Smiletime Inc.’s Team Philosophy
A living document with ongoing contributions from the entire Smiletime team (the guys behind pop.in)
The honey doesn’t taste so good once it is being eaten; the goal doesn’t mean so much once it is reached; the reward is no so rewarding once it has been given. If we add up all the rewards in our lives, we won’t have very much. But if we add up the spaces between the rewards, we’ll come up with quite a bit. And if we add up the rewards and the spaces, then we’ll have everything — every minute of the time that we spent.
Benjamin Hoff, “The Tao of Pooh”
Smiletime Inc. is the platform behind pop.in. We believe that the internet can facilitate deep human connections. We are dedicated to helping users create real-time group audio-visual experiences that bring joy. We know the vision is ambitious and will never allow us to rest on any laurels. To accomplish it, we must build a world class company that thinks not only about its product, but equally about its culture and its people.
Smiletime Inc. aims to be world-class in three distinct, but interrelated areas: We’re working to create a service that delights our users and continuously exceeds their expectations with its usability and innovation; we aim to build a company that operates with integrity, intensity, caring meritocracy, and deep respect for its builders and innovators; and we aim to be a home where our individual contributors and managers love what they do and grow in their careers, a home where work, though vigorous, doesn’t feel like a chore, but an adventure*. We are in it for the marathon, not the sprint.
Smiletime’s fundamental aim is to change to its core the way people consume and interact with video, to erase the artificial barriers created by existing technology. We will listen carefully to our users to understand their needs, but we will also strive to delight them with new tools they don’t expect. We seek to hire only individuals that are motivated by this shared goal. This will not be easy to accomplish. Nor will we ever consider our job “done.”
Smiletime is a special place. Our family is made up of individuals who are not afraid to challenge each other, but will do so with humility and respect. We are conscious of the preciousness of time and keep work friction to a minimum. During meetings, we do not bring open laptops; we prefer to stand and write on whiteboards rather than sit around big tables. We want to win, but we operate with integrity and hold firm on shared cultural values. We are a meritocracy and aim to hire and retain the best in the field. Every team member’s contribution is equal and evaluated based on its merits, not the individual’s title. We operate with an owner’s mentality and spend resources generously only when they contribute to Smiletime’s mission and enterprise value.
Smiletime will only succeed if its individual contributors are motivated and excited to be here. We are a culture of feedback. When people exceed expectations, we go out of our way to recognize them. Conversely, when expectations aren’t met, we take a few days to reflect, and deliver constructive feedback in a respectful manner. We don’t wait until year-end reviews. Our team is diverse — some grew up in the inner city, others in suburbia; some love fashion while others wear hoodies and flip-flops; some get energy from team events while others favor solitary time in front of their laptops — Smiletime knows we thrive only if we find ways to motivate all in a meritocratic environment. Team members are encouraged to often look within and ask, “Do I look forward to going to work every day? Am I learning? Am I maximizing my contribution to the organization? Am I encouraged and motivated by my boss? Am I growing personally? Is Smiletime committed to world class execution?” We know that we succeed if most answers for most individuals are “absolutely yes.”
This document is not set in stone. It is a living document and we encourage all team members to contribute edits, deletions, and thoughts any time, day or night. Culture is fluid — it is difficult to build and even harder to sustain. We measure ourselves based not on what we write in a document, but by how we live up to our values. We know a 50-person organization will not have the same day-to-day as the small team in our Culver City office. And the 500-person organization, should we earn the right to become one, will look at the world yet more distinctly. We are great believers in culture, yet we are cognizant of its fluidity and evolution just as we are of our own growth as individuals.
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* Our thinking owes a great debt to Fred Kofman’s “Conscious Business: How to Build Value through Values,” a book we encourage all team members to read.
