We’ve always been as intentional about designing our culture at Lob as we are about designing our product. We believe core values are the foundation of every organization — they should guide actions and decision-making, and be ingrained in everything employees do.
Now, as we enter a new phase of hypergrowth since raising our Series C, our culture needs to grow as well. We knew it was the perfect time to reflect on the core values that brought us to this point, and refresh and renew those values to prepare ourselves for the challenges and opportunities ahead.
Lob is a deeply collaborative company, and our history of innovation has been built through the talent and creativity of our entire team. So it was natural that everyone here should have input into the core values powering the next stage of our journey.
But first, our leadership team dug deep and really evaluated what they thought were values required for Lob’s next generation of success. They then met with several groups of Lobsters — from long-standing employees, to new employees — to hear their perspectives on what makes Lob a great company. These values articulate who we are at our best.
We’re here to get results, and we’re responsible for the results we get. To do this, we’re super clear on what outcomes we need to achieve for the business and prioritize our actions in order to achieve them. This helps us to hold ourselves and each other accountable for achieving the best possible outcomes.
As the leader in direct mail automation, Lob was able to get to this position because we were extremely agile along the way. Startups get measures but the pace of iteration and we want to be a company that moves quickly. That often means failing fast but maximizing our learnings.
One of our original values was “Find Strength in the Collective .” We found that in an atmosphere of collaboration, we could do better and be better.
“Level Up” is a different way of communicating the same idea. By giving each other feedback and support within a positive environment, we become better both as individuals and as a team. As a business that is growing rapidly, it is of the utmost importance that we invest in ourselves and one another’s development in order to maintain continued success. People join Lob because they want to better and to do that….
Furthermore, we actively seek to foster a growth mindset by believing that all Lobsters have the ability to grow and improve their skills.
“Curate Experiences” was one of our original core values. It was rooted in our idea that we wanted the best experience for our customers but we realized that a customer can really be a “partner”, “candidate”, “co-worker”,etc.
But curating experience goes beyond respect. It means ensuring our partners and customers have everything they need to be successful. It means making sure our users and developers enjoy a positive experience, whether they’re using basic functionality or diving deep into the nuts and bolts of our API. And it means being a responsible part of the business community, doing our part to build a more just and sustainable world.
The tech sector has had a long-standing problem with diversity. Tech culture has often been heavily biased towards an affluent, white, male perspective, with poor inclusion of ethnic and racial minorities, women, and other marginalized groups.
Lob has been working to foster a diverse, inclusive, and equitable environment both inside our company and in the tech industry as a whole. We do this not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it makes us stronger as a company. We’re more effective when we have a wide range of perspectives informing our decisions and driving innovation internally and externally.
Bold innovation has always been part of Lob’s culture — so much so that we’ve given it its own core value. We like risk. We view risk as an opportunity to learn, experiment, and grow as a company. We are a company that wants to make experiments and are comfortable not being right 100% of the time. Through Hackathons, discussions and team activities, we seek to push not just our engineers, but our entire team to try out new ideas and approaches. We “push the envelope” in order to continually test, learn and iterate our approach.
Not every experiment leads to great results, and not every risk pays off. But in the long run, the companies that foster a culture of bold innovation are the ones that change the world and create the most value.
These values are so much more than a plaque on our wall. We’re weaving these values into everything we do, from hiring and training, to feedback, evaluations and performance reviews.
If you think you’d thrive in this environment, we’d love to hear from you!
