Our Story
30 Years of Building Better Together
1994
June 1, 1994
Collegiate Web
Charlie started Next Jump from his college dorm room in 1994, as a print coupon book: The Collegiate Web. He went to school on financial aid and did not intend to start his own company; the coupon book was a means of funding his long-distance relationship with his high school sweetheart.
September 30, 1994
Next Jump University
When we first hired interns, Charlie went out of his way to mentor and coach them despite our overall lack of resources.
1997
April 12, 1997
Click At Work
We launched our first products aimed at corporate HR departments in 1998. ClickatWork was a combination of playbill-sized guidebooks and websites aimed at corporate employees.
1999
January 1, 1999
First Investment
First investment round which led to $45M raised from 100 angels.
(half dozen billionaires, No VCs, No PE)
January 1, 1999
Outlet Town
This was our first e-commerce platform where small businesses could add themselves; we became a hub for new and developing merchants to showcase their products. This laid the foundations for our ONECart technology.
January 1, 1999
MV21 Leadership Offsite
Stands for “Martha’s Vineyard 21” and the property donated by one of our investors for years of leadership offsites which slept 21 people and was namesake of the peer-nominated leadership group for the company for the year.
2001
January 1, 2001
Corporate Perks
Click at Work becomes Corporate Perks.
2002
April 17, 2002
Dot Com Bust
By the time of the first dot-com bubble, we had grown to 150 employees in 5 offices (Boston, New York, Washington, Chicago, and San Francisco). We survived the dot-com bust by shrinking down to 4 employees before building the business back up.
April 17, 2002
Healthy Breakfast
Started providing free healthy breakfast for employees. As breakfast is the most skipped meal, the intent was to make the healthiest choice the easiest choice by providing on-site.
April 19, 2002
Acquired Abilizer
Next Jump acquired its largest competitor: Abilizer, the #1 provider of employee discount programs.
2006
2006
Super Saturday
Search criteria adopted from Amazon/Google. "Stunningly brilliant", "Highly Driven".
April 17, 2006
7 Core Values
Full Engagement. Exceeding Expectations. Consistent Execution. Active Learning. Trust. Collaboration. Tenacity.
2007
2007
Code for a Cause
We completed our first Code for a Cause project, partnering with the non-profit Angelwish.org to help build them a website and blog.
2007
Culture Tour
Next Jump has run open-book to employees financially since 2002. In 2007, we began opening our doors culturally to other organizations. Culture tours led to questions on what programs to implement and show.
2007
Coronitas
A weekly recognition ritual held at 5pm every Friday with food, drinks, and fun activities. Coronitas provides an opportunity for Next Jumpers to thank the people that helped them success that week.
2007
On-Site Gym
Performance starts with a physical foundation. We created space for an on-site gym in each of our office spaces to make the healthier choice the easier choice & encourage use during the day, not just after hours.
2008
April 17, 2008
Brilliant Jerks
After increasing our hiring for software engineers, we ended up realizing we had hired a bunch of “brilliant jerks.” Overnight, we ended up firing 50% of our engineers.
April 17, 2008
When we audited which employees we kept on board, we realized a theme in the qualities they possessed-- humility. Since this point, this has always been a part of our hiring process-- seeking people who are BOTH driven & humble.
Hire for Humility
April 19, 2008
WOWPoints
We introduced a loyalty currency, WOWPoints, into our employee perks program.
2009
April 19, 2009
ONECart Technology
We introduced ONECart Technology to our Employee Perks Program. ONECart allows our users to make purchases from multiple retailers, all at the same time, directly from us. The orders placed at checkout are sent directly to the individual retailers, saving people the trouble of having to place multiple orders on multiple websites.
2010
April 19, 2010
Leadership Training
We introduced Human Capital Engineering (HCE) programs as a way for Next Jumpers to upgrade their leadership development.
April 20, 2010
Crowd Source Recognition
April 20, 2010
Top Tech Recruiter
Next Jump became top recruiter in tech; turnover skyrockets.
April 20, 2010
2011
2011
Talking Partners (TP's)
Talking Partner's is a co-mentoring program designed to help employees increase their awareness and improve judgement. Your Talking Partner acts as a second screen when making important decisions.
April 20, 2011
SA500
Silicon Alley 500 (SA500). We open-sourced our recruiting IP to help build our local tech community, bringing together 50 of the best East Coast-founded technology companies to meet 500 pre-vetted engineering students on the New York Stock Exchange floor as a part of NxJ Cares-- whenever one has a unique opportunity to share a skillset that others need, it presents a chance to give back.
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"It was easily the best recruiting program that we've ever been a part of. Not only is that great for all the companies like ours that attended… it's also great for NYC. The more we can get people to think about New York as a destination for technology, the better we'll all do. Rising tides lift all boats..."
- Irving Fain, CEO & Co-Founder (CrowdTwist)
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"I think requiring CTO/VP-engineering leaders was the most critical part of this event. KAYAK met with just over 100 qualified engineers, and several told me that they went to SA500 due to the unique opportunity to meet with company founders etc."
- Paul English, CTO & Co-Founder (KAYAK)
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"SA500 was far and away the best recruiting event I've been to. Not only was the quality of the candidates extremely high, but it was great to meet all the other founders and executives."
- Brendan Schwartz, Co-Founder (Wistia)
2012
2012
50/50 Revenue Culture
Began measuring performance equally between revenue and culture contributions.
2012
The Ship
2012
Gamification of Fitness
Changing Employee Behavior Without Force—our journey to get over 75% of our employees to work out 2x per week minimum
February 2, 2012
Dance Battle
Our holiday party at Next Jump is held once a year in February, and we bring together all employees from four offices for the event. It’s an amazing perk of being a Next Jumper, one that truly connects us. The highlight of the evening is the Dance Battle, in which each of our four offices performs three choreographed routines in front of external judges to compete for the best dance crew of Next Jump, and the coveted trophy. We don’t hire dancers at Next Jump. From engineers to customer service reps, we all dance.
What started as a casual dance battle turned into a fierce yearly competition as we discovered the dance battle was also a great practice ground for leadership development. It has been said in only halfway jest that Next Jumpers take nothing more seriously than the dance competition.
April 17, 2012
Avengers
We introduced our first ever “Avengers Award,” the highest honor given at Next Jump. This award recognizes the Next Jumper who most exemplifies steward leadership and honors our mothers, who taught us to help others.
First Avengers Ceremony
At our Avengers Ceremony in 2018, Steve Schaick, Deputy Chief of Chaplains at the Air Force, gives a powerful talk on the importance of caring for the caregiver.
2019 Highlights
April 17, 2012
Organic Leadership
Meghan Messenger, currently our co-CEO, considered working part-time as she and Charlie were managing all of our revenue and culture initiatives. We doubled down on our leadership development programs including Talking Partners, Situational Workshops, and the FLO Model as ways to create organic leadership across the entire company.
April 20, 2012
Our Why – 2011
We worked with Simon Sinek to better articulate this culture we have developed and strengthened the articulation of our WHY, Better ME + Better YOU = Better US
April 20, 2012
oo.com
In 2011, we launched OO.com as the first product from our partnership with LivingSocial. Every time you shopped, customers had the choice to donate reward points to support a cause of their choice.
April 20, 2012
No Firing Policy
Aside from increasing our hiring standards, this was a signal of intent for employees to show that you can expose vulnerabilities, weaknesses, and faults without the fear of losing your job.
Read this Charlie HR interview with London MDs Kevin McCoy and Tarun Gidoomal: https://magazine.charliehr.com/next-jump-ddo/
2014
February 24, 2014
CEO Talks: De Srikumar Rao
Dr. Srikumar Rao, a celebrated coach/mentor/teacher who has taught his course “Creativity and Personal Mastery” at top business schools, as well as for many top executives globally, spoke at our offices. He is the author of several best seller books and also a popular TedTalker. Many of Dr. Rao’s past students & mentees have said that his course changed their lives and we were very excited to have him speak at our offices.
April 17, 2014
Next Jump Leadership Academy
We began hosting regular Next Jump Leadership Academy workshops, bringing in Heads of Talent Development and Culture to observe, learn, and participate in our culture.
Ignitor of the Year
2014
OSD SAMP
Office of the Secretary of Defense, Senior Advisor for Military Professionalism. Office created to improve culture and professionalism within the DoD identified Next Jump as best-in-class in leader development in practice.
May 19, 2014
Simon Sinek TedTalk
We are mentioned in Simon Sinek’s TedTalk on ‘Why good leaders make you feel safe’ – we are a great example of a company that creates trust and safety in order for employees to experiment without fear. He uses us as an example of how companies should run and the environments they’ve built, talking about our no-firing/ lifetime employment policy.
2014
John Hopkins Healthy Workplace Award
Next Jump was chosen and awarded as 1 of the 9 healthiest workplaces in US.
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Click HERE to view the article.
2014
PLB
After the no firing policy, no one would ull the trigger on hiring. There was too much pressure to hire perfectly and we needed another gate. Personal Leadership Bootcamp (PBL) was created to give our team the ability to make a mistake in hiring and still have success long-term.
2015
2015
Lying, Hiding, Faking (LHF)
One of the first talks where Meghan explains the term she coined describing what came known as the “2nd job” in organizations.
2015
OS For Culture App Store
Biz 2: Leadership Academies led to the request to release our HR apps externally.
2015
Leadership 10x
Shifted the focus of the 10x program to start to include character and leadership development. Employees began presenting on their backhand and practice grounds for personal growth.
2015
PEMS
A hierarchy of needs framework adopted from Dr. Jim Loehr of the Human Performance Institute on how to set up high-performance environments. It starts with a foundation in the Physical, and builds into Emotional (judgement/decision making), Mental (skill training), & Spiritual (giving back or purpose) in that order.
2015
Yoga Nidra
After a sleep survey which found that our top leaders were getting inconsistent sleep, we started a daily session of Yoga Nidra to help employees recover. Sleep Class is a 30-minute guided meditation which helps the body rest as much as a 2-hour nap.
April 17, 2015
Adopt-A-School
The New York Office launched its Adopt-a-School Program, adopting PS-119 in the Bronx.
April 20, 2015
Perks At Work
In 2015, we invested millions of dollars in our biggest technology upgrade in company history, transitioning our e-commerce platform from corporateperks.com to perksatwork.com. The platform goes above discounts to include all technologies to help run company culture.
2016
March 22, 2016
An Everyone Culture: DDO book
Next Jump was recognized by Harvard Professors Dr Lisa Laskow and Robert Kegan in the book ‘An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization’ and by the organization, Way to Grow, as a Deliberately Developmental Organization. A Deliberately Developmental Organization (a DDO) is an organization – large or small, private or public, for-profit or not – with a culture explicitly designed to advance the mutual flourishing of the organization and its people. Next Jump was one of three organizations globally recognized for this honor.
April 1, 2016
Perks at Work Launched
We upgraded and launched our most powerful e-commerce platform globally: Perks at Work. We are the largest employee benefits provider in the US and make over $2bil in sales annually.
April 20, 2016
OS For Culture
We released our first 5 apps to the Apple App and Google Play store available to our clients. These are the first of over 50 culture apps developed internally to help run our company culture better.
2017
2017
Kids Club
We are building a culture to support and help working parents succeed both at work and at home. We started with a kid-friendly physical space in the office and grew into a Summer Camp and after school program with world-class instructors.
2017
Work as the New Community Center
NxJ Summer Camp:
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We are excited to launch the first NxJ Summer Camp as part of our Work 3.0 Community Center vision & strategic investment in NxJ Families and raising children. Leveraging experts in the field, incorporating aspects of physical, emotional, mental & spiritual (PEMS) to create a world-class camp and solve the common challenges of raising children today.
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After School Program:
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We are excited to announce the launch of our five day afterschool program as part of our strategic investment in Next Jump families, and raising children. As a learning organization, the Next Jump little jumpers after school program will aim to both build on the learnings from our summer camp program, as well as incorporate strategies from some of the education, industries, leading researchers.
The structure of the program consist of both physical activity and academies; through the program we have also strategically layered in social behavior training: grit/resilience/growth/mindset - top character traits we’ve identified, through our research, that will lead to success.
2017
CIA TED Talks
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Charlie Kim
Meghan Messenger
April 20, 2017
People Org Chart
The People Org Chart ensures that every NxJer has a coach who is responsible for their growth, which includes setting up their environment with training, feedback loops, and coaching.
April 20, 2017
Developmental Gym
We set up an environment to help people grow – training, feedback loops and coaching, and baked it into our culture. This allows for faster learning and leads to more agile teams.
2017
Moneyball Of Leadership
Charlie and Meghan, Next Jump Co-CEOs, were invited to speak at the CIA. They took their “Level 5 Leaders” and shared their insights on leadership development, strategy, and decision making. Invited to the session were 70 of the most senior talent in the agency across all divisions.
2018
2018
The Hero’s Journey
Co-CEO Speech at dinner from our Summer Outing, our annual employee, friends & family event—one of the two times a year we bring all our employees to celebrate together.
2018
2018 Highlights
2018
Adopt a School— Netley Robotics Competition
For the past few months, Next Jumpers have been teaching bright young minds at Netley Primary School how to code, using Lego Mindstorm robots. It’s been an amazing journey watching our young friends grow and learn, helping each other to control the robots and direct them in a variety of tasks. They began with no experience, but quickly picked up on learning how to make the robots do just what they wanted, using motion and colour sensors to command where the machines went and how they responded.
2018
TP Avengers
For the first time, recognized a TP pair as the top servant leaders in the company - recognizing and elevating the value of the team and partnership.
2018
People Analytics
Starting to put sophisticated measurements to feedback & expectations. The numbers show that setting high standards and expectations (growth mindset) lets people upgrade and achieve their potential.
2018
501c: edu.nextjump
Founded Next Jump's education foundation to fund grants, research and public schools.
2018
On My Mind App
The On My Mind app is a coaching tool that allows you to share what is on your mind with your coaches, your peers, and your mentees. Reflecting on your decisions and understanding the emotions associated with them are key to becoming a stronger decision-maker.
2018
First Commercial Client: US Navy
Next Jump’s Leadership Development & Decision-Making Training
2019
2019
Next Jump’s 25-Year Anniversary
2019
Flagship Lease Signed
2019
Co-CEO’s Journeys
Charlie Kim
Meghan Messenger
2019
NxJ Ventures
Founded the Venture Capital arm of Next Jump
Two Goals:
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Invest our money, but more importantly our expertise, to help start-ups scale. *Our superpower as investors is our ability to help founders run their companies better.
Create outstanding returns for our employees. The stock from NxJ Ventures will be entirely owned by our employees.
2019
Raising Kids
2020
2020
COA: Community Online Academy
So much of our lives have been disrupted. For the fortunate ones of us that have our job and can be at home, we have new challenges of balancing work, kids, life all in close quarters – all while having fear of staying healthy and for loved ones.
Learn More about COA
2020
Leadership in Practice
Started offering free weekly leadership classes open to the public. Have now taught more than 175 hours all available on video.
RSVP Here.
2020
Pre-Resiliency Training
Curriculum forming for our first Leadership Development & Decision Making Training (LDDMT) Module 1—originally called “Pre-Resiliency Training or PRT”
2020
DevGPS
Developmental GPS (DevGPS) provides a rapid assessment of five key decision-making skills. Layer perspective from self, peer, and coach to identify gaps in awareness.
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Q1: Future Outlook
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Q2: Measuring Progress
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Q3: Discipline in the Hard Stuff
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Q4: Speed & Boldness
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Q5: Truth (“No Lying Hiding Faking”)
2021
2021
Move-In Flagship / Partners Program
NYC | Boston | London
Instead of returning to office, we created a new leadership tier called Partners, accepting employee applications based on who was the most coachable and made it a privilege to come into the office.
Future of Work/ Flagship Design
2021
Social Capitalist
What is the Social Capitalist?
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2021
Hired Chef Dani Chavez-Bello
Michelin-starred Chef Dani Chavez-Bello joined Next Jump as a Senior Partner to advance the mind-body connection of human performance. Chef Dani has worked across different continents, starting his culinary journey in Barcelona then San Sebastian, Paris, Hamburg, Tokyo, and New York. He’s worked in some of the top restaurants in the world as El Bulli, Berasategui, Maison Darroze, Mugaritz, and Bouley. Always looking for culinary excellence, today his mission is gut health and how food contributes to improving human performance. He is focused on fermented food and its ability to maintain or rebuild our microbiome.
2022
2022
Cross-Domain Coaching
Cross-Domain Coaching (DCD) refers to the idea that awareness and skills transfer are easier to observe and accept in an area outside of your area of core expertise. Under stimulated stress, individuals will see their default tendencies emerge. The goal is to help participants become more aware of their thought patterns and behaviors both individually and as a team. Curriculum with Cross-Fit & Basketball (Truth Reps)
2022
Test Kitchen
2022
Human Performance Hackathon
In partnership with Cornell University, we hosted hundreds of students and young professionals
2022
Decision Readiness Score™
Similar to a credit score that quantifies good financial behavior, the DRS quantifies good behaviors that lead to better team decision-making. The DRS results help identify the highest ROI training for individuals and teams. Do they need to work on unlearning bad mental habits (Modules 1-3) or learning new skills of decision-making (Modules 4-6)?
2022
“Core 4” Signals of Long-Term Performance | Human Performance Metrics
1. SELF AWARENESS: High performers generally exhibit strong self and situational awareness. Our data reveals a strong negative correlation; individuals with low awareness tend to be the weakest decision-makers within a team.
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2. EVERYONE SPEAKS UP: Teams where “silence” is not tolerated tend to perform consistently better – vs teams where some members do not consistently speak-up. In these teams voicing your POV is a responsibility. The process to increase team candor includes two skills: [1] dial-down behaviors that inhibit criticism + [2] dial-up consistent feedback.
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3. TEAM EXPECTATIONS: We've found that performance is a team effort rather than a solo endeavor. High performers are not only self-motivated but are also held to high standards by those around them. The saying "you are the sum of the people you work closely with" holds true, and we see this in the data.
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4. PEER SHARPENING: We have found a close correlation between consistently exposing your work for critique & risk taking. High performance, especially in uncertain and ambiguous situations, necessitates taking risks. To counteract our natural fear of failure, it is crucial to become comfortable with the oscillation between receiving negative feedback (struggle) and positive feedback (success). This cycle is often what sets successful individuals and teams apart from those that avoid failure, thereby negate the opportunity for success.
2023
March 2023
Train the Trainers
2023
Test Kitchen & Chef Coalition
Chef Dani assembled ‘The Chef Coalition’- a team of 15+ Michelin level chefs, coming together on the First Thursday of every month at Next Jump, NYC during Test Kitchen Thursdays. Better Me—they will focus on how to improve their skills in cooking, leadership, customer service, etc, and learn from each other. Better You—they will also focus on how to make a greater impact as a team—teen mental health, food scarcity, food as medicine, mentoring up-and-coming chefs, and more.
2023
J-Term | School Curriculum
After pioneering a successful 2-week session for 80 middle schoolers from “Avenues The World School”—Chef Dani collaborated with Curtis Murungi (PhD from Stanford specialist building curriculums ) to help put together a pro bono learning curriculum geared towards food, nutrition, and mental health for youth. Topics include Food for Sports and Energy, Acne and Skin Health, Food & Mood, and more. Our goal is to reach 1,000 schools.
2023
Big Problems Event
Hosted an event to discuss “not easy to solve issues” happening within the world and workplace with hundreds of leaders across the industry. Facing problems alone as individuals, alone as companies makes the pain worse with isolation and common mistakes and lessons not shared. Our goal is to build a community of leaders, helping each other. Topics included, what to do with all this office space, mental health, remote and WFH/isolation, AI in the workplace, How to fix education, Human Health: exercise and food, and more…
2023
Leadership Coalition
The start of a 3-month BETA experiment of building leadership coalitions (pairing a team of companies together, training together, and mentoring the top leaders under the CEO)...the purpose is to accelerate and generate innovation within a company that is hard to do solo as a company. Next Jump | Prototype Training | MOAA
2023
AI Self-Coaching Tools | Feedback
Incorporation of AI technology to help coach via technology elements like improving feedback quality which uses a large language model (LLM) to evaluate each piece of feedback. Measured per person per team.