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No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

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Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#461

Post by simpixelated »

dannyw wrote: post #413
simpixelated wrote: post #138

I work at a similar company (less than 10 employees, no deadlines, (almost) no meetings), but unlike Gumroad we actually have health insurance, 401K with matching, donation matching, etc. So it is possible to to have "freedom" without laying everyone off and removing all benefits. You can read more about it here: https://simpixelated.com/two-year-work-retrospective

Are all of your employees there for true flexibility (ie spending more time on their own project than work?)

I don't think so. Everyone seems to put in a solid day working. No one is counting the hours, but we seem to be productive enough. Still, I definitely joined the company to get away from working more than 40 hours per week and feeling stressed all the time.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#462

Post by simpixelated »

biztos wrote: post #290
simpixelated wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for a small company (less than 10 employees) that follows a very similar working process. No deadlines, one (very short) weekly meeting. We don't try to stay competitive with similar products. That's impossible with VC funding flooding the market. What we do instead is focus on making our current customers happy. Everyone is involved in support. We follow up with customers when we do launch features they reque…

I'm glad to hear that works for you. I'm a customer of several smallish (but bigger than 10 employees) services and if I'm paying something like $120/year for something even remotely useful, I'm not going to switch unless the competition solves a specific problem or I'm really mad at the current provider. In the former case I would at least have told support about my problem. I do believe that there is "enough" money…

Yeah, we see plenty of churn on smaller/newer accounts, but a good chunk of our customers, especially on the larger plans, have been with us for years. It's partly platform lock in, because it's probably a pain to switch, but I like to think it's also we solve a majority of their needs at a decent price and provide good support. So why would they switch? I think it also helps that we are generally targeting that small to medium size company. Or even smaller departments/teams within larger companies. So we're not subject to the whims of a C-suite that is looking to cut 5% off their budget every quarter.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#463

Post by simpixelated »

baby wrote: post #402
simpixelated wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for a small company (less than 10 employees) that follows a very similar working process. No deadlines, one (very short) weekly meeting. We don't try to stay competitive with similar products. That's impossible with VC funding flooding the market. What we do instead is focus on making our current customers happy. Everyone is involved in support. We follow up with customers when we do launch features they reque…

Signal?

No, http://ghostinspector.com/

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#464

Post by shafyy »

ativzzz wrote: post #172
shafyy wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your underlying assumption is that companies where employees work more hours are more successful on the market place. I would say this is a deeply flawed assumption.

If two equally capable entities are competing, the one who puts in more time will almost always win. The Chinese may be lacking the (social and physical) infrastructure that the Europeans have a head start on for productivity, but they are catching up or have already caught up. This probably applies less to big conglomerates who exist and will continue existing regardless of what happens (honestly most of their emplo…

The world doesn't work like the models they teach at Econ 101 though :-)

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#465

Post by irateswami »

literallycancer wrote: post #452
irateswami wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. Saying that the employees are paid well enough to buy their own health insurance is a red herring because it's not an apples-to-apples comparison, companies get far better rates on insurance products. Gumroad could probably save a significant amount of money by providing health insurance to their employees and just not paying as high of a salary.

Company provided health insurance creates incentives for employees to delay leaving and stay in jobs they don't like anymore. This lowers the quality of life for everyone involved.

That's a pretty weak arg all around. I'd wager this is a rare situation, compared to the number of good employees recruited and retained by offered quality benefits.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#466

Post by maxehmookau »

Part of me is taken by this, but part of me feels like this is just the next step towards a culture of less stable employment. But instead of deliveroo drivers, it's tech workers. While I don't doubt that Gumroad pays and treats its workers well, it's the first step a slippery slope.

As with other gig economy jobs, it's sold by virtue of its "flexibility", but you can still offer flexibility and health insurance.

You can also pay for employee benefits, have them work fewer hours, have no meetings and no deadlines.

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#467

Post by batty_alex »

JTbane wrote: post #458
skissane wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A related factor: US sugar subsidies make sugar expensive, so a lot of manufactured foods in the US contain High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) instead. On a kilojoule-for-kilojoule basis, excessive intake of HFCS is a lot more harmful to health than excessive intake of sugar is. By contrast, Australia has a long history of being anti-agriculture subsidies, and fewer foods here include HFCS (most of those that do are imp…

>On a kilojoule-for-kilojoule basis, excessive intake of HFCS is a lot more harmful to health than excessive intake of sugar is. Do you have a source for that? I don't see how sucrose from sugar cane is any healthier than HFCS, which is the same thing, just split by an enzyme.

It's similar, but not the same.

There's chemical differences and some HFCS is a lot more fructose than sucrose. But, yeah, I also haven't been able to find any conclusive evidence that it's any worse with your garden-variety HFCS

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#468

Post by batty_alex »

baby wrote: post #357
callmeed wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I make more than enough to afford proper health insurance on the open market. Everyone at Gumroad is paid very well and should be able to afford the same. This might be true for everyone at Gumroad , but I wouldn't be so sure. You also seem dismissive (probably unintentionally) of one of the biggest problems we have in the US right now: health care and insurance is ridiculously expensive–especially for people with…

> This might be true for everyone at Gumroad, but I wouldn't be so sure. You also seem dismissive (probably unintentionally) of one of the biggest problems we have in the US right now: health care and insurance is ridiculously expensive–especially for people with families who want to be self-employed or contractors. I don't want to be dismissive, but with a full remote job why not go live in a country where healthcar…

I hear Barbados offers a 1 year remote-work visa

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#469

Post by cutemonster »

coffee wrote: post #255
andreilys wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to be the case with Facebook that just acquired all their competitors once they became a threat.

Not all companies desire to be acquired, even when offered. Not all deals go through, even when desired. We often hear of those that do get acquired, more rarely those that don't - Facebook has notably failed making attempts. Those companies are still going strong. Facebook didn't kill them.

What are some of those? Snapchat is one?

I wonder if they have in mind an IPO instead

Re: No meetings, no deadlines, no full-time employees

#470

Post by cutemonster »

colonwqbang wrote: post #257
andreilys wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to be the case with Facebook that just acquired all their competitors once they became a threat.

Maybe it's not what you would prefer but the owners of those companies probably saw themselves as winners. Unless Zuckerberg forced them to sell at gunpoint?

They = winners, FB = winner. Consumers and their customers = losers (?)
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