Company: eHouse Studio
Location: Charleston, SC
Customer since: September, 2013
Interviewee: Christine Quinn, Cofounder and Director of Operations
1. What are some differences between the company you were 2 years ago, and the company you are today?
GOODS: In the past 2 years we have grown in size (people and physical space), we have a great team, a new office that we love, and our projects continue to challenge us in a good way. We have continued to showcase our work in the luxury real estate space and have now moved into the retail eComm world of design as well. We love problem solving for our clients and their customers and really love when we see the real life results.
BADS: If you are growing (which we always hope to be growing in some aspect,) there is always learning and change which is not always easy. So growth is kind of a double edged sword, you need to grow to stay successful but it can be a challenge at times. We have also found that in the past couple of years, we are spending less time putting out the daily tactical “fires” on projects and needing to spend more time on the strategic vision of the company itself. This is only bad because there needs to be about 48 hours in every day instead of only 24. Another exciting challenge!
UGLIES: I think the growth thing could potentially be an ugly too because when you are trying to find your way, you make mistakes but it is how you recover that can has the potential to take the “ugly” and bump it into the “good” category!
2. Your company has been around a while! What advice do you have for other company’s ramping up their people and workplace operations?
Nobody has it all figured out and the sooner you realize this and can have honest and transparent conversations with your team, the better. At House, we always say there are no perfect employees, managers or owners and the sooner we realize that we all have flaws, the better we will work together as a team to embrace and leverage each individuals strengths and help them out with their weaknesses. As far as operations, we have been trying to focus on process and then finding a tool to support a process instead of the vice versa. KinHR has really helped me by providing a place to organize information that is relevant to the team, create process for employees and also help me see where I have areas that need operational improvements.
3. What are some of the most significant milestones or events at your company in the past two years?
In the past 2 years we have gone through a visual re-branding which has been a lot of fun. We timed the release of our new logo with the timing of our new office renovation and move in. The new office has enabled us to host events and be more involved in the community which has been for us and we hope for others as well. We have also been working on some really exciting projects which will release in the next year so we are pumped up about sharing those soon.
4. What’s the most personally fulfilling aspect of running your shop?
Personally the most fulfilling aspect of my job is seeing people grow both professionally and personally. We strive to create a place where people can be happy and work and in life. I love when someone on the team is falling in love, getting married, having kids, joining a sports team, etc. Anything that makes them a happy individual which also resonates at the office is very fulfilling.
Company: The Starter League
Location: Chicago, IL
Customer since: July, 2013
Interviewee: Vince Cabansag, Director of Operations
1. What are some differences between the company you were 2 years ago, and the company you are today?
We work remotely. We used to stand-ups every morning Monday through Friday at 7:50am. When I told Neal, one of our founders, that I was moving to Wisconsin for my wife’s job, he said “Let’s figure it out.” I’ve been train commuting to Chicago three times a week for the past two and a half years — and it’s been just fine. That started a trend where our team members make their own schedules. These days everyone has ownership over their schedule. It’s more about the body of work instead of a body at the office.
We’re still trying to figure it out. In 2011, we were the only coding school that existed — that’s before the tidal wave of bootcamps. Now, we’re one of many throughout the world. Our challenge is finding students, as I suspect that’s similar for other schools. Whenever someone goes through our program, they’re more than satisfied with the instruction and the skills they obtain. We’re proud of being the first school, but more so, that we teach raw beginners how to code, design and build web applications.
We leverage tools to scale our work. We’re a smaller team than we were two years ago. That means everyone has taken on more, but we’ve also leveraged tools to help scale that additional work. Our bread and butter tools are Basecamp and Hipchat — they’re the main way we communicate with one another. Hatchbuck has been great for managing our applications and enrollment pipeline. And I wouldn’t be able to manage our human resources without KinHR, ZenPayroll, Bill.com, Maxwell Health and our controller, Red Granite.
2. Your company has been around a while! What advice do you have for other company’s ramping up their people and workplace operations?
Start with things that don’t scale. It’s effective in the beginning. When you start feeling the pain of a manual process, identify the choke points and develop a solution. Automating your processes won’t happen overnight, so it’s okay to try different tools before deciding on what you want long term. That will cost you less resources than building your own piece of software.
3. What are some of the most significant milestones or events at your company in the past two years?
We built a product.While it cost us a lot of resources to build a product, there was nothing out there that was remotely close to what we needed. We teach a lot of students. And we needed a simple tool to enrich and manage our student’s learning experience. That’s one of our big accomplishments — building and shipping Lantern.
4. What’s the most personally fulfilling aspect of running your shop?
Opening doors. Not in the literal sense, but in the way that gives people new and exciting opportunities in life. We’re not dogmatic about our student outcomes. Not every student that goes through The Starter League needs to become a professional developer. Many of our alumni have gone on to start companies like (We Deliver and Launch Pad Lab). They’ve also become designers, developers, product managers, growth hackers, or have gone back to their jobs to add more value to their business. That’s what I get excited about.
Company: Yellow Pencil
Location: Edmonton, Canada
Customer since: January, 2014
Interviewee: Scott Baldwin, Director of User Experience and Design
1. What are some differences between the company you were 2 years ago, and the company you are today?
A lot has changed over the past two years – likely more than our list below – but here’s some of the highlights:
We’re a better team. While we’ve always had a great group of staff that is friends as much as colleagues, there’s been a real change in how they collaborate and work together. They are now a team that supports one another continually, day-in and day-out. The only down part of team change is that we’ve had some great people leave us for other opportunities too.
We have a significantly better portfolio of work. A lot of our projects two years ago were just getting started or in-progress. Many projects have launched, and this now allows us to better tell our story and let people understand our capabilities.
Our marketing and communications has improved. We launched a new website for our company last year (it took a bit longer than planned given other work priorities), but it’s been great for telling our story. Check it out at: yellowpencil.com
Our processes have improved, but we still have a long way to go. As a growing agency we didn’t invest in setting a lot of these things up when we were smaller, so we’re playing a bit of catch-up here. Some examples:
Simple, yet obvious people stuff like time off, vacations, sick time – like we can do and manage with KIN now. Thank you!
Internal work processes. We’re still doing work here, but there are some really solid tools and methods in place that our teams can rally around.
We’re still about the same size as we were two years ago. Deep down I think we would have liked to be bigger, but this seems to be the right size right now for us. We’re nimble, able to pivot, and have a diverse practice in two Canadian cities, with clients in Canada and the U.S. that we love to work with.
2. Your company has been around a while! What advice do you have for other company’s ramping up their people and workplace operations?
Be transparent – make sure your team knows what’s going on with the business – talk about your sales, your profit, and what needs to happen to be successful and grow
Take the time to listen and involve your staff – seek input before coming to conclusions and involve them in setting a direction for key initiatives.
3. What are some of the most significant milestones or events at your company in the past two years?
Over the past two years we’ve really matured as a company. We’ve been able to improve our team and develop our people to better meet our customers needs; established and built out some of our processes to more consistently do our work; and have grown the diversity of our portfolio of work. Some significant milestones:
We invested in building a strong and capable management team that can help our business grow in the long-term. We introduced this in 2014 and have found it invaluable for keeping our entire company focused on what matters. They’ve been integral to creating a team that’s more aware of our business.
Lean and Kanban. We made a move to Lean and Kanban methods in 2014 and it’s really allowed us to more effectively understand the work we have, complete the work we need to, and understand when and why we have blockers to getting work done.
4. What’s the most personally fulfilling aspect of running your shop?
The most fulfilling aspect of our work has been transforming how our customers work and do business online. A lot of our work is in the public sector (yes, we do private sector too), and it’s amazing to see them become truly web-first organizations, change the way they communicate, do business online, and grow their internal teams and capacity as a result of our work and collaborative approach to getting it done.