A few years ago, it was a dream, an Alpine vision born on the ski slopes of Mayrhofen, Austria:
One day, when key roles were filled, and Anchor had moved from promise to proof, we’d gather high in the mountains, away from our day-to-day routines, and make the shift from employees of the same company to members of a single winning team.
This past week, in a small town nestled in the snow-capped Alps, that vision became a reality.
With ski gear in hand and a shared curiosity about the people many of us had known mostly as Slack profiles, Anchor employees from around the world braved winter weather and a long list of logistics to meet in Austria’s Ziller Valley.
The end result? A week of bonding and team-building that clarified who “we” really are, and how our work can best serve the people behind the businesses that rely on us every day.
Warm light, frozen windows, and an immediate connection
A full day of travel by taxi, plane, train, and bus laid the foundation for the off-site vision. Suddenly, just like that, we were all together in one place. But it was truly just the beginning.
With dozens of travel-weary colleagues from across time zones finally assembled, the first move was simple: sit down together for a shared meal at the restaurant of a nearby lodge.
Outside, snow and frost worked their way across the windows, while inside, mellow light and the warm glow of wine filled the room. Voices that didn’t quite match the versions people had grown used to through laptop speakers rose as the week began to take shape.
It started with the usual hesitant small talk and the search for a place to sit. Names were repeated more than once. But at some point, those repetitions gave way to a quieter recognition: the person from the weekly Zoom standup was now sitting across the table, and someone we’d only seen with a blurred background was now adjusting a chair or passing a plate.
Simple phrases did most of the work. “It’s great to finally meet you.” “So you’re the one behind that new feature.”
A few short remarks punctuated the moment as Anchor Co-founder Omry Man raised a glass.
“We’re so glad you’re here, and to be here with you,” he said. “Over the coming days, I have no doubt this amazing group of people will come together as one.”
Dinner stretched on. Plates cleared, chairs shifted, and conversations hopped from table to table. By the time people stood up, the room already felt different from the way it had an hour earlier.
The work between the runs
Anchor is an end-to-end billing and payments platform trusted by thousands of accountants, bookkeepers, tax professionals, and other firms that want billing to run without the back-and-forth.
On paper, Anchor simplifies and automates proposals, engagement letters, agreements, invoices, and payments, all within a single connected flow.
In practice, we remove the friction between doing the work and getting paid, so firms can focus on what they actually care about.
As we closed out 2025, there was a real sense that something had settled into place. The platform and its underlying technology had matured rapidly. Customer use cases were addressing real pain points, and with new additions throughout the year, our internal team felt more complete than ever.
It was the first moment when bringing our growing group out of its usual context for a full week of team-building felt both possible and justified.
Fast-forward to January 2026 in Mayrhofen, and it was clear our instincts had been right.
On the first morning of our first full day together, we gathered in a modest room in the town’s community center. Anchor Co-founder Rom Lakritz addressed the rows of us, discussing the original idea that brought us here, the momentum we had entering the new year, and the key levers we could pull to move forward together.
Team by team, people stood up and explained what they do. Marketing, sales, product, the various engineering groups, HR, operations, and the roles that span disciplines.
Much of the information was familiar in outline, but less so in texture: what a normal day looks like, what keeps a person awake, what they measure themselves against.
Slides included graphs and metrics from 2025, showing strong growth and a product that had begun to gain traction in the market. But the discussions that followed kept drifting back to the people behind those metrics: the firm owners, partners, and teams trying to keep their practices running while also finding space for change.
“We’re a technology company,” Rom said at one point, “but if what we build doesn’t actually make life easier for the people running these firms, we’ve missed the point.”
Later, we broke into small groups with a competitive goal of explaining Anchor clearly enough for a five-year-old to understand. Stripped of jargon and full of funny moments, the explanations kept landing in the same place: we share a clear purpose. Now we needed to execute against it.
This first day mattered for many reasons, but it ultimately led to more shared language, greater awareness of what other teams carry, and a common understanding that we are all, in different ways, working on the same problem.
Answering the mountains’ call
With our enablement session finished and our bearings more intact, the following day saw snow-capped peaks above the valley become the trip’s main setting.
Each team member received a pass for the Zillertal ski area, and over the next few days, lifts and runs replaced meeting rooms as the primary backdrop for conversation.
Groups formed, dissolved, and re-formed on the slopes.
Some people moved comfortably on skis and snowboards and sought steeper terrain. Others were learning for the first time, listening carefully to instructors, getting used to the unfamiliar feeling of sliding on snow, and laughing as the inevitable tumble caught beginners and veterans alike.
But it was about more than the slopes. It was about trust, showing up in quiet ways, over three days across different parts of the mountain.
Lift rides and short lines turned into impromptu working sessions.
Not the kind with agendas, but the kind where someone finally has the time to explain the backstory behind a decision, or to listen properly to why another team operates the way it does.
By the end of each day, “Oh, now I see why you do it that way” had become an increasingly common refrain, and with it came something harder to name: more patience, more trust, and a little more instinct to assume good intent before jumping to conclusions.
Après, accents, and a shared view
The Alpine approach to après-ski (after-ski) was new to many of us.
Music, food, and drinks gathered around the exits of the lifts, at hours that confused anyone still on their home time zone.
For some, the initial reaction was simple surprise.
“You mean they do this… and then keep skiing?”
But the novelty faded fast, replaced by something more familiar and more important: unplanned time together. Crowded tables, faces flushed red from the cold, and stories traded back and forth while boots dried and gloves steamed.
And when each day was done, and folks came down from the mountain, the camaraderie didn’t end. It just changed shape.
That could mean needed R&R after hours on the slopes, a warm drink, a quick shower, and someone saying, “Just for one,” before the night took on a life of its own.
From there, it was an easy slide into the louder version of the same thing. A late dinner, then a packed dance floor. A crowded discotheque where the DJ seemed determined to keep us in the early 2000s, one hit at a time.
People who mostly traded messages in threads were suddenly laughing in the same circle, dancing like nobody was taking notes, and staying out longer than planned because the next song was too familiar to skip.
In a foreign place, shared experiences accumulate quickly. Ordering in broken German. Learning the quirks of the local bars. Getting turned around on the way home and fixing it together. Small, repeated moments that made everyone feel less like a set of separate offices and more like one group moving through the week side by side.
By the middle of the trip, it was clear that the mountain provided the setting, and the in-between gatherings provided the glue. From the first lift ride to the last chorus of the night, the distance between “coworkers” and “people you trust” continued to narrow noticeably.
Night runs and small lodges
If carving through some of the most picturesque winter scenery by day was thrilling enough, the second-to-last night of the trip raised the bar.
Under the dark sky, our group set off for a nighttime toboggan run, lining up around forty sleds on a track cut into the side of the mountain.
In the valley below, the villages looked like small clusters of light. The air was cold enough to keep everyone awake. Sleds scraped over packed snow with a low rasp, interrupted now and then by laughter, a shout, or the soft impact of someone discovering a snow bank and the limits of their steering.
The route had built-in pauses. At certain points, the group stopped at small lodges along the way, stepping from the dark into warm, crowded rooms for a quick reset before heading back out. People leaned against wooden walls, caught their breath, compared near-misses, and then returned to the track, lit just enough to see the next turn.
The run itself didn’t need much explanation. Everyone was moving along the same path at different speeds, figuring it out as they went.
While this part of the trip wasn’t meant to be a metaphor for our dynamic in the workplace, the resemblance was hard to miss.
The invisible work
From the outside, the week ran smoothly.
Flights landed close to schedule.
Buses arrived when needed.
Rooms, meals, lift passes, and rental equipment were where they were supposed to be.
But that ease was built in the months before anyone stepped on a plane.
Multiple flights from different cities had to line up.
Hotel rooms were reserved, adjusted, and rechecked.
Dietary needs were noted and accounted for.
A winter storm in the U.S. was watched closely.
Transport from Munich to Mayrhofen was arranged and confirmed.
Skis, snowboards, boots, helmets, and goggles were sorted for nearly fifty people.
Anchor’s Employee Experience Manager, Bar Koren, and HR Manager, Noa Raymond, sat at the center of that web, as did Tomer Svirsky, who took on an unofficial yet critical role as part outfitter, part ski instructor, and who was instrumental in getting everyone from place to place and walking teammates through unfamiliar gear and lifts. All three were the glue behind the scenes, quietly managing the many logistics involved in a trip of this size and scale.
Most of this work is designed to be invisible.
It only becomes noticeable when something goes wrong.
The fact that very little did is its own kind of proof.
One team, clearer now
The physical distance between employees didn’t shrink on a map during this trip, but it changed in other ways.
People went home with more than a job title and a timezone attached to each colleague. There are now specific stories behind many of the names: a conversation on a lift, a shared fall on a beginner run, a late-night talk about something that had nothing to do with work at all.
Those details are small, but they matter. They shape how a message is read, how feedback is provided, how quickly someone offers help, and how easily teams navigate inevitable disagreements.
It’s hard to measure precisely, but the outcomes are simple to understand: clearer communication, more direct conversations that still land with care, smoother coordination across time zones, and a stronger sense that we’re working toward the same goals, not parallel ones.
Looking out across the mountains as the trip came to a close, it was clear that building a product is only part of the responsibility. Building a place where people can do meaningful work together, across distance and difference, carries its own weight.
What stayed with us
A week like this doesn’t rewrite a company’s story, but it does underscore certain lines in it.
One of those lines came into focus again and again throughout the trip:
At Anchor, people come first. The firm owners, CPAs, and professionals who rely on our platform, as well as the internal teams building it, are the priority. The technology exists to make their work and their lives meaningfully better.
The snow will melt.
The bruises and sore muscles will ease.
The photos and short clips will continue circulating in chats, appearing when someone needs a reminder of what it looked like to have everyone in one place, moving together, for a moment.
Want to learn more about what it’s like to work at Anchor? Explore our team and what we do, or browse our open roles here.
