Building a team, not just a company.

Many companies today tend to focus on the bottom line. What does this mean? Cutting valuable people because their salaries are too high. Increasing work hours to increase production. Reduce employee benefits to save money. 

In the technology industry, we are also hyperfocused on creating the next best thing "“ the faster device, the cheaper website, the best SEO tools, or a popular social site.  As a web software provider, we need to stay ahead of the industry developments so our products are relevant to our customers. Tomorrow's products.

It can be easy to lose sight of the most important element in creating tomorrow's products "“ the people.

A company is not made up of product or services, it is made of people that create products and provide services. They come up with the ideas that change your company, and ultimately change the world through innovation.

We employ about 20 such people "“ individuals with diverse experiences that produce original ideas. What common traits do we look for in our team?

We look for education. Not because we think a formal education means you will be more innovative, faster, smarter, or better than anyone without an education. But we do value the discipline, the ability to make a commitment and follow through, to be self-motivated, and to learn teamwork in a formal environment.

We look for diversity. Not to be politically correct, but because we feel that individuals from different places, with different backgrounds, and trained from different institutions, will be able to offer varying viewpoints and contribute uniquely. Allowing our team to work from home makes this diversity possible for a small business like ours.

We look for obsession. We admit it "“ we are fanatics. Fanatics about our work, fanatics about customer service, fanatics about the industry. And we look for people who share this obsession.  We give our team a lot of freedom in making decisions regarding their hours, days off, how to complete tasks, and creative freedom in designing and developing our products. It is fairly easy to spot the people who aren't passionate and committed "“ it reflects in their work, in their time commitments, and in how they interact with our customers - and they don't stick around long.

We look for perfection. Yes, we do realize no one is perfect. But we look for people that strive for perfection. Perfect design angles, perfect code architecture, perfect content. Sloppy work, half-hearted efforts, and acceptance of anything less than the best is bad for everyone. Perfection, to us, is a continual daily effort to be better than the day before. This means reviewing past mistakes and correcting them. This means continued education (which we encourage and pay for).  If you think you know everything about your industry, we don't want you on our team. There is always more to learn.

So take a minute to think about your business. What do you look for in your people? Is your workplace a pleasant one? Are your vacation times stingy? Are you a micromanager? Happy workers, passionate workers, well-rested workers that enjoy your trust, are more productive, more creative, and will be loyal to the company even when it is struggling. These workers work harder. They care about your products or services, and about your customers. They care about your company's success. While many companies focus solely on their bottom line, we want to focus on our most valuable asset "“ our people.