In the beginning, startups come with no set identity, no legacy or predetermined understanding of what the company is. Airtame started as a 4-man mission in 2014. Since then, we’ve grown both in manpower, size and capacity.

We are now over 80 people across several offices in different countries, we employ people from all nationalities and backgrounds, and in all of that, we try to maintain the mindset we started out with.

We’re acutely aware that some of the adaptability gets lost if the company culture isn’t built to withstand the transition from small startup to scale-up and beyond. In essence, we should never forget where we came from to stay on the right path. That’s why we keep these core values in mind as we go forward.

Care deeply for the people you bring onboard

The cultural fit is and will always be the defining factor when bringing new people onboard. We would rather cultivate a particular set of skills than try to establish the right, cultural fit after employment. But recruitment is one thing, maintaining and developing talents is another.

We’ve developed a rigorous onboarding process that ensures all employees are aligned around a unified set of goals and company culture values.

New employees are encouraged to draft out their job descriptions and tasks for the job, and that creates a certain sense of autonomy from the very beginning.

Part of our onboarding process includes mandatory customer success training as well as a thorough technical walkthrough of the product.

It ensures a general understanding of where we come from, the challenges that lie ahead and what we should focus on to reach our goals.

But besides a practical upside, it helps employees understand other areas of expertise and knowledge they may then apply or rely on. Should their knowledge not suffice, team members know that there are other employees ready to aid them.

Over-invest in relationships

What does “over-invest in relationships” mean? In short, it means that Airtame cares. You often hear that startups see themselves as “one big family”. We aren’t that. We consider ourselves a sports team. The best sports teams in the world have warmth between them, but focus on performance and winning together.

Families fight. We don’t have time for that.

Having well-established relationships with the team allows for better relationship-building with customers. Every employee is encouraged to take time out and chat with customers that might be having troubleshooting issues, or potential customers that want to figure out if Airtame is right for them. We wouldn’t be able to do this so effectively if it weren’t for the open and supportive approach we build our internal team on.

If you care about your colleagues (and your customers), you are more inclined to listen, cooperate, and say the truth. We always want the whole truth, because, without it, we can’t succeed.

We’re incredibly focused on building strong relationships, both internally and externally. Transparency is a vital part of any startup, and something we rely on daily. Even more so though, we rely on trust.

We need to trust that we can depend on each other internally and get the right work done, meaning in turn that customers can trust that we will support them and provide them with the product they need. If the communicative barrier is small or non-existing, providing an open flow of information, trust and transparency become easy.

We rely on a flexible organizational structure that allows ideas to move freely across teams. It’s crucial to productivity, but also for keeping everyone in the loop. Bi-weekly all-hands meetings, team meetings, and revenue reviews ensure no one is kept in the dark about the product, mission, and position of growth.

No information should get lost, but ideas and suggestions shouldn’t either. The open forums encourage everyone to make suggestions on how we can improve. It heightens a sense of trust, and with trust comes more creative thinking and positivity.

Focus on the outcome and not time spent

Top talent won’t stay for long if working conditions aren’t to their liking. We offer fluid work hours and remote working, and we set aside time for hobby projects. Overall, we spent a lot of time and engagement on socializing. We host hackathons once per quarter and encourage time spent on other things not company-related.

We also arrange a workathon every year in a different (preferably sunny) location for a change of scenery and the chance to bring everyone together.

We currently have people permanently located in 8 places all over the world. The different time zones and perspectives help drive our global focus and keep us on our toes with development work.

Work should be inspiring, both regarding internal projects and creative freedom. If we’re missing anything, each employee is encouraged to speak their mind and pitch a new way of working together.

To optimize our working environment, we are in the process of reconsidering our whole employee package and ask upon the wider team for input on what we can do to better their experience working at Airtame, and continued loyalty.

Be ambitious without sacrificing the culture

We want to maximize growth, but only as long as our culture can withstand it. The obvious objective for us is to continue to sell more Airtame solutions, but for us, success is not only measured by the number of products sold. We set aggressive growth goals, but only if we can use it to drive employees.

Last year, we doubled our revenue, and our strategy for 2018 is to do the same. It will be tough to accomplish, but that sets the bar high for our ambitions and keeps the team motivated. We never lose sight of the cultural fit to keep churn rate low and ensure that the company culture is still able to absorb new team members.

There is no correct answer to how fast-scaling startups stay nimble and agile while staying true to their roots and company culture. We find that staying open to change, and helping shape it, keeps us prepared for the challenges ahead.

Where to next? Discover how we establish our unique “customer success” approach. If you’re interested in joining the team then let us know – we’re hiring!

The post How to keep company culture thriving in a growing business appeared first on Airtame.

We love our interns. We can’t prosper without brilliant young minds, and they should feel the same way about spending their time with us. It’s definitely a win-win situation when all goes well. Finding and retaining the right candidates is crucial to our success, because a successful internship program lead to happy hires, both in the outer world of work and, sometimes, right here at Airtame HQ.

It sounds simple, but while hiring interns is one thing, attracting, maintaining and developing the right ones is another. Our investment in the right people is always based on the understanding that we will help them grow professionally, and we simply can’t stress enough how important it is to create a lasting experience.

At Airtame, we’ve tried to optimize the recruitment process — both for our sake and the candidate’s. That’s why we came up with a successful 4-step internship plan that is now a standard procedure for all new Marketing interns.

Step 1: The Intern Recruitment Setup & Process

The first step of the internship is to find and “recruit” young talents to join our team for a 3-month duration. Here’s how we go about the process:

• Platforms: We “scout” our interns through various avenues including career fairs held at colleges and universities, LinkedIn, referrals, and job postings on Graduateland, The Hub, Glassdoor and our very own Airtame.com
• Responsibility: The person in charge of reviewing applications and hiring will be the direct supervisor of the interns so that both the intern and the manager establish a connection from the very beginning.

After receiving the intern’s resume, the supervisor will:

• Review the resume and reply with a marketing challenge test meant to showcase the English language proficiency and marketing approach.
• After reviewing the test results, the supervisor will schedule a phone call/Skype interview to get a better sense of who the potential new hire is. We recommend Skype — it works nicely for breaking the ice. During the interview we make sure candidates get a good understanding of the work we do and what’s required of them. We also discuss why they want to be a part of the internship program and culture at Airtame.
• Depending on the performance at the first stage, the person in charge will schedule an in-person interview with the highest ranking manager from the Marketing department. This interview stage is meant to establish the cultural fit and confirm the selection criteria based on which the intern was chosen.
• A decision will be made within 2 weeks at the most, and the applicant will be informed and given feedback on it no matter the outcome.

Step 2: The Internship Onboarding Preparation

Hired. Now what?

We get our interns ready by following an extensive onboarding program for the first week. We think this is critical to the success of the internship. Overall, the goal of the onboarding program is to provide the intern with all the necessary skills and tools to be successful on and off the field. The onboarding steps we follow at Airtame are:

• Announce the new hire in front of everyone at one of our biweekly meetings.
• Give the intern a tour of the office and set up with desk, screen etc.
• Initiate them with a burning, yet healthy ginger shot from the coffee shop across the street (it’s a tradition that goes way back to the birth of the company).
• Introduce the intern to the tools we use: Basecamp, Intercom, MixMax, Slack, etc.
• Decide together with the intern on a working schedule.
• Schedule 1:1s with all relevant employees in order to get a better understanding of who does what.
• Have the intern test drive Airtame.

Step 3: Players in Action — Tasks

Interns often get stuck doing mundane tasks or assignments that are nowhere near their skillset or desired line of work. While we try not to set them up for easy no-brainers, interns should still be open to getting their hands dirty. It’s a balancing act that we’re very aware of.

The first month in the life of a Marketing intern at Airtame consists of:

• Onboarding and introduction.
• Attending the monthly and weekly meetings, meeting minutes, monthly reports, 1:1s.
• Performing tasks and complying with the jointly agreed KPIs.
• Reporting weekly as well as monthly.

Measuring accomplishments doesn’t just help the company, although that’s certainly part of it. Of course, we get a better sense of our workforce and the tasks at hand, but interns are welcome to use these stats for future purposes too.

Beyond the work, we make every intern feel integrate to the team, whether this means being invited to our social events, or our yearly workathons (last year we visited sunny Corfu). This brings an added sense of togetherness and a flat hierarchical structure, which enables both personal growth and cross-department collaboration.

Step 4: Bringing Home the Win!

Before the interns finish their internships, it’s important for us to recognize their growth and contributions to our company. If by the end of the internship, both company and intern agree, a longer collaboration can be set in motion.

At the end of the internship, we conduct an exit interview. From an HR perspective, this is absolutely crucial. During this interview, the supervisor follows up on the intern’s goals and KPI compliance. Since interning at Airtame can often be conducted as part of study credit, we also make sure to follow up with any university or teacher to evaluate their performance.

The offboarding interview gives us an insight into possible improvements, changes that need implementation and ensuring the overall quality and well-being of our interns. Besides feeling challenged and empowered, our interns should feel satisfied with their time spent with us, and should have had some fun! Even if they don’t stay onboard, they’ve been part of a valuable learning experience that hopefully inspires them going forward.

Finally, we recognize the interns by offering a small token of appreciation as well as a written recommendation.

From the very first day of my internship, it was evident that I would contribute to a meaningful project. My assigned tasks are insightful and play a significant role in enriching the product. It’s an incredible opportunity to shape my practical knowledge because it’s such a vibrant place. This will be invaluable in my future career.

Viktor Zuska, Intern at Airtame

There’s a certain bonding experience going on while interning, which is why many interns get a foot in the door with us. They gain valuable practical knowledge and a chance to apply their academic skills. The work experience gained could very well help reinforce an interest already present for a young professional embarking on the first steps of the career path.

In turn, we get the opportunity to secure top talent early on and a fresh perspective on our work. Having interns onboard energizes our entire workforce in addition to giving us a competitive advantage. Who knows? They might just come up with solutions we wouldn’t have thought of. Internships can and should be invaluable for both parties — and we strive to make it so.

Looking for an internship at Airtame? Apply here. And don’t forget to check out our tips on how to land your dream job.

This piece was originally featured on CPHFTW’s Medium blog.

The post 4 steps to a successful internship program appeared first on Airtame.

GoMore, a platform for private car leasing that takes a revolutionary step within car ownership, finds itself in need of tracking their data and performance on a daily basis. As Vlad points out: the right data leads to the right decisions that subsequently achieve the right goals.

Needless to say, they use Airtame’s wireless HDMI capabilities to display KPI dashboards on each of their floors to keep the teams productive and on track to success. Nonetheless, what’s really worth discussing is how they use it to display the ‘can’t live without’ metrics on their screens. That’s where Vlad steps in:

Patricia (Outbound Manager, Airtame): Do you use Airtame: True or False?

Vlad (Head of Product Growth, GoMore): True. 🙂

P: How many? And why did you acquire them?

V: Well, that would be four. We were interested in the Airtame devices because, first of all, it allows us to get rid of some cables and that is always an added value in a company where you want your offices to be as clean as your designs. The GoMore office is a nice and well-designed place and Airtame contributed to that and increased the value of our offices.

On top of that, I really like that even if two people are using the same presentation, I can switch to my screen or to the other person’s screen back and forth. So, initially what attracted me the most were these connectivity features.

As we started using the Airtame devices around the office, we saw how easy it actually is to use the devices’ dashboard feature. My previous experience consisted mostly of the DIY solutions.

If you wanted to display a very simple link on the TV screen around the office, you would need a small Linux computer that required a lot of maintenance, right? It also required people to update the software that would sometimes be buggy. This time, at GoMore, we decided to go for the professional option, and we chose Airtame.

The GoMore office is a nice and well-designed place and Airtame contributed to that and increased the value of our offices.

P: How has Airtame made it easier to visualize your company’s data?

V: Well, like I said, the solution we used before wouldn’t refresh the link, so although our dashboard was a real-time one, it wasn’t actually real-time.

So, sometimes when we would go grab a cup of coffee, I remember one of my colleagues, Martin, would hit refresh on a little key that was dangling around and that’s not how GoMore is. We wanted to fix that issue once and for all (laughs). So, having the Airtame device update itself was exactly what we were looking for. We just didn’t know that there was such a product out at that time.

P: You keep telling me about displaying data. How important is it for GoMore to keep track of your data? Why? What are the outcomes? How does that affect your decisions?

V: It’s crucial. Even if not all our decisions have a right-away effect, the type of startup that has global ambitions will always look into more of a long-term view. This means focusing more on seasonality and metrics that relate to behavior and not necessarily to easy wins or to vanity metrics.

And I think my biggest focus is to harvest the data, collect, and manage the reporting, while everyone else’s need was to have real-time data, real-time information. As for me, I would actually wanna know when I go grab that cup of coffee exactly how many leads were generated today by the guys downstairs in Sales.

P: Do some teams use different data than others? Why?

V: Yes, definitely. That’s one of the key parts of GoMore: first of all, we must divide based on the market, based on users, and, thirdly, based on the value proposition. It can get a bit hectic and complicated, but the Sales or Support team, they get metrics that are tailored to their day-to-day job.

P: What is your ‘favorite’ part of the day to use the data that the dashboards display?

V: To be honest, I saw an increase in the conversations that we’re starting in the teams and that’s just because you have some information in front of you, so why not use that when you’re just chit-chatting over a coffee? It sounds like I drink a lot of coffee (laughs). But, that’s the point, right? Having the data in front of you and not relying on assumptions is what creates value for GoMore.

Having the data in front of you and not relying on assumptions is what creates value for GoMore.

P: So, long story short, anybody can use the dashboard at any time of the day.

V: Yes. I don’t know if you can see, I have one behind me right now (chuckles).

P: Indeed you do (laughs). So, tell me: How long does it take to set it up?

V: Setting up the screen was actually very fast. We had a meeting with some great people from Airtame who dropped by and I initially set aside a full hour for that meeting, but basically setting up the Airtame together with the dashboard took us just 2-3 minutes. I think it took even less than 2 minutes. It was insanely fast, because we were laughing about it, like, “So what are we gonna do now? “(laughs).

P: Speaking of dashboards, which dashboard service do you use? Why?

V: Well, that was a very complicated choice to make because you know, there’s so many tools out there, and sometimes you’re only as good as your weakest tool. In the past, we used other solutions where we had issues integrating a lot of the analytics platforms or our own data layer.

What I found to work best was Geckoboard and it wasn’t only because you have a lot of services you can connect. The main reason was the design. I feel a lot of dashboards or companies that have the purpose to visualize data, they kind of miss out on really good, clear design and Geckoboard has that. So we went with them. We also wrote a script together to export some mixpanel events, but that’s a long and more geekier story (laughs).

There are so many tools out there, and sometimes you’re only as good as your weakest tool.

P: And so, what’s your opinion, do you think that Geckoboard dashboards work smoothly with your Airtame devices?

V: Yeah, and I looked a bit behind and I think it’s caching the dashboards, so when it’s refreshing it’s just piggybacking on Geckoboard’s mechanism to retrieve real-time data. I’m actually glad that I don’t have to do any troubleshooting in the links between Airtame TV and Airtame Geckoboard and I can just focus on the little box and little issues when it comes to our data platforms and that’s actually where you’re supposed to use most of your time. Not to set up the devices, but to actually get the value out of them.

P: And the last question for you, Vlad: What is your advice from a strategic point of view, on using dashboard services?

V: I recently read that being an entrepreneur and working in a startup actually produces more stress than working in a regular job. I think, the first step to reduce the stress level is not to fuel your business with assumptions and always make sure that you’re walking on a very proven path, on something you can go back and see, like, “OK, I’m actually not so stressed that we have this outrageous goal, because I split it into key battles that we must win to get there.”

And I think, sometimes, people working in a startup are mostly in sales mode and not necessarily in thinking mode on ‘how I can actually make an impact’. We’re presenting the same narrative as we do to our users and bragging about our services and we start drinking our own Kool-Aid so to speak. So, that’s why I think that data-driven teams will have less of a stressful activity and just a better time overall delivering on their goals.

P: I couldn’t agree more. Thank you for your time Vlad. Great input!

People working in a startup are mostly in sales mode and not necessarily in thinking mode on ‘how I can actually make an impact’.

You will agree with Vlad when he says that it’s not only important to be able to display on your office screens, but what you display also plays a major role. In this case, Geckoboard takes dashboard display to another level. More than 2,000 organizations that use Geckoboard happily track performance, expedite internal reporting, and promote data-driven decisions.

Now, you can imagine the outcome of the Airtame + Geckoboard equation yourself. It becomes the core engine of GoMore and of any business that steers people in the right direction.

The post What are the core metrics of your business? appeared first on Airtame.