In our last post I described that building a business is like ultra endurance racing: You sometimes have to take everything apart and reassemble it in a better way to be successful. The essence of this article is: You need a good foundation for your business. Then you get a better version after you rebuild it.
Timo and I founded Tektit four years ago. We have doubled the revenue of our company every year since and we as well increased the number of Tektitans.
When we first articulated the foundation of our company we wrote down the reason why Tektit exists as well as the principles that are guiding our path.The reason Tektit exists - our purpose if you will - is:
“We create a world in which work makes people happy and fulfilled.”
Of course the first version was much more clumsy. But it allowed us to create a story that describes our principles and why we believe they are good principles.
In our careers of more than fifteen years before Tektit, Timo and I have worked for multiple companies of different sizes from startups to multi-billion dollar corporations. We as well have worked in different roles in these companies: Product Owner, Software Engineer, Software Architect, Division Head, CTO, VP Product, CPO.
We always believed that making the next career step would finally allow us to do the things in a way that ensures the best result for customers, employees, the environment, the shareholders - and us too. It turned out that this was a false assumption.
Whilst we for sure held more power, we as well needed to protect against blaming and power fights from peers. This was neither making us happy nor was it fulfilling at all. The things we learned from this fifteen years are:
We believe in transparency. The more employees know the better the decisions they take, the better for the company.
We believe in decentral decisions. Decisions need to be made quickly. To do this they need to be taken as close to the data and people that need to deal with the consequences of this decision as possible.
We believe in quality over profit. If we focus on outstanding results for our clients, our clients will continue to work with us and will recommend us to their network.
We believe that every person gives their best. If people make mistakes it is not on purpose. Allow everyone to take responsibility, accept mistakes and ensure to not repeat them. This leads to constant improvement.
We believe in informal hierarchies. This means that the person who is the most capable of leading in a certain situation will lead no matter their formal rank or title.
We believe in change. The world constantly changes. Just because something works well today does not mean it will tomorrow.
This set of beliefs was there when we started as two people and is now embodied deeply within every Tektitan. This is what makes Tektit and this is what allows us to constantly question our processes and tools. This is what enables us to take our company apart and rebuild it in a better version. Again and again.
Do you have experience with rebuilding a company? Feel free to share them with us and leave a comment.