Crafting a value system
How the Shortcut team maximizes our positive impact.
It’s been 3 months since I took the chief leadership role at Shortcut, and we’re already engineering a new way forward. We’ve more than doubled our core team, to 17 members, and with this kind of growth, it’s important to re-examine the culture that defines our Company.
As a team leader, I aim to create a passionate culture that fuels great work and maximizes our positive impact. We have to reflect the values we hope to see in the world. Our work may have a profound impact on people’s lives, so it’s essential to back it with strong moral principles.
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Autonomy
The overarching mission of Shortcut is to equip and empower service providers to transform the way they work. We enable barbers & stylists to create their own small business — with freedom to do what they love, build their book of clientele, and manage their own schedule.
The key word there is Freedom. We don’t put restrictions on service providers, not for pricing, scheduling, nor offered services. We know that people value their autonomy: control, freedom of choice, and independence. Especially if it’s about earnings and work hours.
This helps us focus on creating the most value in our service, as our providers are free to come and go as they please. We have to ensure that Shortcut provides higher value than any alternative. And this helps us hone in on the high-impact areas of the business.
Empathy
Every human being is living in their own unique version of the world. And it can be a challenge to communicate to such a differentiated audience. As technologists, designers and operators, how can we empathize with our core market of barbers and stylists?
Well, in a way, hiring barbers to our core team bakes empathy right into the Company. For instance, Alex Kantor, our Director of Event Operations, is a top barber in New York City, who has delivered over 700 Shortcut services. Her feedback helps us to refine our system and see the world through the eyes of a Shortcut Pro. It’s amazing to have her on the core team.
We believe that it’s vital to empathize with our service providers, so that we can find ways to help them advance their careers.
Integrity
Integrity is sort of a meta value. It’s about having a strong ethical guideline: sincerity, transparency and honesty. Do we mean what we say? Does our mission have a backbone? Are we providing the best value?
What it means to me, is that we put our providers’ needs first. This has to come through in our actions. We can’t say one thing, and do another. We have to be open and transparent about our policies, process, and objectives.
Ours is really a social mission too: we want to empower people to start and grow their own small businesses, enabling higher earning power than a traditional workplace. This may make a measurable impact on people’s lives, which is a much stronger Company mission than that to make money. (And understanding this difference typically makes for a great team member.)
Optimism
We believe that people are inherently good, inherently smart, and typically make the right choice when given the option.
Optimism is the core reason that we give 80% starting commission (the highest in the industry) and encourage tips for our service providers. We know that we can’t achieve our goals alone. We have to invest in our network, and more importantly, trust our early adopters.
Optimism is really essential when you’re running a startup. You have to stay positive, despite all of the hardships and obstacles that get in the way. (And believe me — sometimes this is much harder than it sounds).
With our social mission, we have a responsibility to society to create positive change. And we’re optimistic: the core team believes heavily in our mission and ability to execute. And we think that giving back, by setting the highest commission in the industry, might result in some pretty good karma.
Utility
As a software engineer, and systems designer, I am constantly optimizing for utility. That’s sort of tech jargon – what do I mean?
In the context of service providers, we want to increase utilization. We’re constantly hearing stories about barbers and stylists, who on a weekday in the shop, are left watching Judge Judy from 1–3pm, without a single walk-in or appointment. With our sophisticated scheduling system, we try to utilize barbers’ time in the most effective way — they should never have to deal with an empty barbershop.
In the context of an app, utility means building a product that is easy-to-use, gets the job done, and — well — “just works.” It’s gotta be fluid, self-sufficient, and empowering. The value of a tech platform is typically based on its number of users, but I believe longterm success is based on the utility of its products.
(For those interested in learning about building products with high utility, I suggest reading Don Norman’s “The Design of Everyday Things.”)
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The impact of values at scale
What is interesting about values in a small company, is that they can become a part of the entire brand as it scales.
Take a look at Ben & Jerry’s. In the late 70’s, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield were just a couple of hippie dudes, who created an ice cream business with a strong mission for social change. Many years later, after the company was sold and out of their control, Ben & Jerry’s still has a strong commitment to the values instilled by its founders. The brand has come out in support of Climate Justice, Racial Justice, Refugees, and Democracy, as well as organizations fighting for change, like Black Lives Matter. Long after they’ve left the Company, Ben & Jerry’s social values still come across.
And that’s pretty impactful. If we put our entrepreneurial drive into action and commit to our values, they too can become an integral part of the Shortcut brand and identity.
With these values at our core, I think we can put a dent into the many problems facing service providers today. I think we can have a positive impact on their lives. Maybe we can even transform their worlds.
