Inside Mercuryo
It’s no longer about what you can give to the company but more about what the company offers.
Company culture is everything. Today, when the career’s paradigm shifts, it’s no longer about what you can give to the company (as it’s often pretty obvious) but more about what the company offers.
Mercuryo’s entire journey is centred around the team. We are diverse and yet united by the shared passion for challenging the status quo, breaking down boundaries, and making tangible change in the world of payments. Our teammates work from the UK, the US, Russia, Montenegro, Georgia, Turkey, Armenia, Latvia, and other European countries. We are proficient in software development, sales, marketing, design, business development, and international legal affairs, and everyone is equally passionate about transforming the future of finance.
Besides, we’re constantly pushing our learning capabilities. In 2021, Mercuryo introduced its business incentive, a benefits programme that covers the educational needs of the team, be it professional courses, study resources, or conference tickets. On top of that, we host weekly online and offline meetups to share the knowledge accumulated by Mercuryo’s professionals.
Mercuryo’s products reflect the openness and honesty we treat our users and partners with. A transparent fee system is one of the most evident confirmations of our commitment. At the same time, we innovate and purposefully disrupt to deliver cutting edge capabilities.
Despite moving fast, we’re not in a rush — we believe great products take time to flourish. We’re committed to making real change, but we aren’t rushing. It’s this environment of growth that helps to build a product that solves the problems of businesses worldwide.
The New Year Project: Waving Stock Pictures Goodbye
The Christmas holiday season is always the busiest. Yet we believe that apart from the traditional goal-setting and final report preparations, there should be space for some fun and magic.
‘Sending out gifts just for doing so is a doomed affair. Besides, it’s plain boring,’ — says Asya Aleshina, Mercuryo’s Art Director. ‘So we’ve turned our Christmas present-making into a little ceremony, raising the bar a little higher each year. Several departments took part in masterminding the concept, design, and manufacturing. Together we’ve figured out that challenges do not scare us. On the contrary, we live for them!’
Even though the pandemic was not yet over, we dared to stay audacious and went with a travel kit as a central theme. In 2022, we’ve made several sets of gifts dedicated to our partners, Mercurians, and their kids. The gift packs were slightly different, containing stylish, twinkly postcards, Christmas tree ornaments, eye-masks, branded hoodies, jigsaw puzzles, and travel pillows.
Once the finished goodies arrived at the office, the entire team couldn’t take their eyes off them. And just like that, we collectively decided to organise a Christmas photoshoot aiming to capture this memory, show off our stunning colleagues, share the team spirit with potential Mercurians, and have some good old holiday season fun.
Since Christmas and New Year are always about magic, we sprinkled it all over in the wild mix of Twin Peaks, Alice in Wonderland, and Gucci campaigns. The final product, an artsy pitch deck containing all the pictures, was built on the bold contrast of dry technical drawings and dreamy images of Mercurians.
Apart from delivering a bunch of epic pictures and fun times, this photoshoot helped us gain confidence. Now we can affirm Mercuryo’s design team is able to independently produce the company’s own visuals instead of using soulless stock pictures.
If you think about it, every revolution, even the financial one, is a very personal mission and should be treated accordingly.
The Egypt Trip: Through the Blizzard to the Desert
The rapid-growing Mercuryo team is building its own corporate culture on the go. Scattered worldwide, we try to implement the most relevant of trend-setting HR practices and create a healthy and inspiring work environment.
In early 2022, when we surpassed the 2-million-user and 200-employee marks, we decided to meet face to face finally. The New Year trip to Egypt was our first official ‘offline meetup’, uniting teammates from all the corners of the world. Despite the pandemic, complex travel restrictions, and unforeseen emergencies, 159 people gathered in Sharm El-Sheikh to celebrate the holiday season and see each other for the first time.
Unfortunately, the Covid-times has taken a toll on the final count of the arrived Mercurians. Those who managed to test negative and get all the papers ready had to grapple with a severe case of unflyable weather. A massive blizzard hit Instanbul, the primary transfer hub, precisely on the opening dates of our Egypt journey, and dozens of colleagues got stuck in the airports facing multiple delays. Despite the obstacles, our HR coordinators managed to get everyone to Sharm El-Sheikh and back.
Every night of our four-day trip, we’ve hosted work meetups where Mercurians shared their expertise with the team. Seeing and hearing everyone in person as opposed to staring at muted Zoom icons turned out to be the ultimate productivity boost.
‘Before the trip, I had this irrational fear of talking to our London colleagues,’ — says Anakhita Knyazkova, Mercuryo’s Junior Event Manager. ‘And of course, I absolutely loved everyone the moment we’ve met, and that’s exactly what this trip was all about — overcoming challenges and getting motivated, knowing you’ve got the best backup.’
Additionally, we’ve managed to organise our first team collaboration workshop for the two technical units. Based on the Thomas system, the workshop aimed to determine one’s preferred behaviour profile at work, highlight motivational factors, clarify communication styles, etc. As a result, the team members who took part in the event got a chance to understand each other better.
According to Nadezhda Loschinina, Mercuryo’s HR Project Manager, the feedback was remarkable, including multiple requests from other units to participate in this workshop. In the near future, we plan on hosting similar activities with the rest of the team.
The Bottom Line
There’s no textbook or manual for what we are building, and that’s half of the fun and curiosity of working for Mercuryo. We also recognise that technology isn’t the sole enabler. It’s the power of human relationships and creative freedom that builds the most powerful products. We are not just selling a vision of a new age payments technology — we’re a bright set of humans, with the right tools, taking real joy in making it happen.
At Mercuryo, we do everything we can to inspire the creativity flow, and if you’re up for the challenge, hit us up.
Originally published at https://blog.mercuryo.io.
