Two years ago
when we ditched our downtown office in lieu of working from home, we thought we were making the right decision but still had some major concerns about how it was going to play out. Some of the biggest unanswered questions at the time involved the fate of our work ethic, communication, and company culture. I wanted to share with you what has happened in each of those areas.
Will work get done, or will everyone start slacking off?
I’m excited to say that more work has been completed! Our 40 hour work week is long gone. Instead we’re operating based on flexible schedules, so people can work when they’re at their best. Plus these flexible hours allow us to easily work with contractors whom hold down 9-5 jobs, because we’re always free to work around their time constraints.
Will we still interact with each other socially or turn into hermits?
I’m ashamed to admit that we might have actually turn into hermits during our first few months. Many times we would realize that we’d not left our houses for days. “Groceries? What are those?” As it turns out, we really do need to have face to face time, so we started meeting up again once per week in a local coffee shop for bigger discussions. Right now, we’re actually discussing getting a work space so people can voluntarily work there when they’re seeking good ol’ human interaction and feedback.
How can we maintain our culture without a physical meeting space?
Our culture is still great and thriving, though there are some definite pros and cons to working virtually. With two large company planning events per year, that gather all employees together in the same space we’ve been able to maintain our cohesion. In addition sporadic activities like bowling, happy hours, and startup conferences provide great excuses to get together and build on our culture.
Moral of the story- we’re happy and thriving. Though perhaps the ideal set up is a mix between working virtually several days a week as well as working from an office (or shared space) the other days. As we potentially head down that road, we’ll keep you posted!
Like most people you’ve probably received a piece of promotional merchandise from a completely random company at some point, even if it was only a pen. If your experiences have been anything like mine, you’ve never given the merchandise or more importantly the company, a second thought if it wasn’t relevant to you. As with any sort of marketing it’s crucial to identify people who actually impact your business before investing in them!
Let’s face it, any stranger will gladly accept something of value for free… I mean it’s FREE after all. But what happens later is what you really care about; did that company-branded t-shirt grow your business at all, or did it just help someone sleep in a comfy outfit? The truth is strangers don’t use your business, they don’t tell their friends about your awesome products, and they certainly don’t help make your company better.
Below I’ve corralled types of people who can and probably are making an impact on your company right this minute. If you send a gift (free swag) to these people the impact and goodwill is long lasting and pretty darn amazing.
Customers
These people have already invested in you…
- Evangelists- These are your version of Apple Fanboys. They love your product and they loudly proclaim to all and sundry how awesome it is. Send these people a gift and you’ll hear about it. More importantly so will everyone else.
- Disgruntled Customers- They happen; fix their problem and send an apology gift. It’s a time honored tradition.
- Beta Testers- These people do work for you… usually for free. They make you better. Enough said.
Potential Customers
This is probably the most confusing group of people. For swag to have impact here, they need to be really interested. Let’s face it you don’t give a girl a diamond ring on a first date… don’t waste time and money on a complete stranger.
- Potential customers who have visited your website- They know you, clearly they are looking for something. Use swag to start a conversation.
- Potential customers you’ve engaged in conversations.
- Potential customers at an industry specific event.
- People on your newsletter list.
Employees
These people deal with your customers, your systems and support you day in and day out.
- Direct employees- These are the people who make your vision happen and keep the world going round. Reward them for a job well done, anniversaries, and for goodness sake don’t make them a walking billboard unless they are manning your booth at a trade show or going on a field trip.
- Vendors- Those people you pay who do wonderful work for you. These are contractors and companies, reward them for a job well done.
When you reach the right people
with the right swag your investment will come back to you. When was the last time you were wow-ed by promotional merchandise?
The Company
Name.com is an ICANN accredited domain name registrar and web hosting company. Their easy-to-use website makes getting online simple. They offer a wide variety of domain extensions as well as shared and VPS web hosting, a drag & drop website builder, search engine optimization tools, security features and more.
The Philosophy
They believe in working with dedication, inspiration and innovation. For the sake of karma, mojo, and the good of giving, they do whatever they can for the betterment of the earth and the internet.
The Space
The Features
- Floor to ceiling windows run the entire length of the office.
- Huge lounge/meeting area – including a Ping Pong table.
- Fully stocked kitchen – Breakfast? Lunch? Dinner? You name it!
- Open, modern layout that is fun, but is also highly functional.
- Multiple conference rooms with moving walls can scale to any meeting size.
What We Love
- Beer – they’ve got an always stocked and employee made kegerator in the lounge!
- Tons of natural light floods the open office floor-plan.
- Flat screen TV’s positioned thought the office for easy information sharing (and the occasional youtube sensation.)
- Super convenient location in a great Denver neighborhood.
- Did we mention the beer?
What a beautiful office in our hometown! What’s your favorite part of their space?
(Interested in having your company featured? Drop us a line at realperson@printfection.com.)
I think there’s a bit of an impulse to be cheap when it comes to buying swag. Of course you’re worried about costs spiraling, and you’re thinking, well if I’m giving this away for free everyone’s going to take it. Which is true- people will grab pretty much anything that’s free but they’ll probably never use it if you’ve created a uncomfortable shirt just featuring your grainy company logo. Or if they do, it will be in a way you never intended or wanted. For example here are the most common ways people treat a t-shirt they own that they got for free that isn’t quality:
- Wear it to bed.
- Wear it to paint.
- Use it as a cloth for cleaning.
- Give it away to Goodwill or worse yet, throw it away.
And you know I’m not kidding, because you’ve probably grabbed a lame shirt yourself and ended up doing one of those things.
So if that’s what’s going to happen to you shirt, you probably shouldn’t have even bothered with the investment. What I’m saying is you need to do it right or not at all.
When you do it right by creating a comfortable shirt with a great design that people can relate to, people will love wearing your shirt throughout daily regular life and it will be exposed to a ton of people helping you reach new audiences. For example here are the most common ways people treat a t-shirt they own that they got for free that is quality:
- They actually wear it out and about, frequently- to work, to a bar, to networking events, to the store, etc.
- They take pictures wearing it and tweet it because they’re proud of it.
- They tell their friends about the shirt.
- Once they’ve worn it through, they might even ask for another shirt.
It’s truly worth putting the time and money into creating a great design and putting it on a quality t-shirt.
The Company
Swipely, founded in 2009 by Angus Davis, is a simple way for local merchants to accept payments, track customers and grow sales. Through Swipely’s service, leading restaurants, salons and boutiques across the country are unlocking big data behind every payment they accept using Swipely to better understand customers and bring them back. Swipely includes four core benefits, integrating payments and marketing in one easy to use online dashboard: world-class processing, powerful analytics, targeted campaigns and loyalty programs.
The Philosophy
Swipely is headquartered in Providence, RI at the foot of Wickenden Street, one of Providence’s main streets filled with local merchants including awesome restaurants and cafes. Because Swipely helps local merchants track and grow revenue they work alongside their customers. Their brand pillars include:
- A transparent approach
- Learning more everyday
- Measuring performance
- Making data actionable
In terms of their space- Engineering, Marketing, Partner Success, Inside Sales and Business Development, and Finance work from headquarters. They also have a Sales Team that’s on the street in the city’s they serve: NY, SF, DC, BOS, and PVD. Engineers generally work 2 to a station and have recently raised their desks to be standing desks.
The Space
The Features
- 2 floors of office space with a staircase and railing that give the feeling of being on a boat (RI is the Ocean State!)
- Lots of openness, bright sunlight and conference rooms (formal with tables and informal with couches and pillows)
- Common eating/ happy hour area- the team often eats lunch together, bringing in food from awesome local Swipely merchants
- Fully stocked kitchen and snack room
What We Love
- Everyone wears yellow on Fridays…just because
- A lot of the office goes on a regular mid-afternoon stroll to get some fresh air
- Creamsicle the horse!
- Inspirational colorful patterns throughout
- A location right next to the customers they serve
Great digs! What’s your favorite part of their space?
(Interested in having your company featured? Drop us a line at realperson@printfection.com.)
Let’s end the week with something easy on the eyes, shall we? Check out these awesome startup threads, found through a quick search on the Internet:
1. Path’s t-shirt
This shirt shows a range of emotions, making it fun and elegantly simple. Definitely more exciting than just featuring a company logo.
via Robert Scoble
2. SeatGeek’s t-shirt
What a happy shirt! It’s a great way to show off their company while creating an image people find agreeable.
via SeatGeek
3. TinyPay’s t-shirt
Lovin’ the robot spunk which will totally resonate with the digital crowd.
via TinyPay
4. Glomper’s t-shirt
This shirt features a funny phrase with an eye-catching creature- making the people wearing it feel awesome. It’s all about the customer.
via Glomper
5. Rackspace’s t-shirt
By featuring a product benefit Rackspace effectively speaks it’s audience’s language.
via Rackspace
6. Weekenture’s t-shirt
This fun shirt makes me curious about what the service has to offer. I like the design’s whimsical flow.
via Weekenture
7. TaskRabbit’s t-shirt
Love how they included the adorable bunny mascot. Makes the shirt super cute, while also practical because it includes the tagline too.
via TaskRabbit
8. Play.fm’s t-shirt
Charcoal looks good on everyone; great color choice.
via Homard
9. Bump’s t-shirt
It’s nice that this shirt includes a clear graphic showing what their product does- instead of spelling it out in words.
via Homard
10. Disqus t-shirt
Great use of contrasting light and dark colors to help these shirts stand out in a crowd.
via Disqus
Do you have a favorite? Share any startup t-shirts you’ve spotted!
And if you’re ready to get some printed up for your company, head here.
Have you used our awesome Giveaway app yet? If not, you should!
We’ve just improved our Giveaways interface, making it even easier for your customers to redeem your swag. Check out the intuitive step-by-step process we designed, which guides folks through redeeming their gift in just two simple steps. (Per usual you can still brand the Giveaway with your company’s logo and designs.)
Here’s the new flow
1. First your recipient selects their favorite shirt and size.
2. Then they enter their shipping information.
And DONE! They receive confirmation that their order went through.
Voila! Easy peazy.
Avoid cluttering your office with boxes of t-shirts, stuffing envelopes, and trips to the post office. Instead, send your shirts directly to your recipients. Use our improved Giveaway app.
“One of the nation’s biggest music labels briefly signed Taylor Swift to a contract but let her go because she didn’t seem worth more than $15,000 a year.”
(via @swifttogomez)
Whether you work for a record label, a startup, a hospital, or a Hollywood studio, we’re all trying to spot the best performers but often times we don’t get it quite right.
The gap between the performance of good employees and great employees is huge (about 1 to 5). So if you want to create a great company you need to aim higher when it comes to hiring people. You need to find the people with break through potential, paying attention to not only what they can do today, but what they can learn tomorrow. Surely you’re on board with hiring great people, though “great” is vague and doesn’t really leave a clear path for discovery.
That’s where The Rare Find by George Anders comes in. George sought out the world’s savviest talent judges, ranging from Fortune 500 CEOs to Special Forces leaders to elite basketball scouts, to see what they do differently from the rest of us. Here’s what he reveals in his book:
- Don’t ignore “the jagged resume”- people whose background appears to teeter on the edge between success and failure. If their strengths seem like they could play out well in your setting, and match the skills and qualities for the position, it’s generally worth the risk. Basically widen your view of talent.
- Look extra hard for “talent that whispers”- the obscure, out-of-the-way candidates who most scouting systems overlook. Find inspirations that are hidden in plain sight by paying attention to the details near the bottom of resumes that may relate well to the job, or show grit. Exceptional talent doesn’t always look to be quite so exceptional, until you look much closer.
- Be careful with “talent that shouts”- the spectacular but brash candidates who might have trouble with team spirit and loyalty. Don’t get star struck.
For example Facebook was able to higher awesome programmers using a creative method:
Faced with the need to rapidly scale up their company while competing for talent with larger companies with bigger budgets and HR departments, Facebook created programming challenges (“puzzles”) that it posted on its website. These puzzles took hours of creative, innovative programming, and that’s exactly what they were looking for in their programmers. Unsurprisingly, they found a number of overlooked people in unexpected places, like Portland, Maine.
Basically it’s important to focus on what matters most to the position and to not be afraid to take different approach to find it.
Designing good swag can be a challenge but it’s important to dig deeper than a logo if you want folks to be excited to sport your threads. We’re ready to help you get your creative juices flowing with this month’s featured t-shirt design.
The Company: Foursquare, started in 2009 by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai, is a location-based social networking service for mobile devices. Users “check in” at venues based on their physical location using GPS hardware in the mobile device. Each check-in awards the user points and sometimes “badges”, so you can compete against your friends.
The Customers: Foursquare’s customers are tech-savvy, as they generally have smartphones. Beyond that they enjoy gaming and they’re competitive! Also they’re split pretty evenly between male and female.
The Swag: Foursquare’s t-shirts were originally created for SXSW 2010. At the time they had 3 designs (logo, mayor crown, and heart badges) and printed 100 of each. The mayor crown was by far the fans’ favorite. It was simple and iconic and let people support the company without feeling like a walking ad. It’s become their un-official company logo thanks to the popularity of the t-shirts. People were originally drawn to the shirts because it was a physical item to represent something they had earned in the digital realm (the mayor crown is won when you check into a place more than anyone else). Also, they liked the clean stylish design itself.
The Success: Everyone wanted one. Shortly after the event, they were getting requests from users all over the world for the shirts. As a result they were personally hand mailing them out to anyone who emailed someone on the team and asked for one. They even had a little spreadsheet of sizes and addresses. (Sidenote: Printfection’s store and giveaway campaigns can totally eliminate this painful process. We can handle everything from ordering, through printing, to fulfillment without you ever having to touch a shirt.)
So what are your thoughts, would you wear it? Maybe the better question is, would you ever take it off to wash it?
(If you’d like to submit a design your startup created for t-shirt of the month please write to realperson@printfection.com)
The Company: Quixey is a Mountain View based startup founded in 2009 by Tomer Kagan and Liron Shapira. Dubbed the “App Search Experts,” the company provides a search engine designed to find apps based on a user’s description of what they want to do. In a landscape previously organized by top ten lists and directories, Quixey aims to help people find apps and solve problems by searching and finding apps in the easiest way possible.
The Philosophy: Quixey recognizes that apps have the power to improve people’s lives, and embodies a culture that champions their influence. Quixey employees look forward to Monday mornings because not only are they passionate about their work, but also provided with an area to do it in that meets their every need. The new “Quixeyplex” is changing daily, channeling its creative design through each department’s unique traits. Quixiers love tackling challenging problems at every turn—witness their office’s high dry-erase-to-total-surface ratio.
The Space:
The Features:
- Two open levels connected by dual escalators
- Themed conference rooms—Nautical, Future, Movie Theater, to name a few
- Engineering “cubes” complete with sliding whiteboard doors
- Fully stocked kitchen
- Games/relaxation room
- Large meeting area/mess hall
- Proximity to public transport, community center
What We Love:
- Got to take a peak before the office was completely renovated- a first!
- Creatively themed conference rooms
- The large main area for the company to come together for lunches and meetings
- Office reflects the design of the company: minimalist, clean lines
- Great that the engineers have space to grow
- Fully decked out kitchen for whipping up an awesome lunch
What a cool office! What’s your favorite part of their space?
(Interested in having your company featured? Drop us a line at realperson@printfection.com.)
