Finding myself at Finder, Sydney
Find everything else but yourself in this office.
A few weeks ago — I was persuaded to join an tour (with CA) to visit their *award-winning* new Sydney office, which was conveniently placed next to the QVB.
Firstly, what does Finder do and why should I care?
Founded in 2009, the site offers visitors easy access to resources that help them understand various financial products in the Australian market.
In addition to detailed and customisable comparison tables, Finder offers product reviews, industry news, tips and advice for choosing the most suitable product.
Looking for the best credit card? Finder compares that and many more. Finder was cofounded by Fred Schebesta, who also built a series of businesses before doing Finder at 26. A frequent speaker at many startup events, Fred is one of Australia’s most active entrepreneurs in Australia.
Now to the office: Its spaceship-themed. Look at the hard angles! Walking out of the elevators, you are immediately greeted by a large mural of an astronaut. The lobby is decorated like a space airlock on the ISS.
One of their conference rooms:
And then a quick rundown on the history and company culture at Finder. Finder has 200+ employees and growing. After the presentation, we did a quick Q&A. There’s a ton of recognition awards for employees. Some of the values of Finder is based upon:
- Experiences are culture
- Cultire is about having the values you create
- People are priceless
- Encourage mistakes
Perks & Benefits for their employees:
- Hackdays to work on a project of their choice.
- Ringing of a bell (Wall-Street-style) to signify when major goals are met.
- Medals of Honour for time served at Finder
- Training & annual $2k education budget for employees.
Seniors are expected to mentor juniors. Juniors require passion + keen to learn new shit.
Team structure is based on product segments; eg. telco, insurance, etc.
They recently launched an OTC platform called HiveEx for cryptocurrencies.
Kitchen area below:
Other random notes: Finder has a samurai sword with a plaque about Google’s SEO rankings.
This cool Silicon Valley Poster:
Would I join Finder? Admitedly, Finder does a lot of cool things — but some advice they offered me was: “Think about the work you want to do”.
