AdGold Blogs

Surviving 2 Years: Puts Value into Your Values

It’s been a while since our last blog…what have you all been up to?! We are delighted to be placing this post as a celebration of our business surviving two years. We made a conscious decision to bootstrap in order to retain our freedom and autonomy to take the company in the direction which reflects our values. We feel having survived these two years, we have a strong chance of becoming an established company.

By September 2017 we will have made two years in the recruitment business and it has been a salutary experience. There is a tendency with human nature to believe you understand what you are letting yourself in for because like most people, we listened to the advice of those who have been here before, read up on pitfalls and talked to those who were willing to share their experience. No matter ….none of it prepares you for the stings and failures that you must withstand to survive. It is a success to fail, learn and keep going.

Prior to setting up this company, we spent a great deal of time thinking about our motivations, developing a set of shared values and really challenging each other about what these principles meant in practice. That led to a shared understanding of boundaries and agreement on the founding principles for AdGold detailed in a memorandum of understanding. As we experienced significant challenges, the work we did on our fundamental values proved its worth.

As we watched a number of opportunities fail and dissipate at the final hurdle, the disappointments mounted, sometimes served with a slice of betrayal and disingenuous human actions, the temptation to stray from our original business vision and make a “quick” buck mounted! We challenged each other on proposed variations but it was clear none of us had the heart to compromise our principles and so, if we could not align actions with our value proposition, we abandoned the approach.

This is not to say that we will never evolve our vision. We will, in line with our fundamental business values.

Our values helped us to stay on track, keep the faith and to continue moving forward despite the setbacks. We now truly appreciate the real value of Values.

Tune in next time to read about the temptations we faced!

Written by AdGold