When we ran Brewhouse, we formed our values like a family, a closely knit team of curated individuals from around the world to build what I believe to be the best software we could for Canadian companies. These were our values.

brewhouse-team-whistler-nov.jpg

Powered by distinction & collaboration.

Here are the values our team practice internally and with clients daily. There are always more but these are the ones we focus on the most.

  • Always Collaborate
  • Ask why (Be Distinctive)
  • Test Everything
  • Be Transparent
  • Be Passionate
  • Give Back
  • Be Kind

Always Collaborate

Work with everyone on everything, contribute to marketing, sales, code discussions.
Ask for feedback and peer review, others can help make things way more awesome.
Instead of criticizing, empathize. Why did someone do such a thing, understand, listen and discuss.
Even when you know something is ready, always check with the team to see if there is feedback. An example of this is to always open up a Github Pull Request for code changes that affect a product.

Ask why (Be Distinctive)

Everything we do has been done before, how can we push to be better and open minded to think of something distinctive?
To do this figure out Why we are doing something to create a better solution.
When we run a social media campaign how can we push the bar of something fresh, creative and interesting.
Solve people’s problems in ways that haven’t been done before, let’s believe that the impossible is possible.

Test Everything

Taking the developer’s practice of test driven development we should apply that to other areas of our business.
Thinking about everything in tests encourages us to think about how we measure the success or quality of the work we do.
Run experiments where results can be determined in days/weeks (never years!).
We’ll never be right or perfect, so how do measure what is working and not.

Be Transparent

Being transparent avoids confusion on focus and team politics.
Opening up about we do builds trust internally and externally.
Go as far as sharing salaries, revenue, hiring, strategy and learning.
Being honest and sharing what we are doing, in turn makes us further humble and open to learning from others. We will never know everything.
Take coffee meetings with the community to share learnings in tech, product & business (CEO down). Our podcast is an example of this.

Be passionate

Love what you do, otherwise don’t do it.
You only do your best work when you care and love.
Doing what you want makes you happy. Happy workers create great work.

Giving Back

Our business and many other exist based on work created by people for free. We should do as much Open source work as possible to continue the efforts.
Encouraging others to do the same through Community involvement.
Meet with as many people in the community for a Coffee, share learnings and encourage others to build great products.
Improving well being of society, specifically the area at which our office is located.

Be kind

Born from MINASWAN - Matz is nice so we are nice in the Ruby community.
To collaborate with one another we must as a group be kind and give to one another.
Never hold grudges, there’s not need to stay negative towards people.
Everyone is unique and have their reasons for being, there is no need to mock or pick on people.