Our Origin Story
After Jason left his sales job in 2018, Steamed Egg was born out of a love for virtual reality. Armed with just a VR headset, a passion for company culture (and steamed eggs of course) he began testing ideas for a VR team-building experience. Eighteen months and one hundred and fifty VR team events later, we were beginning to find our groove and ready to take over the UK team-building scene in 2020. Then the pandemic hit and it was time to adapt or die, so we had to take a leap and transform into a remote team building company.
By focusing on our company mission to “nurture unity between at work”, in two months, Jason and Eden had created an entirely new remote event offering; a game show called ‘Yolking From Home’. The event uses competitive games that encourage conversation and laughter between remote workers to help them feel like they are spending quality time together.
Our Customers & Work
Throughout the pandemic our customers have given us fantastic feedback about how ‘Yolking From Home’ has helped them:
- “We have a lot of new starters who are quiet on work calls and they got to come out of their shell. It was interactive, fun and a really good way for the whole team to get to know each other better.” – Dell
- “It’s like being back in the pub together after work. Everyone who took part had an absolutely great time. I think it really boosted morale” – Smart Pension
- “Not one of those cringey team events we have all attended in the past. Fun, fantastic hosting and a great idea to connect with your team.” – Salesforce
As the world started to re-open in summer 2021 and people returned partially to the office, we adapted the event to be used in hybrid-team setups. This allowed people to have a party in the office while those working at home could join in the social, regardless of where they are in the world.
Unlike other remote team building companies, all our breakout-rooms are fully hosted. This means our team has all the guests feeling included and they create a friendly atmosphere where people share stories and work together.
One way we go above and beyond is by using games that collect answers from guests before the event. We process hundreds of personal stories, pick the best ones and use them in the event to help guests get to know each other better.
To date, we have hosted over 10,000 happy guests remotely in 500+ teams that include from the worlds best places to work such as Salesforce, Spotify and Unilever who have all booked multiple times. Collectively our customers have given Steamed Egg a 4.9* Rating on Google reviews.
Our aim is to be radically transparent with our customers which we do by having pricing openly on our website and by creating content that helps them through their buying and planning process. This comes in the form of video guides, e-books and a dedicated operations contact who helps them plan their event with us. Combined with the quality of our events on the day, we believe this is one of the reasons companies keep coming back!
To help people who have suffered from isolation and mental health issues throughout the pandemic we have been giving 2.5% of our revenue to Mind, a mental health charity, and have raised over £6,000 for them so far.
The Proof is in the (Egg)Pudding
Our Future
- In 2022 we are developing two new remote team event products.
- In the near term, our focus is to double down on our success for 2021 by hiring a sales team of four people. They will develop existing accounts and open new relationships. By doing this we’ll be able to reach more customers and move into international markets including Western Europe, USA and India.
- Launching our paid and organic Google advertising campaign with a UK based agency we have hired. This will help us grow with an international audience who are increasingly looking for remote team activities.
- We will begin to create products that leverage code instead of people as their delivery mechanism. This will allow us to scale our impact further than we would with our hosted events. We plan to use AI and voice tools to make it feel as though events are hosted without a person being required which currently limits how many we can deliver.
- By the end of 2023, our aim is to offer a total of six remote, hybrid and in-person team event experiences that each brings people together across organisations.
- Our Netzero target date is June 30th 2022 across Scope 1 & 2 emissions and 2025 for scope 3.
Our Team
Since the pandemic, our team has gone 100% remote and most of our staff hadn’t even met in person for many months. We do more than just Zoom calls and emails; we’ve had meetings and socials in Virtual Reality and use coworking software to keep conversation fluid all day. When many of us met for the first time, not only did it feel like we had known each other for months but those that couldn’t physically be there we included via video call. We also have a bi-weekly Wellness Wednesday meeting, this is strictly a no work-talk meeting, where we check-in on how everyone is doing.
At present we have 17 hosts based in the UK, Ireland, Spain, India and Germany. Even though they are contractors they are the backbone of our company, we could not survive without them. In our summer host survey, one host mentioned “I think the company culture is one to be envied. You guys have really made a workplace that’s nice to be in.”
Transparency is not just key for our clients but for our staff as well. We share our cost breakdown with our hosts so they understand how much they are paid in relation to the customs fees. We update them on the company’s future plans and take onboard their constructive feedback to improve their working experience. We value baking the fun into our work and regularly run competitions for the hosts so they can win cash prizes for getting stellar guest feedback scores. All this has enabled us to retain a number of hosts for over two years and some have even become members of our full-time team.
