After Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Lindsey Witmer Collins knew she had to act fast: All but two of her employees lived in the country, the majority working from an office in the western city of Lviv. A few weeks later, many of WLCM's employees got to work again, relishing a sense of normalcy, she told Inc. in March 2022. But it wasn't business as usual, in any sense. Here, she shares what happened in the months that followed.

WLCM was named #50 on the Fast 100, the SF Business Times' list of the fastest growing private companies in SF. The timing of these awards (this and Inc.'s equivalent list, to which we were named in March of this year) is interesting for us, because it's happening as virtually our entire team becomes refugees.

For more than 10 years, the San Francisco-headquartered app development company WLCM (pronounced "Welcome") has grown at a rapid clip by providing end-to-end development and design for startups. Then, business came to a sudden halt. On February 24, Russian forces invaded Ukraine, which put all but two of WLCM's 24 employees in peril.

I have been sending a series of emails to those who supported the campaign, to tell them what they’ve made possible. Because some people miss these updates, and also because each story of generosity is proof that we can make a difference in a world that feels largely outside of our control, I am sharing them here, too. This page will be updated ongoing.

Inc. Magazine today revealed that, with a growth rate of 259%, WLCM App Studio is No. 55 on its third annual Inc. 5000 Regionals: Pacific list. This regional list represents a unique look at the most successful private companies within the Pacific region.

A thought I've been having lately is that you can make the most nutritious, delicious soup, but add one drop of poison, and everything is ruined. It can take a million hours to build something and two seconds to demolish it. And each of us can do every good thing we can for Ukrainians from here, but it won’t stop the killing. This is deeply unsettling to me.

On Feb 24th, after a sleepless night following Russia’s invasion into Ukraine, I shakily and quickly created a campaign to raise funds to support this team. Below is the content of that campaign and the updates I posted there.

Last month, the WLCM team was all together in Lviv, Ukraine. Among other activities, we went to the Craft Beer and Vinyl Festival. I tried not to think too much about how much my dad would have loved that festival, and apparently my team could read my mind, because Lilia and Sergey presented me with a beer there I knew...