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(Re)Startup Culture

What can the Goliaths learn from new

organizations to succeed

Hello

How we started…

… and where we are today

LIFE AT FRESHDESK

We strive to create a happy "work"

environment where:

- the work that you do makes you really

happy

- you are genuinely happy to come in to

work everyday

WORK-LIFE INTEGRATION

Work-Life Balance vs. Work-Life Integration

Don’t force a 40 hour work week on

employees

HOW WE HIRE

Find passionate self-starters

Identify Core Talent and ensure Role match

STYLE OF MANAGEMENT

Empowerment vs. Control

For e.g. Customer Policy - Do what is right

for the customer

Being a Manager vs. Being a Coach

Our responsibility as employers

Learning by doing vs. Classroom

learning

Constricting roles vs. a work buffet

Fancy degrees vs. experiential learning

LEARNING

PEOPLE

Build honest relationships with your team

Don’t be a jerk. Even if you are brilliant,

don’t be a brilliant jerk!

GROWTH

Focus on Real Growth (vs artificial

growth in fancy designation

changes)

We don’t care about Titles or

Bands.

PERFORMANCE APPRAISALS

Review achievements - we don’t want our

managers to think they are judges handing

out rewards/punishments

Give immediate feedback

We don’t believe that our employees are

competing with each other - No rankings

We don’t try to fit our people into Bell-

curves (or any other curve or square :)! )

It’s relatively easy to build a company that is

loved by Shareholders.

It’s much harder to build a company that’s

loved by Employees and Customers!

But it’s worth trying…