4 ms·

Their Unicorn system for paying out bonuses is a great idea: Revenue sharing across the entire staff, but distributed based upon input from the staff.

by gr366 16y ago

xal 16y ago
Thank you. The idea is loosely based on a system we heard about that Second Life uses.
- brown9-2 16y ago
  If you don't mind, could you share some more about how this works? I'm curious about the mechanics of such a system, if you've set up rules saying "a bonus is paid out when 51% of the votes agree" (assuming that someone nominates someone for an award and an amount and the rest of the employees vote to approve it or not). Or is it just that everyone gets 1/Nth of the pie allocated to themselves and can dole out any slice of that 1/N however they like?
  - xal 16y ago
    Here is how it works at the moment: * twice a month we determine how much money goes into the system based on how well we are doing * Money is split evenly amongst all employees and contractors who have been with us for more then 3 months. * This money can be arbitrarily spend as a bonus on any other colleagues. You can't spend it on yourself and you can't simply take it. It has to be spend on others. * Once a quarter the bonuses are paid out through payroll. * As you can see in the screenshot, everyone can show their accomplishments. This looks a lot like http://dribbble.com/ http://dribbble.com/ . This serves as inspiration if someone doesn't know who deserves a bonus. Once an accomplishment is posted it will also be cross posted into our company Campfire.
    - Caligula 16y ago
      Glad to see your from Ottawa. I am a masters student at Carleton's TIM program. Are you guys involved with the Ottawa startup scene? I am curious if there are any meetups/events/websites you can recommend.
      - xal 16y ago
        Lot's of people form Shopify show up for the regular startup drinks events. By the way, we love the Tony's Tim program. We hired 2 people directly from there. You should track our careers page and apply for some coop positions when they come up :-)
        Caligula 16y ago
        Yes Tony is great. I am doing a startup so no coop for me yet. I hope to meet you guys at a startup event sometime.
petercooper 16y ago
It seems like a great idea and if it works in practice, great. It's the sort of idea that could cause bad feelings to fester with the wrong group of people though. [Warning: gross generalizations ahead..] Think what happens when grumpy-but-reliable "server guy" doesn't ever get any bonuses because people don't understand what he does while "pretty girl on reception who buys candy bars for everyone on Thursday" does OK, etc.
- run4yourlives 16y ago
  This would be less of an issue with a smaller team like Shopify. As you get bigger you're right, it starts to become a popularity contest. At < 30 employees though, everyone knows who is making real contributions.
  - semanticist 16y ago
    I work at a company with ~30 employees, and I can tell you that you're not always right. There's certainly a lot of gossip and speculation, but at 30 people there's enough division that it's not automatically obvious that any given person is doing something worthwhile.
    - run4yourlives 16y ago
      I suppose that depends on how you define worthwhile, doesn't it? Rewards encourage behaviour that earns them.
      - semanticist 16y ago
        But that's exactly the problem with the 'unicorn' idea - the appearance of contributing to the company is more valuable than actually doing it. In a very small startup, you're not going to be able to fake it - but by the time the company's at 30ish people, it's not so clear cut. Who's the most valuable developer in my employer? I'm not on the dev team, so I don't know. They all seem to be doing great work, but I don't know the details. Do we credit the sales guy for landing this big contract, or the operations guys that made sure their trial system worked, or the devs who wrote their custom integration? If you're not involved in that project, it's going to be hard to judge whose contributions deserve what share of the reward. Basically, it's a neat reward system, but I don't think it scales very well at all.

Their Unicorn system for paying out bonuses is a great idea: Revenue sharing across the entire staff, but distributed based upon input from the staff.

by gr366 16y ago

Their Unicorn system for paying out bonuses is a great idea: Revenue sharing across the entire staff, but distributed based upon input from the staff.

xal 16y ago

Thank you. The idea is loosely based on a system we heard about that Second Life uses.

brown9-2 16y ago
If you don't mind, could you share some more about how this works? I'm curious about the mechanics of such a system, if you've set up rules saying "a bonus is paid out when 51% of the votes agree" (assuming that someone nominates someone for an award and an amount and the rest of the employees vote to approve it or not). Or is it just that everyone gets 1/Nth of the pie allocated to themselves and can dole out any slice of that 1/N however they like?
- xal 16y ago
  Here is how it works at the moment: * twice a month we determine how much money goes into the system based on how well we are doing * Money is split evenly amongst all employees and contractors who have been with us for more then 3 months. * This money can be arbitrarily spend as a bonus on any other colleagues. You can't spend it on yourself and you can't simply take it. It has to be spend on others. * Once a quarter the bonuses are paid out through payroll. * As you can see in the screenshot, everyone can show their accomplishments. This looks a lot like http://dribbble.com/ http://dribbble.com/ . This serves as inspiration if someone doesn't know who deserves a bonus. Once an accomplishment is posted it will also be cross posted into our company Campfire.
  - Caligula 16y ago
    Glad to see your from Ottawa. I am a masters student at Carleton's TIM program. Are you guys involved with the Ottawa startup scene? I am curious if there are any meetups/events/websites you can recommend.
    - xal 16y ago
      Lot's of people form Shopify show up for the regular startup drinks events. By the way, we love the Tony's Tim program. We hired 2 people directly from there. You should track our careers page and apply for some coop positions when they come up :-)
      - Caligula 16y ago
        Yes Tony is great. I am doing a startup so no coop for me yet. I hope to meet you guys at a startup event sometime.

petercooper 16y ago

It seems like a great idea and if it works in practice, great. It's the sort of idea that could cause bad feelings to fester with the wrong group of people though. [Warning: gross generalizations ahead..] Think what happens when grumpy-but-reliable "server guy" doesn't ever get any bonuses because people don't understand what he does while "pretty girl on reception who buys candy bars for everyone on Thursday" does OK, etc.

run4yourlives 16y ago
This would be less of an issue with a smaller team like Shopify. As you get bigger you're right, it starts to become a popularity contest. At < 30 employees though, everyone knows who is making real contributions.
- semanticist 16y ago
  I work at a company with ~30 employees, and I can tell you that you're not always right. There's certainly a lot of gossip and speculation, but at 30 people there's enough division that it's not automatically obvious that any given person is doing something worthwhile.
  - run4yourlives 16y ago
    I suppose that depends on how you define worthwhile, doesn't it? Rewards encourage behaviour that earns them.
    - semanticist 16y ago
      But that's exactly the problem with the 'unicorn' idea - the appearance of contributing to the company is more valuable than actually doing it. In a very small startup, you're not going to be able to fake it - but by the time the company's at 30ish people, it's not so clear cut. Who's the most valuable developer in my employer? I'm not on the dev team, so I don't know. They all seem to be doing great work, but I don't know the details. Do we credit the sales guy for landing this big contract, or the operations guys that made sure their trial system worked, or the devs who wrote their custom integration? If you're not involved in that project, it's going to be hard to judge whose contributions deserve what share of the reward. Basically, it's a neat reward system, but I don't think it scales very well at all.