Author: Dima Peteva

Building a strong team spirit and a genuine sense of belonging is never easy. When SiteGround first started, we were a small but ambitious team with a true startup mindset. But how do you preserve that same closeness when there are more than 550 experts, spread across different countries, teams, and generations? That challenge rests largely on the shoulders of our Events team – the people who craft experiences that bring our global community together.

Their work shines brightest during our Team Festivals – the moments when the entire SiteGround family comes together. Today, we’re taking you behind the scenes for an exclusive look at how it all comes together. Meet our Events Managers, who recently led our latest Team Retreat – a special event that unites 500+ SiteGrounders to share hobbies, learn new things, spark ideas, and truly connect.

From wild logistics to heartfelt teamwork, it’s clear that every event has its surprises. Here is what our events look like:

We sat down with them to learn what it really takes to shape SiteGround’s culture through events, and how their roles have evolved as the company has grown.

Q1: To set the stage, what’s something about your job that would surprise people?

Ramelina: I guess it would be the fact that I never get tired of my work. Every time I’m organizing an internal event, I’m genuinely excited to see my colleagues’ smiles. That excitement keeps me going—I’ve never felt exhausted, even when I’m holding flower scissors in my hand, removing vinyl from fences after only three hours of sleep. I truly love every minute of it.

Stanislava: The best thing about organizing events is that you never know what wild idea or unexpected task you’ll get involved in. For example, last year for our Team Festival, we had to find 30 huge water tanks to create a light installation, which led me to research where to rent water containers from! This year, we brought a giant floating SiteGround logo all the way to Greece and installed it in a pool. People are often surprised that all of these diverse projects are handled entirely in-house. And honestly, that’s one of the things I love most about being an Events Manager.

Q2: But beyond the behind-the-scenes hustle, how do these experiences actually shape SiteGround’s culture?

Ramelina: When you look at typical team-building photos or videos from different companies and then compare them to ours, you instantly see the difference. Our motto, “Never Bored. Never Boring.” isn’t just a marketing slogan, but a true reflection of who we are. Everything we create is by us, for us, driven by the creativity and enthusiasm of our colleagues across departments. That’s what makes our events so authentic and full of energy.

Stanislava: SiteGround’s annual Team Festival perfectly captures our team spirit. It brings together collaboration across many departments – Designers, Office managers, IT experts, Social media team and Creative teams, Accounting, Legal, and more. During the festival, it’s our own team members who lead the main workshops like 3D printing, electronics, handicrafts, sports activities, and many others. Despite everyone’s different day-to-day roles, we all become part of the ‘festival crew.’ This approach allows us to create something truly special, and everyone can feel it.

Q3: What’s one story from an event that perfectly captures the spirit of teamwork here?

Ramelina: One story? Impossible. There are dozens of them. However, the fact that we gather every year for a team photo, with all 500+ people coming together, and we’re still not bored from calling out “SiteGround” with broad smiles, speaks for itself. 

Q4: How do you measure the success of an internal event? 

Stanislava: There are many common event metrics like attendance rates, social media engagement, or post-event surveys. However, since events are inherently emotional, I prefer to focus on the energy that lingers afterward. What I see is people buzzing with excitement – sharing videos, photos, and stories.

And perhaps most importantly, our festivals often spark new friendships. This is especially important for new colleagues, who instantly feel included and connected. I know that from personal experience. When I joined SiteGround, it was just before a team event, and it helped me feel at home from the very start.

Q5: As SiteGround continues to grow, how have the challenges you face as an organizing team changed?

Ramelina: When there were fewer than a hundred people, it was easy to think about what everyone might enjoy. Now, with more than 500 colleagues, we have to focus on what will appeal to the majority, while still making sure each person feels included and seen. That’s a tough balance to strike. But because our events are created by us, for us, and always infused with positivity, the result is inevitably something special.

Stanislava: With such a large and diverse team, it’s impossible to match everyone’s taste in a single event, especially when it comes to the music lineup. But the beauty of SiteGround’s diversity is that it brings so many hidden talents together. So we turn the challenge of diversity into an advantage by including our own colleagues in the lineup. For example, our amazing rock band, made up entirely of SiteGround team members from Tech Support, AI Development, DevOps, and QA teams, rocks the stage every year. We even have DJ sets performed by one of our Product Owners! And one more from the Customer Care team! 

Q6: What is the biggest value of investing in memorable internal events?

Ramelina: Truly great internal events are a refreshing boost to our work-life balance. That’s why our team-buildings include a bit of everything – opportunities to learn something new, connect with nature, sing and dance, show your talents, and share your favorite hobbies. You even forget about your smartphone entirely and just enjoy being present with your teammates in real life.

Stanislava: SiteGround events remind me, and hopefully everyone, just how amazing the people we work with every day really are. They’re one of the things that truly set us apart because we pour our hearts into them, just like we do when creating our products and services. In the end, it’s these moments together that genuinely restore my faith in community and humanity in general.

We’ll leave you with a glimpse of the fun: check out our party photo gallery! And here’s a final thought from Ramelina that perfectly captures how our events shape SiteGround’s culture: “Creating only for work doesn’t work for long. You have to play. It’s a voyage, not a destination.”
P.S. Don’t forget to check out our Expert Spotlight series to get an inside look into different SiteGround departments!

Have you ever opened a website or app and felt like everything just flows – every click leading naturally to the next, like a smooth sail on a Summer day? That seamless experience doesn’t just happen. The truth is there’s a team of people, all pulling the ropes with lots of thinking and testing behind the scenes, so that you feel that breeze of ease in every click.

In this edition of Expert Spotlights, we’re excited to introduce one of the people in charge of designing these experiences throughout – a talented Product Designer on our SaaS product team, Daniela Borisova. She is constantly helping real people around the world on their journey to launch their dream site and succeed online with ease.  

Tell us a bit about what you are currently working on?

Currently, I’m working on SiteGround’s Website Builder, which aims to empower small business owners to launch their websites and grow their businesses. I love that we serve as the bridge between individuals who have the courage to launch their dream business and their customers, who will be the power that keeps it going. I’ve always believed that being a product designer is a very powerful and responsible position, as your solutions can have a direct impact on people’s dreams. It is so exciting!

What sparked your love for Product Design?

To be honest, I never imagined I’d become a Product Designer. I studied at the National Academy of Arts, aiming for a career in the arts field, but during my final year, I realized it no longer fulfilled my need for self-expression. That’s when I started exploring graphic design, but it was a weekly web design class in my last semester that changed everything. The incredible teacher introduced me to a world beyond visual design, showing me that web design involves much deeper and complex considerations. 

One story she told stuck with me. It was about how she was designing for an Arabic brand, where the team had to deeply understand a culture so different from their own. This story about how product designers need to immerse themselves in others’ lives and cultures left me inspired and curious. Later on, after a friend’s encouragement, I completed a series of design courses, worked pro bono, and eventually, after many ups and downs, got my first UX design role five years ago.

How is working the job different from studying about it?

The reality of working as a product designer is quite different from the academic one. This is something I always talk about when mentoring aspiring product designers.

When we study product design, the cases are usually idealised, where companies have no boundaries in terms of time, budget, and legacy. It’s not impossible to design “by the books”, but the truth is, when you join a company, it already has an existing product, and it comes with its own challenges. Often, schedules are tight, and design depth is accumulated. We as designers need to learn how to navigate this dynamic and look at it as an opportunity to make decisions quickly and perform faster, smaller iterations.

Another misconception is that the research, design, and development process is streamlined and linear. In reality, it’s not always like that, and that’s OK. When I started as a Junior Designer, I also had this belief, and it took me some time to embrace the dynamic environment and create a process that works for me.

You mentioned mentoring, can you share a bit about that?

I’ve always felt the urge to share my knowledge with those who might benefit from it, yet an inner voice often whispered, “What if it’s not good enough?”. 

Last year, I decided to challenge myself and accepted an invitation from one of the major Universities in my home country to deliver a lecture on contemporary art, choosing a topic of my interest. Speaking in front of students and educators, including PhDs and professors, was a transformative experience. The room was full, and I was pleasantly surprised by the audience’s keen interest. This led to an invitation to make it an annual event. Even right now I’m working on the next one I’m about to lead. 

Overcoming my fear made me realize that people are eager to listen to my insights. I was also a guest lecturer at the university where I received my design education, conducting a seminar attended by almost 400 people!

The biggest lesson I’ve learned from this series of events is to never underestimate your knowledge and to act regardless of your insecurities. 

Speaking of lessons, which are the three qualities a successful Product Designer should have?

To me, the three most important qualities are:

1. Be open to feedback and collaboration
2. Be attentive and dive deep into the problems you are solving
3. Be adaptive to changing environments. 

I think that it’s fairly easy to learn a design tool or even coding with all the information we have nowadays, not to mention AI. But it’s not that easy to understand a complex problem with all its constraints or to accept that a design idea that you absolutely love might not always be the most appropriate for the business need. We need to be able to listen, leave our ego aside, and be open to anything. I deeply believe in being a good colleague and a person that others will love working with will take you a long way.

You mentioned AI, can you share whether you think AI has any place in Product Design? 

AI is a powerful assistant that can boost productivity and creativity when brainstorming ideas, the initial research phase, and many other activities. But it can’t replace a real human in solving complex problems and taking many aspects and constraints into account. We should not forget that we are building products for people (until we start doing it for AI agents as well).

Is there a go-to approach you rely on in your daily work?

I definitely believe in the “tried and trusted” processes. I always start my work by doing research on how other people solved similar problems to mine, because the existing solutions out there are what our users are using and are familiar with, have spent time with, and tend to search for similar solutions. It’s not me who claims that – it’s Jacob Nielsen (Jacob’s law).

In the design field, there is a very fine line between creating something that feels natural and innovation. Users don’t want to spend time navigating a steep learning curve for new products, so giving them already working patterns is helpful in making them feel confident.

How do you manage to stay creative and maintain your work/life balance?

The most important aspect of staying creative is bouncing ideas off my teammates. Everybody has different knowledge that can help you develop an idea and find the right solution.

As for work/life balance, it is very important for me to physically and mentally differentiate my personal space from my work space. Actually, my best office hack is to always “unwind” after work with a good workout. My advice is just move, regardless of the activity – you’ll feel great afterwards.

And during the weekends, I try to disconnect by learning new things and researching contemporary artists, practicing different sports, and going on long walks. I often joke that if you forget what you’ve been working on before the weekend, then you really had a good rest.

Finally, what’s the next big thing in your field of work that you’re excited about?

I am excited about diving deeper into our portfolio of products, contributing my expertise, and making a positive impact. There are amazing things to come at SiteGround, and we are working passionately to make them happen, so stay tuned.

Last December, while everyone was in the whirlwind of the end-of-year Holidays, among the SiteGround team there was a different excitement in the air. We had just announced our support for the World’s first human-powered rowing expedition from the Antarctic – and our whole team was anticipating the start of the adventure, planned for January 2023.

Fast forward to a little over a month later, the mission was successfully completed with extraordinary success and 8 Guinness records! As one of their main sponsors, at SiteGround we are extremely proud with the accomplishment of the crew, but even more so with their cause – the petition to help prevent the overexploitation of the once pristine marine environment of the Southern Ocean.

Our support for entrepreneurial spirit and a stand for the Planet

It all started in November 2022, when we decided to hold an inspiring internal event for the SiteGround team in our HQ office. We had invited Bulgarian entrepreneur and adventurer Stefan Ivanov, who already had 2 Guinness Records with his son Maxim, awarded for their astounding journey, called NEVEREST. For NEVEREST his son and himself spent 105 Days across the Atlantic in the hurricane season in a rowing boat they built themselves in their garage at home.

During the meeting with the team, Stefan revealed that he was about to become part of another expedition with even bigger stakes and cause – to help protect the environment of Antarctica. The upcoming mission resonated deeply with the inherent values of the SiteGround team – to challenge yourself, raise the limit of what’s possible, and live with purpose. But it also highlighted our need to care and take action for our planet and our personal and collective responsibility for its protection. In the words of our co-founder, Ivo Tzenov, “The courage to keep doing what you believe in, despite that everyone tells you it’s impossible, is no stranger to us. It’s exactly what’s been driving our work and success at SiteGround from the start. But the mission had our support also because of their cause and stand for the environment, which is also something that we at SiteGround firmly believe in”. So it was only natural that we decided to support this endeavor.

The Shackleton Mission 2023

The crew of the Shackleton Mission included 6 leading explorers and adventurers from 5 countries – Captain Fiann Paul (Iceland), Lisa Farthofer (Austria), Jamie Douglas-Hamilton (United Kingdom), Brian Krauskopf (USA), Mike Matson (USA), and our home-country representative Stefan Ivanov (Bulgaria). The expedition departed across the Southern Ocean from the Antarctic King George Island to South Georgia Island aboard their boat, Mrs Chippy, on January 11, 2023. Their 850 nautical mile journey passed across what is regarded by many as “the most dreaded bit of ocean on the planet”. It retraces the voyage made by Sir Ernest Shackleton and 5 of his crew in 1916 that saved the lives of all 28 members of Shackleton’s previous Endurance expedition.

The 2023 Shackleton Mission was conducted under the flag of “THE EXPLORERS CLUB”. Established in New York in 1904, the club has been supporting scientific expeditions of various disciplines and uniting its members in the bonds of good fellowship. It’s the same club, whose flag graced the first expeditions to the South and the North Poles, mount Everest, and even the Moon!

The whole SiteGround team followed the Antarctic mission’s journey closely thanks to the online diary of the Bulgarian representative in the crew, who even managed to post regular updates along the way! On January 17, 2023, the mission was completed and the team landed safely on Laurie Island (South Orkney Islands) after rowing 777 km (420 nautical miles) in the Southern Ocean in 6 days. The row meets all requirements of the Ocean Rowing Society and qualifies as a successfully completed polar ocean row and won 8 Guinness Records:

🏆 First human-powered expedition from the Antarctic

🏆 First human-powered expedition on the Southern Ocean South to North 

🏆 First human-powered expedition on the Scotia Sea

🏆 The first human-powered expedition completed entirely within the Southern Ocean

🏆 Southernmost start of a rowing expedition

🏆 Fastest row on the Southern Ocean

🏆 Longest distance rowed on the Southern Ocean

🏆 Fastest Polar row

A small row boat, a giant leap for the Planet

The crew of the Shackleton Mission were aiming to challenge what’s humanly possible, but their mission went beyond that. It is true evidence that with the right team, the right partner, and support, we can accomplish anything.

That’s also true for the mission’s even greater goal – to prevent the overexploitation of the once pristine marine environment of Antarctica. The petition started by the crew calls for the designation of new marine protected areas of at least 4,000,000 km2 in the Southern Ocean – the largest marine protection in history. Given that over 90% of the large marine species in the oceans are already in danger of extinction, with your help we can stop this.

Read more and sign the petition:

www.change.org/SouthernOcean

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At SiteGround, some people work from our offices, some from home, and some alternate between the two. We are a remote-friendly, but not entirely distributed team. It’s one of the things that makes us interesting.  

Our team of 500+ employees is scattered in four office locations and around the world. We usually communicate on Slack, Hangouts, and Zoom, but once a year, we try to get everyone together for our two-day SiteGround Team Festival. It’s our special way of creating bonds that last long after the event is over, and directly contribute to making us a better, stronger, and more productive team.

Like the two previous editions, our 3rd SiteGround Team Festival celebrated the things that unite us. Our company culture has always been influenced by the same core values ever since we started in 2004.

They continue to be the invisible thread keeping our team closer, however spread-out it might be. Some of these values are craftsmanship, care, empathy, mutual support, and having fun along the way. Our team lives by these values, but we work by them too. We’re building services that we believe in, improving how our clients experience making and growing their websites. We know there is real value in sharing skills and knowhow, doing what you love, and being happy at work. And this all starts with our own people.

2017 was a wild year of tremendous growth for us. We expanded our team with 115 new talented members, we went local in Italy and even added Australia to our remote team map. And all the while we are proud to have nurtured the amazing team spirit that makes SiteGround what it is! We raised the bar on our customer service even higher and added new powerful solutions for more speed and security of your websites. But the biggest appreciation, again, came from you – our clients, who rated our services with 97% satisfaction rate in our latest annual survey!

To express our gratitude, we hand-crafted a couple of exclusive, wooden tabletop calendars which we will give away to 50 of you who share our year in review. See our highlights of the year below, share them and enter for a chance to win some free SiteGround swag. Here is to one more year of new challenges and wins!

See our Year in review & enter for a chance to win some prizes!

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