Ten years of getting better forever

Ten years ago this week, I was in West Simsbury, Connecticut. It had turned cold, suddenly. I had just gone ice skating for miles on frozen wetlands behind our house. My tracks were the only ones in the ice—the sort of experience that makes you want to do it again and again, because you know it's the last time.

On January 10, 2016, I wrote the first lines of code for what would become XBE. But the next day—January 11—I reached out to Milind Alvares to see if he wanted to work together. The company wouldn't be anything without software, but it wouldn't be XBE without Milind, still our Director of Product, and the team that followed him. So we celebrate January 11 as XBE's birthday.

I had decided that January 2016 was when I'd start my next company. After exploring ideas, dump truck logistics felt niche enough to find early success, but part of something big enough to lead somewhere. The urgency wasn't about the problem itself—any hard problem would do. It was timing and excitement: I wanted to build something new with the knowledge I'd accumulated, alongside someone I'd enjoyed working with for over a year.

But once we'd picked the hard problem, it became our hard problem.

In 2016, I wondered how mature the heavy materials, logistics and construction market would be in a decade. I assumed capabilities would catch up with possibilities, that the industry would consolidate around established approaches.

I was wrong. The market is less mature than ever.

Here's why: maturity is the ratio of capabilities to possibilities. AI has expanded possibilities faster than anyone can absorb them, which means the denominator is growing faster than the numerator. Everything is suddenly "not good enough" again. In immature markets, advantage shifts to integrated solutions—platforms that can absorb new possibilities faster than point solutions can. In the short term, winners use AI to compete on old dimensions of performance. In the long term, winners use AI to change the basis of competition entirely.

That's the work ahead of us.

Ten years in, I want to express gratitude in three directions.

To our customers: XBE exists to serve you. Thank you for trusting us with your operations, for gifting us an expanding set of challenges, and for being so optimistic about your future.

To our team: XBE is the work of its people. Thank you for your dedication, creativity, and grit—especially in the space between asking the right question and finding the right answer.

To our investors: Thank you for understanding that your success is downstream of our customers' success. That alignment has never wavered.

Our mission is quality: the degree to which a solution exceeds requirements. Striving for and celebrating quality gives work meaning. Things only get fun when you clear the bar of "good enough"—so why would we stop there?

Over the years, we learned that any question can be answered. The key is asking the right ones. That led us to places we didn't anticipate: problems that used to be separate becoming integrated, like unified scheduling across all resources. Problems that used to be kicked downstream being avoided entirely, like time card approval management. Things that used to be invisible becoming clear, like trucking surplus.

Each breakthrough came from refusing to accept the inherited shape of the problem.

Year eleven will be different. We are building capabilities that deliver meaningful benefit without any incremental effort on your part. Bit by bit, the platform is getting smarter and proactive. Embedded in ten years of data are the seeds of these innovations.

Throughout 2026, you'll feel the platform learning from every choice you've ever made. You'll spend more time focused on what went wrong because so much went right. You'll feel your organizations getting bigger and faster, while feeling more in control.

If you're impatient, good. So are we.

Before you know it, you'll feel it.

It's hard to remember now what it felt like to be alone on the ice leaving tracks by myself. Thankfully.

Happy 10th, XBE.

Sean Devine
Founder & CEO, XBE