I’ve spent the most part of my career in high energy work environments, working long hours and feeding into the culture of “hustle”. Like a child who learns everything from its environment, what I learned from my first 10 years of work was that great outcomes can only come from putting in the long hours. However, nurturing Quirksmith over the last 5 years made me question a lot of these early assumptions. Why? - because I realized what makes me happy is a host of other things (along with exciting work), and working 12 hours a day makes it impossible to have that life. 

Hence when it came to creating a culture at Quirksmith, Divya and I wanted to create a workplace that we would love to be a part of. 

Years of associating success with hard work and hard work with crazy work hours, I was desperate to find examples of organizations that were able to generate great results while placing high emphasis on individual happiness and personal growth. I had seen the results that a healthy mind and body (8 hours of sleep, meditation, exercise, quality time with family to name a few) were having on my own ability to think and execute at Quirksmith day after day. 

Earlier this year I stumbled upon the Twitter handle of Ryan Breslow. Ryan is the CEO of Bolt, a tech company that enables one click checkout, and is valued at $11B currently. Ryan speaks about the concept of Conscious Culture, which is now open sourced for companies to use and apply. At its core, a conscious culture urges organizations to “execute with humanity”. 

At Quirksmith, we have drawn inspiration from this concept to create our own unique culture and values. Here’s a short summary of our core values

1) A culture of trust: 

• Lead from a place of trust - towards coworkers, partners, customers and everyone who comes across your way. 
• When you trust people and are genuinely kind to them, there will be a few times you meet the wrong folks and feel cheated - but living a life of trust is a far better way to live than not. Most of all it makes you happy and lets you express without any fear

 2) Bias to execution:

• The best way to learn is by executing, measuring outcomes, failing, learning from it and repeat.
• A quote I always recall when making a decision - “When the stakes are low, inaction hurts you. When the stakes are high, speed can kill you.” - Shane Parrish

• Always remember that you didn’t make it on your own. Pay it forward and help others grow and succeed. Other people's success should be a source of tremendous joy. 
• A quote I read somewhere - “The more you give, the more you get”. I’ve seen this come to life in my own experience and couldn’t emphasize enough

4) Celebrate small wins:

• Life’s greatest joys come from the little things. Make sure to take a step back and celebrate the little wins. 
• Remember, big results are an outcome of small but consistent efforts

5) Make physical and mental health a priority:

• There are some things you’ll never regret doing - I call them “the thing that feeds your soul”. For some it can be going for a walk, connecting with a friend, meditation, art, music, getting good sleep for 8 hours - whatever it is, make sure to do it more, and do it often. 

If you’re passionate about what we do and resonate with our values, come join our awesome team! Send in your resume at careers@quirksmith.com - we’re always looking for passionate individuals! You can also check out current open roles here.