Operating principles

🥇 Customer obsession

Our customers are the reason why we exist. In order to be a successful company, we must be customer obsessed. We do this by prioritising what’s best for our customers above all else.

Obsession means putting in the time and effort to talk to a user every week and learn something new — whether you are in Product, Engineering, People, or Legal. It means going above and beyond to do right to the companies that trust us. When in doubt, we prioritise in the following order: customers first, company second, team third, individual fourth.

👑 Be an owner

You are the expert and make decisions without approval. You can ask for advice or perspective, but you are in the lead and decide. If things don’t work out as planned, we learn from it and course correct. We are all owners, acting beyond our job description to do what’s right. A problem is never someone else’s problem. If this means wearing multiple hats, becoming a design geek, a part-time lawyer, or a negotiator with regulators, it is naturally to take on the challenge and figure it out. As owners, we value frugality and spend our resources wisely.

📰 Meet the front-page test

For everything we do, we ask ourselves: 'How would I feel if this is reported on the front page of tomorrow's newspaper?’ When in doubt, we pride ourselves for doing things right — even if it comes at the expense of the business.

👷🏽‍♀️ Let Builders build

We want to invent and create. We want to spend >80% of our time every week focused on building — either the product or the company. Overhead or distraction along the way are not taken as a given. We put in the work to remove these obstacles so we can focus on what we really love doing. We leave for the weekend with a smile on our face and pride about what we achieved in the last week.

🏁 Decide with Focus, Deliver with Urgency, Build for Leverage

An integral part of the way we work is speed. Technology moves fast. (1) As such, we need to be great a prioritisation and saying no — our problem is not lack of opportunities, but deciding where to focus on. (2) Once a decision is made, we act — there is no reason to lose time. (3) We built one platform so everyone can use it — our goal is to scale with leverage, not people.

❤️ Be Kind and Caring

We go the extra mile to make each other feel good and welcome here — be it a compliment, a kind slack message or a small gift. Being highly ambitious and hungry is not a trade-off versus being friendly and kind to each other. Direct honest feedback or vivid debate is equally possible in a safe space. We value empathy: We are not robots, we have families, we have worries, we have bad days - and there will always be space for this here.

🪟 Transparent by Default

Communication is key in a remote-first world. So be clear about what you're doing, what you mean to communicate to others, and what you're thinking. Always ask the questions you have in your head. Being transparent helps prevent conflict and helps people understand any situation better. By default: act, communicate, and work in the open. Share your work from the moment you start, avoid starting private Slack channels, and ask all work related questions in public. This allows others to contribute, avoids lost information, builds team spirit and fosters equality.

🌱 Curious Students

Everyone here is a curious student and generous teacher. We have a tendency to ask for feedback nearly too frequently. We pride ourselves with the quality of our feedback — agnostic of hierarchies, direct, factual, actionable. We say what we really think, with positive intent. Prompted or unprompted, we are generous in helping each other to learn and grow - this includes splitting work in a way that it allows us all to be constantly challenged.

🌈 Lead with Optimism

We are at the beginning of a long journey. We will passionately climb mountains and enjoy spectacular views together. Simultaneously we will need to support each other and overcome obstacles. At that point in time, who do you want by your side? We are positively critical: micro pessimists and macro optimists. Optimism is inspiring, and inspiration leads to people joining forces to make the sum greater than the parts and overcome challenges. So we focus our attention on how we can make things work: “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”