"TINYpulse is a lightweight, anonymous way to incorporate feedback into your business to get new ideas, to get a sense where the things are going well, to identify problem areas you probably didn't know exist, and then do something about it."
I think culture is imperative to building successful businesses, today more than ever. I really think of culture as kind of the glue that keeps a company together and all moving the same direction, and I think really positive, amazing cultures are a requirement to building transformative companies where employees just love what they're doing. And they work hard, not because they have to or they're asked to, it's because they love it, and they love their coworkers and their customers. They want to do something really amazing.
I think every company probably thinks they have a great company culture, but I think the ones that separate are, where you leaders that invest in and nurture and believe in it, are thoughtful about what's the heart and the soul of the company represent. And also realize it's not static. You know, cultures are incredibly dynamic. Early on, I would be asked the question often, "How do we preserve our culture?" We knew we had something special, but when we go public or get bigger, how do you preserve the culture?
I used to actually, literally list what we're going to do to preserve the culture, and then over time, I just learned, you don't preserve cultures. They're organic. They're always growing and changing, and you really want to add to your culture. You want to make it better. You want to enhance it. I think it's leaders that have that vision around cultures that are organic and dynamic, and they need a lot of care and feeding. And there's always a way to make it better and make an improvement.
Building an amazing team with a really special culture and extraordinary culture was by far our differentiator. I think in any business, people vibe from people, and that human touch and human relationship is so important. It's not always in technology, the best technology that wins. It's often, I think, the best relationship builders and the best culture that wins, and that definitely was true for us. Our greatest competitive advantage was clearly the orange culture.
I think it's easy to justify. I think it's really all about, your most important asset are your people, and how do you attract the best and retain them and help them grow and develop? That's an area you just have to invest. I think most companies still under-invest, and you know, why I like TINYpulse so much is that it's simple, lightweight technology that helps leaders get a sense for how their employees are doing in a continual, consistent way. And then the best organizations are those that actually listen to the feedback and do something about it. Feedback is meaningless unless you actually take action and put it to work.
Business leaders can justify the cost of investing in culture because people are their most important asset, really on every income statement. Salaries and bonuses and people are by far the largest percentage of spend for a company, and investing in technologies and people and programs pays huge dividends. It's really, it should be the starting place for investment for all companies.
In my mind, and I actually have many friends in portfolio companies that are TINYpulse customers, TINYpulse is a lightweight, anonymous way to incorporate feedback into your business to get new ideas, to get a sense where the things are going well, to identify problem areas you probably didn't know exist, and then do something about it. I think it's so important that companies have a regular feedback mechanism where employees can share how they're feeling and offer ideas for improvement, and I'd say especially today with the millennial workforce becoming a bigger and bigger percentage of our population, I find young millennials, they want to provide a lot of feedback. And they have something to say.