Center's Values

Every company has values; some companies decide what those values are.

By Center 2 min read

This is our first set of company values. Good values should be actionable, specific, and maybe even sometimes uncomfortable because they contain information that shares who we are.

What our company values:

Speed

  • We launched our first product 3 days after starting the company and we've been building it in public as much as possible.
  • Valuing shipping means we'll risk others copying us so we can get something to our customers faster.

Clear Communication

  • We're a mostly-distributed team so clear communication matters.
  • Beyond a professional development budget, we also offer a separate dedicated annual writing budget. Any class, book, even one-on-one tutoring with an author you like: if it's going to make you a better communicator/writer, do it.

Wealth Creation

  • Most startups have employee pools that are about 10% of the company's value. Ours is 30%.
  • Again, lots of companies will say they value wealth creation. But a lot of those companies will also flinch when you ask how many shares are outstanding.

Leverage

  • We want to invest in the best tooling available and aren't afraid to invest resources when we find opportunities that will enhance our productivity.
  • As described in The Effective Engineer: "If you have to do something more than twice, write a tool the third time."

Performance & Speed

  • Slow software is an affront to users.
  • We'll always invest the time and put in the work to make our products as fast as they can be.

Customer Obsession

  • We don't mind operating at a loss as long as we're building something that customers really love. For some of our products, we'll first figure out how to make something great, and later on figure out how to make money doing it.

Ownership Mentality

  • When something goes wrong, we'll start off assuming it's our responsibility to fix.
  • If there's a bug impacting users in a third-party piece of software, we'll write a pull request that fixes it.
  • We don't exist in a vacuum and will actively contribute to the NFT ecosystem, even if that means putting in extra time and doing things that don't scale.