How Piktochart Creates a Culture That Sticks: 6 Tips

Forming a startup is like forming a family: You know who you are, and what values are important to you. You want to raise your family in the same spirit, passing on values that glue everyone together.

When I joined Piktochart, I was amazed at how a successful startup with over four million users managed to stay so incredibly humble. I quickly found that people at Piktochart do not seek attention nor recognition. They work together, joined by their mission to make people professional storytellers and to equip them with the best tools to do so.

After only a few weeks of working here, I realized that the success of the company stems from its core values. You cannot impose on people values they didn’t have to start with, and suddenly expect them to take those values to heart.

They need to come from within. That’s what happened at Piktochart.

I remember one moment when we all went to Australia for a company retreat last year. We organized our first meet-up with customers in Melbourne where we held a few fireside chats and networked with our users.

When we all gathered at the venue, I’ve realized more than 90 percent of our team came in Piktochart t-shirts or hoodies (with no such instruction whatsoever).

I looked at the room and thought: “This is it. Right here. That pride we all have to be part of this company is something truly special and most of all, it comes naturally!”

KNOW WHAT YOU STAND FOR

We started out by being HOPEFUL. Hopeful we could provide people with the right tools to add life to boring data and enrich simple pieces of content. Hopeful to make Piktochart as intuitive and user friendly as possible so that people could easily tell stories that captivated and impacted others.

Only several months later, after a few ups and downs, many successes and failures, it became obvious: HOPEFUL was the acronym fit to encompass all of our values:

H is for Humility
We truly learn from our mistakes and take feedback seriously. We see it as a strength because we know that recognizing shortcomings will open doors to improvement.

O is for Open-up
Both internal and external communication is key. We are transparent with each other and with our customers.

P is for Passionate
We’re a team of developers, designers, marketers and support staff who care about building the best infographics tool on the Internet.  Piktochart is a part of who we are — and we love what we do.  We want our users to love what they create.  Period.

E is for Effective
We know our users have a lot on their plates, and we exist to lighten the load.  We aim simply to get things done.  

F is for Fun-loving
We pride ourselves on hiring genuinely awesome and sometimes quirky team members.  Our light-hearted and lively culture shines within Piktochart and you see it at work on a daily basis.

U is for User Focused
We listen to customers. And we do that for hours. We’re laser-focused on what’s best for our customers and their goals.

L is for Love
Sometimes “All you need is love” (as cheesy as it sounds, isn’t it true?). Users that love us and share their success stories with us are our biggest inspiration. And we love them back!

CREATE A CULTURE OF TRUST AND EMPOWER PEOPLE

When you trust people, you give them the best gift of all - freedom to creatively express themselves, and to be accountable for their tasks. It’s an incredible thing for a leader to see how a complete trust changes people and gives them wings.

We do not micromanage. We guide and let people find the way THEY think is best. Everyone at Piktochart is empowered to make their own decisions. At the end of the day, these decisions have an impact on product development and our company’s future. Sometimes they might not be the right choices, but how else will you learn and grow?

We’re wired to test, fail and learn quickly, and then pick ourselves up and try something new. No hard feelings, we’re just humans.

Knowing you get to be a driver and not just a passenger (I must admit I borrowed that one from Joel, co-founder of Buffer. He said that during the SaaS Business Conference in Singapore in January, 2015) gives you an extra motivational kick. You know you’re part of something greater. You’re not just another developer, designer or growth hacker. You determine the direction and future of this product right now. Everyone’s opinion matters.

BE TRANSPARENT

This ties back to trust. And there’s no better way to build it than to be honest about matters and once more, to include people in your decisions. Many companies I’ve worked for create this feeling of exclusion where if you’re not high enough in the hierarchy, you are left out and powerless.

At Piktochart people have a say about such things as how we decorate our new office, where to go on the next retreat or what questions to ask during the next fireside chat event. Using Upvoter we encourage people to list their ideas.

We take turns in organizing our weekly meetings and dine-ins as well as yearly retreats.

We vote for the next project owners and committees to take on special tasks.

We run internal surveys, reflect on our weaknesses and work in groups on finding solutions. Together.

Recently, we started the AMA (ask-me-anything) series where we are free to ask professional and personal questions to a chosen team member.

Not everyone of us is in the front line talking to customers every day, but we do find ways to share important feedback with the teams and give recognition and occasional pat on the shoulder to each other via Slack. We even have a special channel called “Sharing is Caring” where we share awesome tweets and mentions from our community.

Each of us learns a lot during this journey and some of us share their lessons through an internal PiktoNerds blog. It could be learnings from webinars we attended, courses we have taken or simply sharing tips on various topics we feel could be of value to others. Anyone can contribute!

What’s more, the key company metrics are shared with everyone on a weekly basis by our co-founder. We know where we stand in terms of revenue, user sign ups and infographics created among others. This allows us to see our progress and contribution to results.

GIVE PEOPLE THEIR FREEDOM

The concept of working from 9am to 6pm from the same desk every single day has become foreign to me. We’re not programmed (pun intended) to be productive eight consecutive hours of the day, five days a week. Think about it. How many of your eight, nine, or 10 hours in the office really yield results?

Letting people choose their “happy place” instead of holding them to fixed working hours and locations will help them become more productive and creative. Every Friday we work from home or from any place that makes us feel good. We go together to cafes, meet at co-working spaces, or work from anywhere in the world to get some perspective, recharge batteries, and think differently.

Recently our customer delight and marketing teams have expanded and most of our team members work remotely from their corners of the world. It’s not always easy but each of us has developed their own routine and appreciates their freedom.

I’ve worked from rooftop bars in Barcelona, my family countryside home in Poland, and seaside resorts in Southeast Asian countries; I know now that I wouldn’t have it any other way. It builds the perfect work-life balance. You don’t have to wait until the weekend or until your yearly holiday break. You live your life now while working!

CULTIVATE THE CULTURE OF SHARING AND GENEROSITY

At Piktochart, we interact within a culture of sharing. And it comes down to very small details.

For instance, every newcomer decorates their Cup of Hope, which is then hung together with all the others on our wall. Every colleague can feel free to give feedback and motivation to each other by dropping in notes into each other’s cups.

There’s nothing better than giving and receiving valuable feedback, recognizing someone’s hard work and feeling like you belong. Recently we also started using Bonus.ly, a platform where you can give and receive recognition from your teammates. We focus on small things that matter and tie them back to our core values.

At the end, everyone can exchange their accumulated bonus points for a free lunch with our co-founder, one joke per day from one of our developers, Uber credits, or a donation for a chosen charity among others.

Perhaps one of the most important things to say at the end is:

MAKE SURE YOU BRING THE RIGHT PEOPLE ON BOARD

Those who will (in our case, be hopeful) share your values. Cultural interviews make a huge part of our recruitment process and even though we’ve developed questions that help verify people's ways of thinking, we usually talk to prospects from a peer-to-peer perspective and get to know them thoroughly.  

Treating them unbiasedly and as a peer or friend helps us determine how well they would fit into the culture in Piktochart.

Having the right culture is what makes people stick around and become natural brand evangelists. And it’s not only seen internally. It translates to your relationships with customers and partners and finally, into your product. It differentiates you as a company and helps you become a brand people love to spend time with.

This article was first seen on the Piktochart blog.