Honesty, integrity, friendliness, respectfulness, driven are traits of general employability. That is not what this document is about. This is about what we deeply care about - and what makes us us.
We're inventing a new market, we're shaping new business models, we're setting up for the future. We are building the team with the same spirit.
We're a young startup. At the time of this writing, we are just 8 full time employees - including three founders. We are definitely expanding the team and are always running short of potential employees we can talk to. But that's a fire I'll let burn. I'll make it harder for myself, by means of this document, to find such amazing folks by restricting the universe to the people who deeply care about what we care about. We're a small team, we're energetic and we get shit done. We want people who join us to make things leaner, faster and more efficient - at the same time people we love working with. It just so happens that if we share the same values everyone seems to have more fun. We're all here to have fun - we just happen to be building a formidable company.
A hacker is distinct from a developer or a software engineer in the sense that a software engineer tries to build things the right way - applying the right theories, the best practices, the most scalable approaches. A hacker gets things to work - in the fastest possible way. Most of the things hackers do are use-and-throw. Or sometimes, just throw. A hacker will do things that may not pay any dividends in the future. But they get shit done today. Fast.
We want to work with hackers. People who don't crib about how things will break tomorrow. If we have a broken system tomorrow - that's a great problem to have. Our biggest problem right now is, will we make it to tomorrow? A hacker always has a resounding yes.
Many things a hacker tries will not work. Tried an ad - didn't work? Tried a website copy - didn't work? Tried a feature - didn't work? Trash it. We have to make things work. It's always an uphill battle to get something to work. But once you've tried your top 2-3 ideas to make something work; you must have the courage to pull it down, accept the failed experiment and move on to the next.
Again, we want to work with people who are go-getters, like hackers. We want every person on the team to uphold the hacker ethos.
We have no clue what will work. But we have beliefs. We need people who will embrace the lack of knowledge. We want to work with people who will take the plunge with us with the belief that we'll figure it out. Not just that you back yourself with your skills but also, you crave for such uncertainty. We want to work with people who will push us to the limits. People who will ask us uncomfortable questions - most of which we wouldn't have an answer to - and go try to figure them out.
Luxury isn't our biggest offering. We might pay you well but that's not the reason you'd join us. Many companies would pay better. We want to work with people who like to go lean and scramble. Limitations breed innovation. We don't mean to say we'd build artificial limitations around ourselves, but rather we'd throw ourselves into spots where we have little knowledge and levers.
We want to work with people who thrive on chaos.
Like a Yes-Man, but thoughtfully so. Someone who will step up for challenges, and usually when you throw a problem at them their first reaction is "I'll figure it out". Such people usually have a wide network. They don't try to cook up answers sitting in a room and thinking. They'll hit the street and always seem to have ways to arrive at the solution. Many-a-times looks magical. No one expected you to solve a problem, but you still managed to haggle your way to get it done? You're resourceful.
A resourceful person is different from a hacker. A resourceful person has a rich network of friends, peers and mentors who will help if she asks. They have read a lot and know where to look for help. They know how to make the most out of the resources they have built.
A resourceful person is good at "figuring it out", even in the absence of a lot of help.