10 YEARS WITH SHIFT

Looking back on the past 10 years as a company, there’s a phrase we’ve adopted that still rings true — at Shift, we redefine what’s possible. True to our mission statement, Shift helps fearless companies bring disruptive ideas to life by combining creativity and technology with the belief that “impossible” doesn't mean something can’t be done — it just hasn’t been done yet.

From shooting weather balloons to the edge of space, just to see if we can, to redesigning the way Fortune 500 companies do business, we have adapted, iterated and disrupted. And we’ve been an essential piece of the Anthologic puzzle because of it.

So what do you say we take a look at the past ten years, eh?

THE ROOTS

As any good Anthologic story starts, Kevin Lentz made a slightly reaching promise to a client and we figured out a way to deliver. Pretty soon we were working with a partner to start developing websites, eventually determining we couldn’t do this by acquisition and needed to bootstrap it.

Performance Marketing was known in Minneapolis but not in Des Moines, and we needed a more local presence. So, we hired our first employees, and Shift was formed. The space on the 5th floor of 42nd Street was tight, leaving the Shifters to bounce around quite a bit, living in a conference room for a time, and eventually getting large enough that Anthologic acquired the full 5th floor.

We adapted, iterated and disrupted as we determined our processes, clients and what made Shift, Shift.

IF YOU KNOW US, YOU KNOW

In addition to making cool sh!t, we like to have a good time. Winetime Friday, a coveted Antho event, originally started in tiny office by doing just as the name says, drinking wine on a Friday. Then eventually getting our other Antho pals to join in (doesn’t take much convincing when you’re pouring the drinks). This has since turned into a once a year event where we battle it out to determine who brought the best bottle of wine. We even developed an app to work alongside it, tallying scores and adapting the app for our friends at Winefest.

From intensely competitive Fantasy Football, interesting outfit choices at holiday parties, road trips to Iowa football games, and Eric trying his best to wake us up with jokes on Monday morning status, it’s safe to say we’ve formed some lifelong friendships with the rockstars we get to work with every day.

Our environment has adapted, iterated and disrupted, and our culture has too. We were the first Anthologic company to adopt a remote workforce, changing the mindset of the organization.

SHIFT 2.0

Kevin said it best: “I can’t imagine any of our other companies (both past and present) could morph like Shift has. They completely reinvented themselves.” Long gone are the days of building landing pages and marketing sites. Over the past few years, we’ve transitioned fully to building custom software solutions. It’s brought its own opportunities and challenges, but we’ve adapted, iterated and disrupted the way we’ve previously worked. We couldn’t have done it without our many great client partners and kick-ass team.

From all of us at Shift, thank you for your partnership and belief in us for the past ten years. We look forward to the next ten, continuing to redefine what’s possible and having some fun while doing it.