Strong company culture can give your company an advantage by fostering loyalty, creativity, and motivation. But what are the ingredients of positive company culture?
In the past 14 years in business, InspiringApps has matured from a flat organization to one with an outstanding leadership team. In InspiringApps’ infancy, our culture was driven by the personalities of the relatively few people involved. But as the company grew, we were careful to emphasize the characteristics that fostered a positive work environment and eliminated any contrary to the things we’ve come to value— empathy, inclusion, and personal growth for our employees. It is much more challenging to make cultural changes with an existing team. So we aim to hire people who share those values from the start.
What is Company Culture?
Every company has a culture. While it may form organically, greater success will come from consistent cultivation. Intentional company culture combines organizational values and mission with the rewards of employment that come in four main categories: Loyalty-based, performance-based, opportunity-passed, and lifestyle-based. No style is better than the other; it’s dependent on the company and the employees hired. For instance, if your staff prefers lifestyle-based culture—flexible work or other perks—over performance-based culture, including raises and promotions for a job well done, the employees may stay dissatisfied and leave to find a company culture that suits their preference.
The best cultures dovetail perfectly: employees and leaders focus on the same mission and encourage rewards. Discovering the perfect combination, however, doesn’t happen overnight.
Why Do Your Employees Need an Intentional Company Culture?
The job market is booming, with qualified candidates searching for a better way to spend their work hours. A recent survey found that 79% of employees who left their jobs did so because of a lack of appreciation, and 50% said they were more motivated by appreciation than money. This sounds like a job for company culture!
In an ideal world, company culture and performance should work in tandem. Employees who are happy with their jobs have higher satisfaction rates. However, lousy work culture can hurt employees, bringing high turnover rates, burnout, and subpar work.
Consistency and time are part of the formula for creating an intentional company culture. There’s no shortcut. Influential leaders seek to understand what employees appreciate, what causes them pain, hear their suggestions for improvement, follow through with promised changes, and repeat that process frequently. Intentional company culture benefits from open minds and a commitment from everyone, especially the leadership team.
InspiringApps understands this fundamental truth and implements practices that demonstrate that. An InspiringApps employee explains it best:
“I've never been part of a company or even heard of one that not only prioritizes production and quality for the client(s) but also functionality and comfortability of the work environment. InspiringApps has mastered the balance between keeping the clients happy and keeping the employees happy. For me personally, hours are flexible because of my schedule, and the entire team is always open to communication when I need assistance or have a question. My bosses check in on me to ensure I'm doing okay with my work even when I have not reached out for help. Every other employee and my bosses are truly excited to have me on the team, and make that clear to me everyday, which is why I feel so comfortable and open to expressing my thoughts and ideas on projects.”
How to Develop and Maintain a Good Company Culture
Engaged employees are critical for business success. Experience is the best teacher, and we’ve learned plenty of lessons regarding things that keep our employees a happy part of the team.
We built our culture slowly and methodically over the past 14 years, and these are some of the most successful initiatives that have inspired more than 40% of our staff to stay with us for more than five years.
Promote from Within
Today’s employees are looking for a company with opportunities for career advancement and appreciate roles with a clear path to growth and promotions, as they give them personal goals to work towards.
Along the employee journey, InspiringApps offers professional development opportunities that help our team stay on top of their skills, expand their capabilities and incorporate new and developing interests. By doing so, our employees are able to have long tenures at InspiringApps, while still remaining competitive. At the same time, we’re able to hire the best candidates for our growing positions, right from our own team.
“I’ve been able to get help in building new skills, speak at conferences, and grow within the company throughout my time at InspiringApps,” said an InspiringApps employee.
As the InspiringApps client roster scaled, so did our team. We promoted long-time employees into our development team lead roles, recognizing their wisdom and honoring their commitment to our team over their tenure.
Offer Excellent Benefits
Many start-ups, including InspiringApps, may be resource-constrained in the early days. Health and retirement benefits are expensive, so we focused first on benefits that didn’t require a direct cash outlay. Establishing a two-day-per-week remote work policy over a decade ago, accommodating part-time employees, and offering flexible work hours were all low-cost ways to treat our team with respect.
“We’ve had a hybrid remote-work model for many years. Pre-pandemic, this was something that very few companies offered,” said an InspiringApps employee. “It was one of the reasons I chose this company.”
As InspiringApps matured, we also added more traditional benefits. In addition to a 401k with match, profit sharing, and a generous and flexible PTO policy, we recently increased the company’s health premium contribution from 50% to 100% and added company-paid vision, dental, disability, and employee assistance (EAP).
Be Inclusive
Inclusivity is a mandate kept top-of-mind in the projects and clients we take on and the staff we hire and promote. In a historically homogenous industry like tech, inclusivity can be a challenge. Through intentional recruiting and a focus on providing opportunities for traditionally underrepresented groups to join the field, InspiringApps is working to build a more diverse team that reflects the users we serve better.
Promoting women in tech is one way we’ve made strides in our company. At InspiringApps, women make up 40% of our leadership team and more than a third of our employees—20% more than the U.S. average.
Promoting diversity and inclusion provides various perspectives, which is essential for the challenges we’re addressing in our consumer apps. We consider it a competitive advantage as we continue to innovate for our clients.
Additionally, we’ve made a concentrated effort over time to welcome new employees. Years ago that welcome included a team lunch on Pearl Street. Since our team has grown, that lunch is now digital – and the efforts to stay be inclusive extend much further than that. Communication and connection is ingrained into the way we set up projects, make progress on initiatives and more.
Communicate Consistently
Secrecy and unexplained decision-making from leaders lead to unengaged employees. Transparency is the name of the game. About 85% of employees are most motivated when they know what’s happening and why.
“They place a great deal of trust in their employees,” said an InspiringApps employee. “Even to help make product decisions or suggestions to customers.”
Open and frequent communication, including stand-ups and all-hands meetings, project or team demos, company newsletters, and social media, encourages employees to gain trust in leadership. Share company goals regularly so that your employees feel confident in knowing the direction they’re working. The more your employees see open communication from leaders and are encouraged to participate in decision making, the better communicators they’ll be with your clients, modeling the positive communication behaviors in everything they do.
Technology is your friend when it comes to employee engagement—offering a Slack channel or other internal chat features, an employee app, or an intranet site where employees can share and talk directly to leaders can inspire a transparent culture.
Conclusion
We’re honored to be recognized as a Great Place to Work. But that recognition is only a small window into the little things that our team is doing every day to reinforce the culture we’ve been nurturing for years. It defines our expectations for the way we treat one another and anyone who interacts with InspiringApps. It certainly makes InspiringApps a pleasant place to work, but we think you’ll also see the results when you work with us and in the apps we create.
Building award-winning apps starts with a language that’s foreign to many of us: code. For more than 14 years, our development team has built easy-to-use iOS, Android, and web applications for more than 100 companies in a dozen industries. See our work.
Our Founder and CEO, Brad Weber, recently joined the Building to Scale podcast with Admentus to talk about his entrepreneurial experience in building a remote team. Now with offices in multiple states and a growing remote team, Brad shares some of the growing pains and successes he’s had at InspiringApps.
Key Takeaway
Build a strong foundation – As Brad states, while we have been successful with a 14-year history and more than 20 employees, we would have been better served by introducing strategy, process, and a stronger foundation earlier in the game.
Lessons Learned
Build a Foundation – Having structure – systems, processes, etc. in your business can make a huge difference in the long term of a business from both an efficiency perspective as well as a value perspective.
Contractors vs. Employees – Regardless of whether you are dealing with contractors or employees, ensure there is a cultural fit and buy-in to ensure that everybody is committed and pulling in the same direction.
Continual Learning – As an entrepreneur and an executive, learning never stops.
Listen to the full interview on YouTube or at the Admentus website.
Do our consulting services align with the unique needs of your organization? Request a free consultation today to find out more about how you can integrate our expertise into your next project. We’d love to help you streamline your path to digital product success.
About InspiringApps: InspiringApps is an award-winning mobile app design and development company. For over a decade, InspiringApps has built beautiful and engaging apps, for all kinds of smart devices, that inspire how people live, work, and play. Their clients range from innovative start-ups to some of the biggest brands in the world.
About Cancer Exercise: Created by world-renowned pioneer in cancer and physical activity exercise oncology Anna L. Schwartz, PhD, FNP-BC, FAAN, this exercise program helps individuals make a positive change in their life. The step-by-step program guides participants to become more active leading to less fatigue, more energy and improved physical and emotional health.
About The Best Mobile App Awards: The Best Mobile App Awards is a platform that recognizes the best mobile apps available on the market via a committee of highly experienced app designers and developers. These leaders of the industry are dedicated to uncovering the next big player in mobile applications.
To be considered for this list of best mobile app developers, companies are required to offer a variety of services, including augmented/virtual reality development, pay-per-click, custom software development, and more. Also under consideration are small firms to provide services at affordable rates and large firms that can execute extensive projects. The final list highlights development companies that cater to clients across various industries, such as education, e-commerce, retail, healthcare, and media.
InspiringApps is delighted to be included in this list of the best mobile app developers in Austin. We offer award-winning development and design services to build software products that are creative, intuitive, and so compelling that they become indispensable to those who use them. We’ve designed and developed countless iOS apps, Android apps, and web apps. We also have experience in Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and hardware-integrated IoT devices. We have expertise in both native and cross-platform tools and many of our apps leverage cloud-based content management systems (CMSs).
If you have an app idea that you’d like to explore, please contact us. We’d love to use our experience to help make your idea a reality.
Although the practice of white-labeling apps exists across various industries, the business model for all brands is the same. Suppose you want to create a white-labeled “all resorts” app to service property management companies. This app would need to include features that appeal to virtually all resort managers. For example, the app could include the ability to view specific amenities of a resort upon selection. Property managers could further customize the app each time a resort is added to the product.
Although creating one product that services multiples resorts is more efficient, this technique has its limitations. A significant con to white-labeling is the appearance of a lack of uniqueness. Using the all resorts app as an example, this product may be less appealing to individual resorts since they don’t want to be listed side-by-side in the same app with their competitors. Resorts would prefer to own their customer relationship and create the impression that they’ve done something unique to serve them.
On the other hand, the model benefits property managers because it is more efficient to maintain one app. It also simplifies things for users since they only need one app to access information about multiple resorts. White-labeled products also cut out the time and expense required to build users’ trust. Instead, companies deliver customized products to their existing loyal customer base. A customer who is familiar with a particular property management company is more likely to book a resort from its app. For this reason, white-labeling is especially useful to industries in which trust is paramount. This is why financial and medical institutions rely heavily on white-labeling.
Considerations for Developing a Profitable White-labeled Product
Limitations on brand-specific features
Limitations on brand-specific features substantially impact how producers use white-labeling to create profitable apps. Brands invariably request new features that may only be relevant to them. Offering no brand-specific customization is easiest for white-label providers. The more brand-specific features added to an app, the more difficult it is to maintain the app over time. It is tempting to individualize features in order to appease customers. The temptation is especially strong when a business is starting and revenue is especially critical. However, restricting the number of brand-specific features is key to profitability.
The cost to develop a white-labeled product is relatively low at the start. Expenses grow over time as more brands (with more needs) are added to the platform. Ideally developers should strive to flatten out the expense curve so that the cost to add a new brand to the app is small. Setting limits on brand-specific customization is key to reaching this goal.
Publishing Requirements
The adoption of white-labeled products by multiple companies results in the availability of similar looking products that market themselves as being unique to a specific brand. This outcome inevitably presents a challenge to using white-labeling to create profitable digital products. It has also contributed to some pushback from Apple. Initially Apple chose to reject submissions from white-label providers. Apple later relaxed its policy to allow white-labeled products to be created so long as each brand creates its own developer account and publishes its rebranded app through that account. This stipulation aims to strike a balance between Apple’s interest in an “app store cleanup” and the growing popularity of white-labeled products. Developers interested in creating profitable white-labeled products need to stay informed of these evolving restrictions.
Adequate Specificity
The design of white-labeled products needs to be general enough to be adopted by multiple brands yet specific enough to capitalize on niche markets and their goals. For example, Intel used white-labeling to create a gaming laptop that’s similar to a lot of other laptops but also has qualities that appeal to a specific market. The new product for gaming enthusiasts is conducive to white-labeling due to features including “an advanced cooling system, excellent performance, great build quality, a light chassis, and shockingly good battery life.” The same connection between profitability and embodiment of a middle ground between generic and targeted features exists for white-labeled apps.
Alignment with Emerging Trends
The most profitable white-labeled products provide services that are becoming increasingly popular. If relabeled products don’t reflect relevant trends, then they are unlikely to provide a launching point from which multiple brands can service a growing need. White-labeled products that are at the forefront of new trends are also able to acquire data that will become increasingly valuable over time. An example of a timely white-labeled product is Greenlight, a debit card for kids that was recently white-labeled by Chase. Fintech is now essential to personal banking. Therefore, apps that capitalize on this growing trend will be highly valuable to top brands.
InspiringApps has extensive experience developing white-labeled products for organizations that are influential in numerous sectors. Contact us today to find out how our team can help you use white-labeling to reach a diverse set of organizations.
We are thrilled for our partners at ēdn, as their SmallGarden is now available to buy online at Apple and West Elm! The SmallGarden is expertly engineered and beautifully designed with advanced LED lights and WiFi enabled processors that make growing fully automated. Combined with the ēdn app, you can seamlessly manage the lighting schedule, see garden alerts, and get detailed guidance on the growth of your plants to help you go from planting to harvest and beyond.
The handcrafted gardens use responsibly-sourced bent wood and anodized aluminum to create their garden boxes. The result is a product design that complements both nature and the room it’s in. ēdn provides a wide range of dirt-free SeedPods that easily drop into place. Users can grow gardens that prove useful with herbs and vegetables, or go a more decorative route with flowers and foliage. The easy and intuitive app helps users to monitor water, light and temperature, guiding the user through the growing process from start to finish.
We enjoyed working with ēdn on the app to leverage technology for a fun and automated home gardening experience. Most recently, a new version of the iOS app was released, complete with HomeKit support for an even more integrated product experience. An Android app will also be available soon. We believe that app development done well results in products that delight users and deliver real value, and that’s never been more true than with ēdn.
Congratulations again to the team at ēdn! We are excited about their success and the future of their product. If you have an app idea that you’d like to explore, please contact us. We’d love to use our experience to help your idea grow.