We are on a mission to make investing as easy as spending money. We want to enable the next hundred million people to better prepare for their future by democratizing access to capital markets and investing. We do this by helping our clients build great products that lower the barrier of entry for most folks.
We figure out what is important on our journey towards that mission by using Objectives and Key Results to help us focus on the most important things at any given time. Teams have a lot of autonomy in figuring out how they contribute to the overall company objectives in each quarter by defining their own Key Results.
Underlying all this are our four core values and a set of principles that allow teams to take decisions fast, knowing they are in line with how we want to do things.
Value 1: Learn and Grow
- We aim high to shape our future
- We give and request honest feedback
- Everything is a learning opportunity
- Progress over perfection
This value is about constant learning. Working in the software industry requires a career-long commitment to learning. Every day you need to learn new things to keep your skills relevant and remain employable.
This value also reflects that we have embarked on an ambitious journey to build something brand new in a complex and regulated environment. We keep learning as we go along and discover more of what it actually means to provide this API platform. If we’d known about all the complexity at the start, we might not have even started on this path. There is always an element of creative madness needed to achieve something great.
Value 2: Team First
- We make it easy for others (especially for the clients)
- We value our differences and are open to others’ opinions
- We win and celebrate together
- Team over Ego
This value is about collaboration. This is a team effort and it is huge. No single person will be able to do it alone. This is why we focus a lot on what I call the “culture add” aspects of each candidate in hiring. Besides being humble and a team player, what do they bring to the table that adds to our culture? It’s not about “culture fit”, it’s about “culture add”.
Value 3: Own the Outcome
- Whether we win or we lose, we stand together
- We are proactive and get the job done
- We take breaks when needed
- Outcome over process (or simple output)
This value boils down to having the right mindset. In a startup, there are always a hundred things you could be doing, but finding the right ones, the ones that move the needle for the company is crucial. It also means that we have neither the desire nor the bandwidth to micro-manage anyone. When you pick something up, you need to own it and take it to the finish line. This means talking to all the relevant folks, gaining all the necessary knowledge, getting the right feedback and sign-offs, and making sure things get done and delivered. We also have to make sure things keep working after that. We don’t drop the ball.
Value 4: Tell the Story
- We always start with the ‘why?’
- We share knowledge to empower others
- Transparency over working in silos
We’ve been building in quiet for the past two years and this value was largely internal during that time. We tell the story, write the documentation, share the knowledge (for example, in our weekly knowledge-sharing sessions) and help the next person joining the team onboard better.
Now that we are live and operating with clients and real assets, the external aspect of this value comes into play. We are proud of what we have done and are doing. We want to go out and tell the story to everyone. This blog is one aspect of that. We want to speak openly and honestly about how we do things. This might mean that we expose things, which are not great yet, to criticism. We believe this is a way to reach people who might be the next great Upvenger, the people who see those problems and say to themselves “Hey, I can definitely help them with this! Maybe I should join?”
If that is the case for you, please feel free to look at all our open roles at our Career site. Yes, we are still hiring! Rest assured, we will proceed with all due caution in a world that looks more difficult than it did a year ago, but we are well-funded and have a laser focus on what needs to be done. We still have must-have roles to be filled.