5 Reasons Why I Really Enjoyed My 1st Month at First Circle
I’ve been working for almost 4 months already as a Product Designer at First Circle — a fintech company that provides better access to financing for SMEs in the Philippines.
I’ve interned at 5 different companies before, but none of them have been as enjoyable or as fulfilling as my first full-time work at First Circle so far. At the end of my first month, I wrote these reasons below why I was enjoying my time here then. These are also reasons why I continue to enjoy my time here at First Circle.
#1: I was able to schedule 1-on-1’s and work with lots of talented and interesting people in the company.
In my first week at First Circle, the only “formal” onboarding sessions I had was a 1-hour orientation with HR and a couple of 1-on-1’s with my boss, Christian San Jose.
Aside from that, it was left up to me to schedule with people from different departments. This was for me to gain context about what the entire business does, and what the end-to-end process is for acquiring and serving our customers.
Although I’d have liked that these meetings be set for me instead of me setting them, I also see why I had to set them on my own. Because First Circle is moving and growing so fast, there’s not always time for HR to have each department do orientations for me.
Instead, it’s better for me to assess what I need more information on, and schedule a meeting with someone who can give me that.
Thankfully, I got introduced to people from different business units, and I set 1-on-1’s with employees at different levels of the company. What was great was that everyone was happy to tell me about their workflows.
In my first two weeks, I did 18 1-on-1 meetings — with people from sales, data, product, risk, marketing, engineering, customer support, and even some executives. Each one was extremely valuable and enjoyable. Also, since First Circle is made up of people from all around the world, I enjoyed learning and interacting with people from different nationalities.
In doing these 1-on-1’s, I knew that I was doing “organizational research” — the type of design research that Erika Hall recommends designers do. And I definitely agree that doing this is important for new employees, especially for designers and product managers.
#2: We have free lunch and dinner in the pantry, which allows me to meet and get to know even more employees.
At First Circle, employees get free lunch and dinner. Brown and white rice, 2 kinds of meat or fish, plus healthy vegetables & fruits are served every meal. A company serving free lunch and dinner in the Philippines is almost unheard of — so of course, I’m a fan of it! I’m also a fan of how the free lunch and dinner allows me to meet and get to know other employees easily.
In past companies I’ve interned in, I usually just eat with my team members. Sometimes I even just eat alone in my table, like when there is no pantry or not enough space there to eat in.
However, I’ve gotten to know a lot of people just through these meals, and this helps me gain more context and make more friends in the company.
#3: We use amazing digital tools at work.
One thing I really love about startups is their usage of well-designed, valuable tech tools. Of course, we use Google Suite and Slack, like most other startups.
But aside from these, I also like how functional all the other tools we use are. These include Miro, Notion, Asana, BambooHR, Zendesk, HubSpot, Metabase, FullStory, JIRA, Xero, and LastPass.
I especially like how we use Miro, Notion, Asana, and Metabase at First Circle, because it makes information more transparent in the company. I would definitely recommend companies to try using Notion for sharing information within their company, Asana for assigning and tracking tasks, Miro for collaborative brainstorming, or Metabase for doing data querying and analytics.
#4: I like how cross-functional collaboration is embedded in our org structure and culture.
One thing I was taught in my first week was how First Circle uses an agile org structure, which is a modified version of Spotify’s famous Agile Scaling model.
At First Circle, we currently have 3 tribes. Each tribe is assigned to a specific part of the customer journey/funnel, and they work together to make that process easier or more profitable.
These allow people from different departments to collaborate better to achieve a set of common metrics/OKRs. Then, there are “guilds” of people from the same job function, so they can work with and support each other. Examples include a guild for product, sales, marketing, and support.
This is my first time being at a company with this type of structure, and I like it. It’s not perfect, but I see how it makes teams more focused and collaborative, and it lets me work with people from various departments and with varied skillsets towards shared goals. Our organizational structure is not set in stone though, so it may continue to evolve.
#5: I got to learn and apply First Circle’s “Behavior Design Process”, which was introduced and led by our VP of CX.
In my first month, our VP of Customer Experience, Sean Gill, introduced a new process that the company would go through in order to identify, prioritize, and solve problems at First Circle. This process is called the Behavior Design Process, or the “BDP”.
Sean developed this by combining concepts from the Double Diamond, Design Thinking, and Design Sprint processes, as well as frameworks and concepts from the field of Behavioral Economics.
Sean said that the reason this process is called “Behavior Design” is that it starts with the behaviors we are designing for. The process begins by examining the behaviors of the people whose lives we want to improve and diagnosing the behavioral bottlenecks preventing them from doing those behaviors.
About the BDP
The process has 5 main steps — exploring an opportunity by defining a clear problem, diagnosing it, designing solutions, experimenting and refining the effectiveness of those ideas, and then scaling the solutions.
Sean also introduced his MAPS framework, which is about how any behavior has 4 factors that lead to whether it is performed or not. These are the factors of Motivation, Ability, Physical Opportunity, and Social Opportunity.
It took a while for me to digest and understand the MAPS and Behavior Design Process, and it also took me a while to apply and practice. But what I especially liked about the BDP was how it encouraged people from different functions to sit down in the same room, discuss problems together, and ideate solutions collaboratively.
For example, towards the end of the month, I was able to join a “ behavioral diagnosis” session, which is done in the 2nd part of the BDP. This gathered people from sales, data, product, and engineering together, and we got to dissect why customers were not performing a behavior we wanted them to. We then categorized these reasons using the MAPS framework. It was a great way to be very specific about diagnosing the problem.
After the diagnosis session, I was also able to lead an ideation session with the same group. This was done in a format similar to the ideation sessions in Google’s Design Sprint process, and the group got to ideate great solutions together.
Although there are things to be improved in the Behavior Design Process, I’ve definitely learned a lot from it, and I think our problem solving at First Circle has improved because of it.
Aside from these 5 things I really liked about First Circle, I had these two realizations as well:
- It’s really the people that make a company both successful and fun to be in.
- Culture, org structure, and proper OKR setting are so important, and I see how these are very integral to a company’s growth and success.
Interested to work at First Circle?
I wrote this blog post with the goal of letting people know what it’s like to work at a high-performing and fast-growing company in the Philippines. I hope I achieved that with the things I wrote above.
However, I know that this post can attract more high-performing people to work at First Circle too — and maybe there’s a position available for you. I wasn’t tasked to write this by our People team, so I’m really just doing this to share about my experience.
We’re hiring for multiple positions in different departments, and I’d definitely say First Circle is a great place to work in. So if you think you’re a high-performer, and you want to work at this amazing company, then view our job openings here, or email us at design@firstcircle.com.
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If you liked this article, smash that clap button or leave a comment below! To learn more about First Circle, visit our website at firstcircle.ph.
Brian Tan is a Product Designer at First Circle and a co-founder of Effective Altruism Philippines. View his portfolio at briantan.xyz or follow him on Medium to stay updated on his articles.
