Jenna and Florian Motlik discuss the importance of valuing and interacting with customers.
The Culture Making Codeship More than a Tech Company
As I prepared for my conversation with Flo Motlik, the co-founder and CTO of Codeship, I wondered what I could possibly ask him about coding. Taking that I’m as proficient in programming as I am skateboarding (yes, it’s that bad), I feared I would ask him questions that have nothing to do with his job.
Lucky for me, as I struggled to remember Chase’s explanations about “C++,” “Python,” and “HTML,” I quickly learned that Codeship is far more focused on community than they are on coding.
The first indicator that Flo and his co-founders Manny and Mo are making a special impact in the tech community is a post by high school student Adam McArthur, where he explains how using Codeship helped him get an A in his senior year programming class.
Aside from building a product that’s simple enough for a teenager to navigate, I was blown away by how deeply Flo’s team is immersed in the problem they’re working to solve.
The team is cognizant that trusting a group to ship your company’s code is as serious as giving them a key to your home and it’s because of this that building meaningful relationships is their top priority.
Between sending users Always Keep Shipping tee-shirts and hand written notes in customer care packages the team understands relationship building far beyond company interactions.
While fast response times and a commitment to constantly share knowledge with their community is important, Flo is most excited about spending time with Codeship users outside of the office. The way he puts it, the happiest and most loyal customer is the one who enjoys having a beer with you.
For Codeship, doing things that don’t scale isn’t a part of their culture – It’s the core of it.
Despite graduating from TechStars Boston, raising a successful Series A, and having thousands of paying customers, Flo’s proudest achievement is that Codeship relieves the stress keeping founders up at night when launching a new product or feature.
When I asked Flo about the team’s most useful community building strategy he responded simply, each member of the team is open about who they are and what they’re passionate about instead of hiding behind the company.
To learn more about the core parts of Codeship’s culture and discover simple strategies to improve customer relationships, tune into Flo’s 33founders episode and visit Codeship here.