloitte or Oracle. It is a great place to make business contacts and gather knowledge on the latest trends in Internet marketing. 
• Drupal Europe - we could not miss the most important Drupal event on this side of the globe. We were happy to meet old friends and new people, and also to listen to a bit about the plans for the development of the system. 
  
  Due to the fact that DMEXCO 2018 and Drupal Europe were held at the same time, we had to distribute our time between the two events. There is no doubt, however, that the benefits of participating in the conferences outweighed the fatigue caused by the trip. 
• DrupalCamp Poland 2018 - this time Droptica was the host of the conference. During the period of two days, over 140 participants and speakers from eight countries took part in 23 lectures and workshops. We are very happy that the largest edition of this event – in terms of the number of participants and submitted lectures – turned out to be the best one so far. The surveys sent to the participants after the conference show that you were also satisfied. We have carefully noted all the comments and suggestions - this year it will be even better. For persons considering participating in the upcoming edition - a full summary of DrupalCamp Poland 2018 on the event's website. 
  
  Works on the DrupalCamp Poland 2019 edition has already begun. This year we are passing its organisation a new foundation dedicated to the promotion of the Drupal system. The next meeting is planned for 12 January 2019. We invite everyone who is willing to join the project. 
  

Drupal Marketing Poland Foundation

Drupal Marketing Poland Foundation has officially launched in August. Droptica has contributed to calling the Foundation into being and its registration. The organisation we have partnered with aims at promoting the Drupal system and Open Source software in Poland. Thanks to the support of sister units from all over Europe, we will be able to reach an even wider group of companies and institutions.

Drupal Day

In 2018 as many as four full-day training courses presenting the basics of the Drupal system took place. This year we have visited Rzeszów, Poznań, Wrocław and Gdańsk to carry out our training courses. We are pleased that some young developers liked Drupal so much that they decided to expand their knowledge within the ranks of Droptica.

We are currently preparing a new version of the http://www.drupalday.pl/ website where you can find information on the upcoming training courses. We are also refreshing the meetings' formula so that the ones held in 2019 would include Droopler.

Droopler

Droopler is a distribution based on Drupal 8. It was created by us and we develop it to quickly create modern and cheap websites.
During the year the installation package has been downloaded over 1650 times! Such great popularity of the project pleases us and motivates us to develop it further. If you have never heard about Droopler before, we encourage you to check the posts tagged as Droopler. Maciej Łukiański nicely explains the idea behind it in the video below: 

Lights, camera... Action!

The video above is not our only creation. Thanks to the courtesy of STAMTAD we have also created a very professional commercial. There is another video in the production, in which we are going to tell a bit more about the creation of TrainingRealm - a SAAS application that allows logging in and arranging individual workout programmes. 

What is next?

We do not rest on our laurels! Although the year has just begun, we are already filling in our schedule with valuable plans and initiatives. 

Development

We want to carry out more and more complex and ambitious projects to ensure the development of the company and the entire team. Thanks to continuous process optimisation and task automation, this year we have achieved more than ever before. We know that we can work even more intensively, and we are not going to slow down. 

We plan to expand the team further in 2019. If you want to carry out interesting projects with us and improve your skills, visit http://kariera.droptica.pl, where you can always find the current job offers. 

By taking part in projects and conferences, we will also actively participate in the development and popularisation of Open Source software. 

Competitions

We believe that distinctions and awards not only the crowning of the company's efforts but also help us build brand recognition. We plan to participate in at least four major competitions. Keep your fingers crossed! :) 

Meetings and training courses

Our plans include the organisation of several DrupalDay training courses and active participation in the organisation of DrupalCamp Wrocław through activities within the Drupal Marketing Poland Foundation. We will also stay close to our partners and clients. We will be present at DrupalCamp London and DrupalCon Amsterdam, among others. Do you want to talk to us? We are happy to arrange a meeting. Check, where you can find us.

Finally, we would like to wish all our readers a particularly successful year 2019. All the best!