Xord — A Unicorn in the Making

This article is meant to give an overview of the direction of Xord, where we are going, and what big initiatives we will be taking in the future.

Here is a breakdown:

1. What is Xord — Our core focus and why do we exist?
2. Clock building — A timeless principle
3. Major divisions of Xord — Highly aligned, loosely coupled
4. Solutions & Services — Decentralizing the world one startup at a time
5. XLabs — Our research engine
6. Innovations — Move fast and break things
7. Our Culture — We seek high performance
8. Summit & Beyond — We shoot for the mountaintop

What is Xord — Our core focus and why do we exist?

Do one thing and do it better than anyone else.

A company’s vision is created by defining its core focus and core values. Just as roots anchor the tree, the core values, and core focus anchors the company built on them. By getting all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, we can achieve anything.

Our Core Focus

“Empowering people to create an honest world.”

Xord’s mission is to bring honesty and transparency to the systems of the world so that we can all escape from the shackles of the systems of the 80s and 90s, and truly experience what humanity can conceive. We believe that Blockchains would form the foundation on which the world will run in the next decade.

We strive to build autonomous and agile teams that work on ground-breaking products to solve the problems of our society.

Xord aspires to be the company that inspires the next generation of entrepreneurs in Pakistan to use the power of technology to take on our country’s problems as well as the world’s.

Clock building — A timeless principle

We believe in setting good context.

To build something that does not wear out and can endure over lifetimes, a great idea or a great person should not be made its foundation. Because no matter how great the idea or person is, these are short-lived and cannot endure over generations. The principle of clock building is about shifting the perspective in a way that yields fruitful results. Similarly, it is the dynamics and processes of the company that make it successful not a visionary leader or a great idea. It is about developing such processes in an organization that continue to produce results even after the people who created them are long gone. This principle opposes the principle of time telling. If a person is a time teller, the function will die with the person telling it. But if he is a clock builder, people will continue to benefit from the product as long as the clock keeps ticking even after the person who created it is no longer alive.

Major Divisions of Xord — Highly aligned, loosely coupled

Instead of representing our organizational structure in a hierarchical way, we found the holacratic representation to be the best way to show where everyone lies in the company. Moreover, the culture of Netflix helped us define our organizational structure in the best way, highly aligned, loosely coupled.

Our organizational structure allows people to have more authority. We practice a principle called “Freedom with responsibility”. Here at Xord, the roles are spread in the form of circles. Since the authority is distributed, it allows for better and fast decision-making. Everyone is free to do whatever they want as long as it aligns with the vision and goals of the company. Xordians have the freedom to choose the best possible path for achieving the goals that the company has set for itself. There is trust and coordination among teams that save time for approving strategies and ensures speedy work ethics.

The organization is divided into 7 permanent circles, and many satellite circles. Permanent circles are the core of Xord, and satellite circles are the initiatives or projects taken up by Xordians. Satellite circles can both be permanent and temporary.

We think of our permanent circles as the lego blocks of resources that can be paired together in a team to create something of great value.

Solutions & Services — Decentralizing the world one startup at a time

Our current growth engine is our Solutions circle where we work in partnership with like-minded startups to launch products in the public blockchain sphere. Since the start, our client selection process has been rigorous, and we only work with companies who share our core values and vision for the world.

Check this link to find out which technologies we work on, and this link to see which clients we have worked with so far.

We still consider Solutions circle to be our growth engine for the next couple of years. Throughout the rest of the year, we aim to rapidly scale our Solutions circle by implementing the practices of Blitzscaling.

Blitzscaling is the “prioritiz[ation] [of] speed over efficiency in an environment of uncertainty” — Reid Hoffman

Blitzscaling is a way to grow a company quickly and it involves taking big risks. It is about bringing speed to an organization.

XLabs — Our research engine

XLabs is our elite team of research engineers working to find the next breakthrough to solve the problems in blockchain as a technology. Currently, we are working on a solution of our own to scale Ethereum to layer-2.

The XLabs also often publishes detailed guides on the most popular protocols like DAI and Uniswap V3 to name a few.

Check out our complete list of publications.

Innovations — Move fast and break things

The Innovations circle is where the magic happens. If one circle is the epitome of our core focus, it is this.

People from our core circles gather together to create something of great value. Anyone from anywhere in the company can take an initiative, build a great team, and Xord will provide resources to the team to empower them to achieve their goals.

Innovations is further divided into two sub-circles: Product and Incubator. Companies that are currently incubated at Xord are:

1. VoirStudio — A development studio that builds novel and innovative DeFi protocols and products.
2. Novon — A layer 2 scaling solution for the interoperability between EVM-based blockchains with lower gas fees and high transaction throughput.
3. Expedite — A design company specializing in building user experiences for decentralized applications.
4. BlockApex — BlockApex provides audits as a service for Ethereum-based smart contracts.
5. Xord Tech Garage — A breeding ground for people to learn the ways of Xord and how to become the best they can be.

The products we are working on are:

1. OVO — The most user-friendly, non-custodial blockchain agnostic wallet.

Our Culture — We seek high performance

Our culture is rigorous in implementing exacting standards of high performance at all levels.

High-performance Xordians

We value our core values so a high-performing Xordian must exhibit all our core values.

1. To become a star performer, the Xordian should be 10X better than the average in doing creative/innovative work.
2. To adapt to the changing world, high-performing Xordian follows this: ↑ flexibility → ↑ speed → ↓ efficiency → creative/innovative work → quick adaptation to new changes.
3. A high-performing Xordian enjoys freedom with responsibility. He/she is creative but self-disciplined, self-managed, and self-motivated.

Right People — Our Most Important Asset

Since the beginning, we emphasized creating extraordinary experiences for the people at Xord. We believe that our high-performance people are our most important asset and each one of them holds significant value. Here at Xord, we are a team and so we discourage the use of the term ‘employees’ for our people. Instead, we call them Xordians who constitute a team with a common vision en route to achieve greatness.

We Are The Advocates of Entrepreneurship

To normalize the culture of entrepreneurship is one of our responsibilities. Xord is all about developing a culture of innovation. We aim to catalyze innovation, growth, and entrepreneurship in Pakistan and beyond. Our purpose is to empower people by instilling an entrepreneurial mindset. We support crazy ideas and we welcome every kind of creativity.

We Foster The Culture of Transparency

Our aim is to get people aligned behind a common goal that results from developing trust among each other. At Xord, we have created a culture of transparency and openness to let people know that they are trusted and valued team members. We encourage Xordians to provide their feedback and raise questions that build trust. Not only our organizational structure is designed in such a way that facilitates transparency but also the quarterly goals of each Xordian are made visible to everyone. This would result in personal growth and a higher sense of ownership.

At Xord, Freedom & Responsibility Go Hand-in-Hand

The culture of discipline is an idea of a culture where people are given freedom with responsibility. We want to craft an environment that gives people full freedom to execute their roles the way they want with a sense of responsibility that they would be held accountable for their actions. This requires each of us to be disciplined and willing to go to extreme lengths to fulfill our responsibilities. This way we can take disciplined action within the framework of our core focus. Creating a disciplined environment through force by a disciplinarian is time telling while creating a culture of discipline where individuals have the freedom to experiment and are responsible for their actions is clock building.

We Know The Importance Of Dealing With The Reality

We believe that there is a difference between giving people the opportunity to have their say and the opportunity to be heard. Therefore, to create a climate where the truth is heard, we lead with questions instead of answers that ultimately lead to the best possible insights. We support our people to engage in dialogues, debates, and discussions in search of the best answers. It should be the responsibility of each of us to extract maximum learning from every failure. This fosters the culture of carrying out autopsies without blame.

We Believe In Setting Good Context

Building a clock means creating an atmosphere where people are given some necessary directions and they are set free to make decisions and achieve the best results the way they want. It is synonymous with setting context which means embracing the ultimate objectives with a clear understanding of the strategies and tactics. In such an environment, people know their roles and responsibilities. Setting a clear context facilitates A or B players to produce A+ results.

Summit & Beyond

We use the analogy of a mountaineer to describe an Xordian. When mountain climbers aim to reach the summit, they know that the path to achieving it wouldn’t be easy. To train their body and to become resilient and self-sufficient, they have to train hard because climbing a mountain is all about struggling, feeling the pain, and pushing oneself with determination and perseverance. All of this only comes from getting involved in something that you care so much about. You want to make it the greatest it can possibly be, not because of what you will get, but just because it can be done.

Just like mountaineering is not for everyone, Xord is not for everyone.

“In a truly great company, profits and cash flow become like blood and water to a healthy body: They are absolutely essential for life, but they are not the very point of life.” -Jim Collins