5 ms·

Not sure if it's in the same bucket as Valve or GitHub: at Mobile Jazz http://mobilejazz.com http://mobilejazz.com we're only 20 people (and that makes things a

by znq 12y ago

Not sure if it's in the same bucket as Valve or GitHub: at Mobile Jazz http://mobilejazz.com http://mobilejazz.com we're only 20 people (and that makes things a lot easier), but we've quite a different way of working compared to traditional companies: * We pay fair salaries. For most people in our team it's way more than what they've earned before. * We pay everyone the same (base) salary. Regardless of their role or title. * We pay quarterly bonuses based on pro-activity, responsibility and other performance indicators. * Everyone can work from wherever they like, still many people choose to work from our main office in Barcelona. (For example I work many weeks out of my camper van with 3G/4G connection from beautiful surf locations) * In theory, everyone can choose how much or how little they want. Not always possible, but we try to make it possible as much as we can. * We have managers, but they don't demand things. They are responsible that certain things happen, but decisions are being made collaboratively. * All managers are either engineers or designers. No bullshit managers. * We don't have a dedicated sales person. All work we get is from word-of-mouth and the first person a new client speaks to is either an engineer or designer (or both). * We play Mario Kart / StarCraft after lunch ;-) * We do a lot of sports activities together * We have a lot of BBQs on our terrace * We use some of the profits for fun internal experiments (small projects without an expected outcome other than having fun & learning). However, some of them are now actually turning into actual products: http://bugfender.com/ http://bugfender.com/ * MJ University: we take online classes together as a group * MJ Talk: weekly presentation about an interesting topic (not necessarily tech related). For example we had talks about personal finance (investing), achieving happiness, etc. * We encourage pair programming where it makes sense * MJ Weekend: once or twice every year we fly everyone to Spain, rent a nice villa with pool and have a good time together. Some pics: http://blog.mobilejazz.cat/work-life-balance-at-mobile-jazz/ http://blog.mobilejazz.cat/work-life-balance-at-mobile-jazz/ * MJ Retreats: we're going to remote places and work there together. At the moment six of us are on an island in Thailand. In February we go skiing in Austria. * We put a lot of effort in hearing everyone's opinion and feedback and try to put it into action With all that we've managed to attract and retain incredible talent, but most importantly we have a very pleasant time together. That said, we're a company optimizing on lifestyle and happiness, rather than profit. So this way of running a business is probably not applicable everywhere. (Edit: formatting, typos and a few additions)

soundlab 12y ago
Pretty amazing. Are the founders/management team working towards what might be considered a high rate of growth or an incremental one? In other words, is the staff level, revenue, expenses, and earnings in some way optimized at the current level? Kudos for focusing on your people- this mix is difficult to achieve for what I am assuming is a bootstrapped business and impossible in a venture-backed one.
- znq 12y ago
  To be honest, we haven't put too much thought into the business side of things. We've been growing organically from two people (the two founders, I'm one of them) to now 20 people and things always somehow worked out. We're still learning ourselves, though. Pretty much every day. Revenue and expenses are relatively stable. We've some really good quarters, and some not so good ones. But overall we're profitable. Sometimes we also spend a lot of money on "fun" things without thinking too much and then realize later that we need to be a bit more careful with spending ;-) In particular cash flow issues when waiting for the big corporations to pay their invoices. In terms of staff, we're actually at the moment not growing that much any more, simply because having too many people makes it difficult to run such a business as the "family & friends" feeling gets lost and we'd probably need to introduce more hierarchy, which we also don't want.
  - sergiosgc 12y ago
    From past experience, there are two danger points when growing: 25 employees and 50 employees. At 25, you stop meeting everyone every week. i.e. Random encounters no longer guarantee that every person in the company keeps good contact with everyone else. At 50 pax, you stop knowing everyone. i.e. You may know the list of employees by heart, but you don't really befriend them anymore. Of course, these are soft trigger points. You start noticing something different at 20 people, and are sure of what is happening at 30. It is definitely not the fault of the 25th hire :-) The remedy is always the same: Company culture. Growing slow is a good ingredient towards a good culture, albeit not the single ingredient.
    - 12y ago

by znq 12y ago

soundlab 12y ago

Pretty amazing. Are the founders/management team working towards what might be considered a high rate of growth or an incremental one? In other words, is the staff level, revenue, expenses, and earnings in some way optimized at the current level? Kudos for focusing on your people- this mix is difficult to achieve for what I am assuming is a bootstrapped business and impossible in a venture-backed one.

znq 12y ago
To be honest, we haven't put too much thought into the business side of things. We've been growing organically from two people (the two founders, I'm one of them) to now 20 people and things always somehow worked out. We're still learning ourselves, though. Pretty much every day. Revenue and expenses are relatively stable. We've some really good quarters, and some not so good ones. But overall we're profitable. Sometimes we also spend a lot of money on "fun" things without thinking too much and then realize later that we need to be a bit more careful with spending ;-) In particular cash flow issues when waiting for the big corporations to pay their invoices. In terms of staff, we're actually at the moment not growing that much any more, simply because having too many people makes it difficult to run such a business as the "family & friends" feeling gets lost and we'd probably need to introduce more hierarchy, which we also don't want.
- sergiosgc 12y ago
  From past experience, there are two danger points when growing: 25 employees and 50 employees. At 25, you stop meeting everyone every week. i.e. Random encounters no longer guarantee that every person in the company keeps good contact with everyone else. At 50 pax, you stop knowing everyone. i.e. You may know the list of employees by heart, but you don't really befriend them anymore. Of course, these are soft trigger points. You start noticing something different at 20 people, and are sure of what is happening at 30. It is definitely not the fault of the 25th hire :-) The remedy is always the same: Company culture. Growing slow is a good ingredient towards a good culture, albeit not the single ingredient.
  - 12y ago