Finimize: Culture

Introduction

The purpose of this document is to make the implicit explicit. A company’s culture naturally evolves as a product of the people that are part of the company. As we hire more people and as the company matures, the Finimize culture will be further shaped. This presents an opportunity but also a risk. The opportunity is that new Finimizers will make us better. The risk is that you hire people who can derail the company by behaving in ways that do not help Finimize progress.

As such, it is crucial to make our behavior, our mindset and thinking explicit. This will allow us to be very focused and conscious in our decision-making, ranging from product development to recruitment.

Given the natural evolution of a company, this document is a living document and needs to be updated as times change.

Why are we here?

While in his late twenties, Max encountered a problem that led him to start Finimize. The media, his parents and pretty much everyone around him kept telling him start building up savings. So each month Max put money aside from his salary into a savings account. And one day he looked at his phone, opened up his bank account and thought: “Amazing, I finally have some savings!” The natural followup question was: “What do I do with these savings now?” Even though Max had studied economics, he had to admit to himself that he was clueless when it came to this question.

Of course he went to go ask his friends what they were doing, many of whom were finance professionals. And he quickly realized that they too were clueless when it came to their personal finances.

So then he wanted to seek out professional help: he went to a banker in branch (he couldn’t afford to go a financial advisor), and all the banker did was ask a bunch of generic questions and ultimately it was a sales pitch for the bank products.

Frustrated by this experience, Max went online (as you do), and he couldn’t find a solution that offered holistic and independent financial advice.

And that's when Max realized that this is a real problem: he was not the only one who had savings and didn't know what to do with them. In fact, 86% of people in their late twenties/early thirties (a.k.a. millennials) actually save each month, but they keep more than 50% in cash because there is no suitable way for them to get financial advice. That was the genesis moment for Finimize.

We’re now embarking on a mission to empower our generation to become their own financial advisors. And we’re doing that by providing them with the necessary tools like financial news and education as well as a holistic financial advice platform.

Our vision is big: We aim to sustainably increase the net worth of our generation.

Our BHAG is: we want our generation to check Finimize before any financial decision.

Our Mantras

🐶

Eat your own dog food

Think of yourself when you create, write, or design something. Does it make sense to you? Would you use it? Both answers should be yes.

😘

KISS

Keep it simple, stupid. We should aim to make everything understandable at a glance.

😊

Enlighten and delight our users

Users come to us to be enlightened because we explain finance to them. Users stay with us because we delight them.

👛

Be resourceful

Our goal is to help people make the most of their money. Let’s do that for ourselves as well.

💪

See something, say something, DO SOMETHING

As we’re not hiring complainers but problem-solvers, if we see something that’s not working properly, we take action and fix it.

⚡️

Be cleverly fast

Focus on making intelligent decisions and moving forward quickly rather than deliberating over the perfect answer.

💡

Stay focused and be intense

There’s a lot we COULD be doing, and we need to relentlessly focus on our goals. Always ask how what you’re doing is helping (or not helping) progress towards them.

🤘

Listen to data but follow your gut

We use data to help make and support decisions, but our gut instincts are what make us great (and differentiate us from the competition).

Doing things the Finimize way

We treat each other with trust and respect

TRUST and RESPECT are the underpinnings of every team. When you join the Finimize team a high level of trust is placed in you. This can be unusual to employees when they are not used to this level of trust. If you come from work experience where complete trust has not been a value, it can appear as lack of involvement/guidance – this is not the case and we encourage you to reach out when you feel this. Respect is paramount to a conducive working environment. We expect every conversation to be conducted with respect, and when anyone feels disrespected we should learn from that experience and change our language and or behavior.

Never say anything about a person you wouldn’t say to them directly.

Spend time on the NEW

Commit the time to sit and think, how we can improve, is there a better way of doing this, how do I make this even better than before, how do we achieve world class?

Book thinking time/reflection in your calendar.

Social and Perks

Every month we have at least one company-wide social event. Organizers will rotate each month.

Every full-time employee gets £250 per year on anything to self improve. It has to be on something that you are doing for the first time and that will make you a more well-rounded person. This can be anything from learning a new language or learning how to code or taking acting lessons. Just book it yourself and then expense it – basically anything where you’re learning something new.

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