Where We Work: Fueled

HomePolish is an NYC-based interior design startup that recruits the top young designers from the best firms and makes designing homes and offices simple by getting rid of designer fees and markups. Their team of 20 designers manage several hundred residential projects as well as a dozen of some of the coolest startups in Manhattan - including Codecademy, NewsCred and, this space, Fueled. 

Given Fueled’s reputation for some of the best looking mobile apps and web platforms in the market, it was important for their first SoHo office space, situated directly above FourSquare, to look and feel the part.

Vintage found accessories and custom artwork, including a city-space wall created with chalk, keep the large space feeling personal and were a cost-effective way to reflect Fueled’s eclectic identity. 

While the main area functions as a shared space, where Fueled designers and engineers can work at their own desks, a 12’ table, or a 14’ bar, the peripheral conference rooms reflect the various types of meetings Fueled members have - moving from dimly lit, tech-heavy spaces to more open, ideating spaces with large whiteboard walls. 

Lastly, what’s an office without a snack wall? 

Black Friday? No, Hack Friday. Buy Less, Make More

I was walking through the mall earlier this week after meeting a friend for lunch when I noticed a typical Black Friday ad. I hate Black Friday but for some odd reason I was drawn to this ad. Maybe it was the beautiful typography because I definitely didn’t care to know about the extended mall hours. 

When Large Mall Retail Goes Terribly Wrong

Black Friday makes all of us look stupid. Prices aren’t the only thing that drop that day; it also leads to massive declines in rationality in the name of doorbusters.

We’ve heard the crazy stories before. Stories of people getting pepper sprayed, stabbed, shot and trampled to death. Sounds like a something out of a gang war zone but the only difference is this mob’s battle ground is malls, Wal-marts and Toys’R Us parking lots across the country and their weapon of choice is the credit card.

There is No Risk of Bodily Harm in Online Retail

Why not save yourself from the headaches by getting what you need online. At this point, online shopping is a fairly standard method of retail, even for most brick and mortar retailers. Online shopping is expected to grow 15-18% in the United States alone over the next six weeks. 

With online shopping, you get what you need right from the comfort of that chair you’re sitting in right now without wasting away hours in parking lots and line-ups. Most Black Friday sales allow for rush delivery, so you don’t need to bring your gun to the party. You can spend five minutes shopping for stuff, and spend the rest of the time shipping products.

Make Black Friday More Like Hack Friday

Be a producer, not just a consumer. And as producers we need an alternative to Black Friday, a Hack Friday! Where it’s less about buying and more about making.  If you have to buy something, why not buy an Arduino board, a Raspberry Pi or a windmill starter kit?  None of these things are on sale, but they’re all ridiculously cheap to begin with - and at least they serve a purpose.  You can focus your energy on thoughtful, creative production whether it’s by hacking on software or writing that blog or book you’ve been meaning to start.  The deep sense of satisfaction that comes from the creative process helps us to feel more alive and allows us to learn new skills while expanding our horizons.

Boycott Black Friday by creating something. Take the rest of day off like your colleagues and spend it hacking on something you haven’t had time to work on.  Or even better, take the day off and spend time with good people.

But whatever you do don’t spend it trying to get a deep discount on a new TV.  You just might get trampled.

How-to: Inspire and Motivate Your Startup!

We’re back with something new! This time we’re focusing on a practical exercise in building a rewarding culture. If the mood in the office is a bit bleak, trapped in stagnation, or stuck in a lull of dullness that maybe overcoming the desire to do great work then we’ve got a treat for you! Let’s begin with a primer on how to inspire and motivate your startup.

Motivation vs Inspiration

Before we begin, let’s distinguish between the definition of ‘motivation’ and ‘inspiration’. Motivation is the reason we do what we do while inspiration is the process of being stimulated (esp. something creative). Some reasons for motivation include: achievement, affiliation, competence, power, or attitude. Spiritualists claim that inspiration actually precedes motivation and that motivation should never be our sole guiding force in life. Often when people ask me what we do at Busy Building Things (BBT), I reply by saying that we’re an ‘inspiration shop’ because we try to capture the imagination of creative enterprising individuals. We’re trying to bring you the best content, community, and nifty goods available so that you can be stimulated to make something amazing. The process is entirely up to you.

Cost

Think of motivation as the engine and inspiration as the gas. Inspiration prompts us to achieve great things but motivation is what keeps us going. The budget of course completely depends upon what you’d like to achieve and what you’re willing to spend. Nonetheless, it is important to note that motivating and inspiring your team doesn’t have to break the bank. As a matter of fact, there are many ways you can do so without having to compensate them outright. A large salary might help you recruit the best talent, but that doesn’t mean they’ll stick around. And therefore it is imperative to maintain a positive work environment. Perhaps you can start with a compliment while at the same time focusing on creating non traditional benefits to retain your workforce. Get them involved in building your company’s culture. Another idea might be distribute digital or physical totems to create an inspiring atmosphere. Stickers, buttons, or special apparel may help reinforce organizational values especially outside the office. In any case, you’ll be investing a combination of either time, money, or creativity. But building a strong organizational culture will pay off in spades.

Suggest Reading: Drive

In his bestselling book ‘Drive’, author Daniel H. Pink argues that motivation in the 21st century is derived from three pillars: autonomy, mastery and purpose.

Method: A comparison between ‘The Facebook Way’ and BBT

Inspiration is a great way to contribute to your organization’s culture. As shown above, there are tangible and intangible aspects to culture and you can make contributions to both. For example, Facebook’s approach to building a company studio and workshop dedicated to churning out company artwork was decidedly small, nimble, and low-tech despite being a large organization. It’s called the ‘Analog Research Lab’ and can be thought of as a startup within a startup. A couple of Facebook employees chose to contribute time outside of work towards the project and began screen printing motivational posters.

Zuckerberg’s version of ‘Real Artists Ship.’ A great reminder to focus on the bigger picture especially when the market is irrationally devaluing your stock.

Eventually their experiment started to catch on as more employees became interested in the project and was later adopted as a company-wide initiative across its sixty offices. What started out as something small ballooned into something bigger than the sum of its parts due to the actions of a couple of employees. However they were only able to continue their work because of the decision to dedicate more resources (e.g. time, space, tools, etc) towards the project and encouraging wider participation within the company both creatively and physically.

Software

It’s important to keep lines of communication open especially when addressing the concerns of your employees. This demand is being met by many companies such as Salesforce, Yammer, and Jive. The recently acquired startup Rypple, provides an interesting software solution aimed at the HR industry that does away with performance reviews in favour of a collaboration tool that allows for real-time feedback and recognition. This particular feature stuck out to me when I first heard of them a couple of years ago. The ‘Thanks’ function is the equivalent of a digital kudos or pat on the back that can be exchanged between team members. They also accumulate on a user’s profile which can then be viewed to see one’s impact within an organization. The badges one earns can even be customized with in-house icons and specific achievements can be awarded with higher points. It’s gamification in the enterprise!

Startup Training Wheels

This idea errs more on the side of motivation rather than inspiration and also sounds a bit counterintuitive, but due to the psycho-socio-economic shift to entrepreneurship as the preferred contemporary lifestyle, it may be beneficial for your startup to actually encourage individual entrepreneurship. There are large companies that already encourage similar behaviours. Google, for example, is noted for its ‘20 percent time’ which it allots employees for personal projects. The initiative is responsible for bearing ubiquitous properties such as Gmail and Google News. As a startup, the opportunity here is larger since it is harder for bigger companies to be agile. Furthermore, startups (while in ‘startup mode’) generally value collaboration and share a logical disdain for structure and bureaucracy. Depending on your location, recruiting talent can be challenging since more people are looking to start their own businesses, which means that they may be competing for the same financing once available to your startup. Therefore, it may be prudent to offer entrepreneurial training and advice as an added bonus instead of simply competing with other startups on salary/perks. Startups like Path, Redfin, and Square are already experimenting with this concept.

The ROI - Return on Inspiration

A company with a great culture attracts top talent which in turn spurs further creativity and innovation. It is important to look at the bigger picture. A contemporary trend within tech startups for example is to adopt a ‘lean startup methodology’. Eric Ries, one of the proprietors of this vision refers to himself as the ‘father of the lean startup movement’, but the concept of ‘lean’ in a business organization actually finds it roots in Kaizen which simply means continuous improvement. In Japanese, kai means to ‘take apart’ and zen means ‘to make good.’ Ideally, someone’s job should be self-fulfilling and how they feel at work should not be an impediment—but a rather a catalyst—to the work itself. The Kaizen methodology which propelled Toyota into the company it is today affords ownership over the process to its employees in a collaborative environment which also lends itself to the ‘achievement’ type of motivation mentioned above. In other words, “accomplishment is important for its own sake and not for the rewards that accompany it”: inspiration and motivation without compensation!

This is especially important in end-customer facing (or B2C) organizations as an employee’s experience often impacts their interactions or quality of service with clients. Look no further than to Zappos for an example of a company that understands this concept very well. Their commitment to company culture supersedes their commitment to customer service. Their rationale is that quality of service will be a natural extension of a positive work environment: happy employees = happy customers. And the employees are beholden to that philosophy. Non-call centre employees are trained on delivering customer service for two weeks and vice-versa. Their two-thousand dollar offer to recruits to quit is arguably an attempt at ‘failing fast’ (another tenet of the lean startup). They’re testing and improving their recruitment process because customer service (i.e.  employees) is one of their competitive advantage. In order to work for Zappos, you have to be a ‘cultural fit.’

According to Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, author of their “Delivering Happiness”, the core values of an organization do not factor into its success as much the very existence of core values and whether the organization facilitates its adherence. It almost sounds like a very happy cult. And finally, in the spirit of continuous improvement, Zappos performance reviews are directly tied to their core values. As a matter of fact, Zappos has a Kaizen Team within their Customer Loyalty Department which offers continuous training for call center staff who are tasked with maintaining the happiness of their very loyal customer base.

Further Reading:

Theories of Motivation
Review of the Lean Startup by Jon Miller, gemba panta rei
Motivation vs Inspiration - Pat Mussieux
Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh: Delivering Happiness
Kaizen for the Shopfloor
Motivation—How to Inspire Your Staff Without Financial Compensation by Matt Ferguson et al.

Notable Founder: “Monkey Business” with Ben Chestnut, co-founder and CEO of Mailchimp

A first in a series of monthly interviews Busy Building Things will have with all sorts of interesting builders. This month we got the chance to chat with Ben Chestnut, co-founder and CEO of Mailchimp. If you haven’t heard yet, things have been going bananas for them lately and we were excited to learn more about their wonderful product.

BBT: Mailchimp has been around for a little over a decade  over a million users now (congrats!). Where do you find the inspiration to keep going? 

Ben: Our customers. We love getting their ideas and feedback, then “reading between the lines” to dream up what they *really* need, then build it. As our customers change, their needs change, and it keeps things interesting.

BBT: As a formerly aspiring Industrial Designer, do you still get an itch to make something physical?

Ben: I absolutely sucked at Industrial Design. I’m too impatient to make physical objects. Moving pixels is so much cleaner, because there’s no sandpaper involved.

BBT: We’re big fans of Mailchimp and use the service for our newsletter so the “easter eggs” are always a pleasant surprise. Apart from doing it for our amusement, what kind of effect does personality have on your customers?

Ben: Hmm, nobody’s ever asked it that way before. They usually go into, “It must be great to have all that loyalty to your brand” which always bugs me, because we’re not trying to get loyalty. I mean, who wants customers that stick around, even when you suck, just because they’re “loyal”? I want people to stick around because of our merit. But back to your question. When we started MailChimp, all we wanted to do with this “fun personality” stuff was make it easier to talk to our customers. When I tried to write formally and sound big and corporate, I never wrote, because it was too hard. When I could just write like I speak, it got easier. So I guess the effect is that maybe our customers are more likely to actually listen when we talk? Or at least less likely to vomit from the corporate-speak. I’ll take either.

BBT: Tell us about the importance of “investing in your customers.” You’ve given out tons of swag in the form of t-shirts and colouring books, but then Mailchimp announced something huge: a million dollar integration fund. How has it panned out so far? 

Ben: I wouldn’t call this “investing in our customers.” On the surface, that sounds nice. But the truth is, when you invest in something, you’re *expecting* greater returns. And I can’t honestly say we’re expecting anything back from our customers in return for the t-shirts, coloring books, etc. All of that stuff is simple business. We’ve done the math, and it just worked out cheaper to send nice stuff than to spend it on the usual mix of Google Adwords, TV, radio spots, etc. Plus, we have fun making that stuff, and we have even *more* fun surprising and delighting our customers with gifts. Which is the reason we won’t open a store and sell this stuff, even though our customers are begging us to let them pay for it. That would take away our fun! In an ironic way, this is a much more selfish act than a giving one. I’m sorry if that sounds cold and calculating, but I actually think it’s more human and honest than investing and expecting returns. 

The Integration Fund has been ironic as well. When our API was new, we had to write all our integrations with other apps. Then, as we got more awareness of our API, other people approached us–about building their integrations for them. They tried to offer revenue sharing and stuff, but there’s no time for that kind of paperwork. So we did this fund, where we could tell people, “No. But here’s some money so you can go build it.” Turns out integrations attract more customers, who have lots of different needs (see my answer to question #1) which begets even more integrations. So we’ve had to form *another* team to build more integrations for the new customers that we got from the prior integrations. 

BBT:E*Trade had a baby, Energizer had a bunny, and Coca-Cola has cute polar bears. It’s become evident that mascots are the way to go not only for consumer products (B2C), but apparently e-mail marketing as well (B2B). What do can you share about your experience with spokescharacters and what we can expect from ‘Freddie’ moving forward?

Ben: Having a spokeschimp has had one big, major advantage (which I never realized until recently): it scared away a lot of stuffy, corporate customers. Granted, I love money and I’ll even take it from stuffy corporate people, but we probably would’ve killed ourselves in the process. By starting out with more tech savvy, cheerful, primate-loving, self-serve customers, we developed a stronger culture that embraces creativity and innovation. Which has helped make life more fun for everybody involved. And what’s really fun is that the innovation seems to be attracting the big stuffy corporate customers anyway (in spite of the monkey business). 

BBT: Let’s talk about the (rocket) science and art of making things. You talk about chaos as a key ingredient for creativity. How do you strike a balance between chaos and order?

Ben: Keep chaos and order so damn busy, neither has time to get cocky about himself. 

BBT: You also said something worthy of a Busy Building Things print “Humans want to create lots of cool stuff, then they want to see other people using that stuff. A lot.” As a manager of a creative company how do you create and maintain an environment that allows people to keep making cool things?

Ben: Please don’t turn that into a print. It was the worst slide in my presentation! The context of that slide was that upper management tends to blabber incessantly about making creative *companies* and don’t realize that companies *can’t* be creative. It’s the people inside that are creative. And that’s not meant to be a wishy-washy “love your employees” statement, either. If you want your company to be known for its creativity, structure it so that people are–okay are you ready for this–always busy building things. Seriously, you should send me a couple free prints for that one. We don’t think it’s about designing a collaborative office space, or using whiteboard paint everywhere, or having an ultra-powerful intranet where people share ideas. We have all that stuff, but we think creativity comes from keeping deadlines and dev cycles short and fast-paced, so people don’t have time to over think or groupthink stuff. Keep people making stuff, making mistakes, making peace with their mistakes, making stuff again and again and again.  

BBT: We’d love to give our community a behind the scenes glimpse of your actual workspace. Could you send over a picture of your desk, office or some of your tools of the trade to go along with the interview? Show us where the magic happens as they say!

Ben: My desk is an embarrassing mess. So I’m enclosing a snippet of the only interesting part of it: an A-Team van that my 4-year-old thought was lame (he’ll learn), a bullet I found in our parking lot (it should probably be some poignant reminder of how fragile or short life can be, but I just keep it because I never, ever find cool stuff on the ground), and my iPhone dongle-thing. Sadly, the iPhone probably would’ve been the coolest thing on my desk, but I had to use it to take this picture. 

How To Become A Hustler

The Art of the Hustle

There is a fundamental disconnect between the way most people see a hustler and what a hustler sees when she or he looks in the mirror. On a bad day, a hustler sees themselves as someone who needs to improve drastically. On a good day, a hustler sees themselves as someone who could have done something different to improve their hustle. The consistency is the fact that a hustler always strives to be better.

The Art of a Hustler is not simple. In fact, it’s quite complex and the combination of a variety of different attributes are what truly make a hustler in the modern sense of the word an outstanding professional and the key to many organizations success and growth. The first piece to recognize is that there is key difference between wanting to be a hustler and becoming a hustler. This is an issue sweeping North America as young professionals are sitting back watching others live life to the fullest without taking the steps to achieve a lifestyle that they truly want. Many of these individuals have amazing and inspirational aspirations but that’s all they have.

They don’t take the actions to support the fact that they are actually out there chasing these ambitious goals. As a result of having unfulfilled goals - These people find themselves in a depressing and an often anxious state. From here, they begin to make excuses on why they are unable to achieve the goals and dreams that they truly want. A true hustler however, doesn’t make excuses. They show up. And by showing up I mean they make the effort and put in the hours to get closer to achieving the life of their dreams. As Abraham Lincoln said,

Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.

The combination of aspirations and ambition is truly the fuel that drives a Hustler. A hustler has a vision (although often blurry) of what they want their legacy to look like when they leave this world. In this scene from the movie, Pursuit of Happiness we find a father providing his son with hustler-esque advice regarding ambition and aspirations:

Hustlers also strive to achieve excellence in the following areas: Value Hardwork The opposite of a hustler is someone who doesn’t give their 100%. Unconsciously these people don’t put in 100% because if they fail their talent can be questioned. However, by putting in 80% and failing they can look at those around them and say: “If I would have worked harder, I would have succeeded.” This is not the mentality of a hustler. A hustler takes personal responsibility for failure more often than they will take responsibility for success. A hustler puts in the blood, sweat and tears with one intent - success. They don’t see failure as an option and will do all they can to achieve their goals. This determination is the driving factor behind their obsession with working hard. A hustler strives to perfect their craft daily and doesn’t flinch when someone tells them their idea is crazy. An example of the hustler mentality when it comes to hard work can be seen in NFL Linebacker Ray Lewis:

Be like a duck. Remain calm on the surface and paddle like hell underneath -Michael Caine

Understand Smartwork

A Hustler is not a mule. (See: What is a “mule” in a start-up company?) A hustler believes and recognizes that they have a core advantage over any one else. This advantage is not in their ability to work hard but instead in their ability work smarter. For years, there have been books published and seminars given promoting different methods to persuade and influence people. A common suggestion found in these recommendations includes the idea of “Make 500 sales calls and sell 5 of product X”. Meaning, if you’re willing to work harder than everyone else you’ll have a slight advantage. And by slight, they mean one additional sale. What these guys are missing is something called Smartwork.

Smartwork is the ability to understand the dynamics of a conversation. It’s all about frame control and understanding the cues that people give off unconsciously that provide you with an opportunity to control the frame. A Hustler is a lifelong student of Social Dynamics and Negotiation. They enjoy the company of people but enjoy analyzing their interactions so they can become a better communicator. 

Hustlers need to understand how to sell everything from a product to an idea.  Joseph Hsieh discloses a variety of ways in his answer that would benefit you in negotiations. Here are a few things I’d add:

• Never Back Track Yourself
• Listen Attentively & Show it
• Leave Arguments for the Playground
• Don’t Bluff - This isn’t Poker
• When all else fails - “Give’em an offer they can’t refuse”
• Be Upfront and Be Blunt.

Love your Hustle

If you are honestly not obsessed with your hustle then you will not achieve hustler status. A hustler loves the product or service they are creating and believes that it is solving an issue for those around them. At the end of the day, to do something well you need to enjoy doing it. Hustlers have found what they enjoy doing and wake up every morning excited to get closer to fulfilling their aspirations and goals.

NOTE: The definition of hustle can be defined in two different ways. The first, is in the traditional sense where it’s someone who works hard for what they do in a legitimate way and the other is one who works hard yet makes profit by taking advantage of others weaknesses. This article is in reference to the first definition.

This post was contributed by blogger and entreprenuer Ross Simmonds. Let us know what you think in the comments below or on HN. 

Photo credit: Tattly

Just Shipped.

We’ve spent the last little while building Busy Building Things (BBT) and putting the final touches on it. Now that we’ve been slowly rolling out access, we wanted to introduce you to the blog. We hope to delight with you valuable and relevant content in hopes of inspiring you to achieve your goals as a builder.

But first some background on how BBT came about. It began as a motto that we adopted and encouraged our peers to as well. We then asked, “How can we make this movement more tangible?” So we resolved to create products that spoke to the ethos of the momentum we were trying to build. An example of this is our ‘Real Artists Ship’ print by our awesome designer Andrew which brings the late Steve Job’s words to life. We shared it with the world and suddenly buzz started to build around what would eventually become a full-fledged inspiration shop.

Make Something Amazing and Share it with the World

However, this is just the beginning. BBT is committed to entrepreneurs, creatives, artistans, and tinkerers everywhere. We want to build a global community of builders and we’re keenly interested in what you’re working on. By using the #busybuildingthings hashtag on Twitter or Instagram, your tweet or photo will show up directly in our creators community. Members will then able to see and share your stuff thus exposing you to a greater audience and connecting you with other builders. Moving forward, we’ll be supporting more services and experimenting with this feature to better reflect activity occurring within our community.

The last bit we’d like to discuss is content. We’ll be publishing a variety of curated content that we think you’ll love including in-depth articles, interviews & profiles, visual goodies, tips & tricks, and promos/giveaways. Excited? Great! Now back to the hustle…

Let’s Build,

#TeamBBT