One of the most rewarding opportunities we have as entrepreneurs is to build a dynamic, reliable, and resilient team. And yet, hiring and retaining the "right people" is also one of the greatest challenges in business.
We do it every week, whether there are 2 of us or 12 of us. We do it with guests. We do it whether we're busy or not. It's part of how we've overcome the inevitable seasickness that comes with the swells and dips of being a small business. No doubt, it's made us a better business.
The painful truth is that solving the problems of human and environmental dis-ease is one of the only guaranteed growth industries. That may sound like a dismal pronouncement, but I also see it as the greatest opportunity of our time.
Technologists hold the keys to the most powerful force in the modern world, but recently they’ve forgotten not only how to wield it, but that they own it. It wasn't so long ago that technology represented hope; that it represented power; and, most of all, that it represented change.
Parents and families make strong, profitable businesses. Instead of asking parents and families to sacrifice themselves to support a grinding work culture, we can adapt our businesses.
As entrepreneurs, we are often expected to tell a seamless and aggressively positive story about the dauntless progress and profit that our businesses are making and the unparalleled "solutions" we're offering…
We did it! We cooperated. We cooperate. We are a cooperative. Almost six and a half years after filing our Dojo4 articles of organization as a Limited Liability Company, we've converted to being a Limited Cooperative Association (LCA).
The election happened. We looked around and suddenly understood that other people might see us as possible haters; that as far as they could see we could be secretly (or not so secretly) harboring ill will…
So you want to change the world? Well good, we do too, and we think we can do it by building a better business and helping other people do the same.
Looking for a strategic advantage for your organization this year? A way to set your company aside, to differentiate it from the rest? Consider further cultivating generosity as a core component of your business.
Whereas being parents or caretakers, having a family, is something that we should be able to celebrate and have pride in at work, we declare this Family-Friendly Workplace Manifesto.
Here at Dojo4, we have been (and continue to be) committed open-source contributors. For example, there's a tasty pantry full of contributions to be found by any of the Dojo4 members.
Turns out that financial capital is just one form of wealth worth measuring. Permaculture offers us some classifications for appreciating and evaluating several other forms of capital.
Clients often want to know if and why an agency, such as ours, charges for the time we take to fix bugs. The misconception that development can happen completely sans-bugs is understandable and common.
Despite that purely mercenary consumerist capitalism still rules the roost of business, the ideas of using business as a force for good and conscious capitalism seem now to have fully entered the popular mindstream.
It’s a misconception that culture is born out of operations, that the personality of a business (what we usually call culture) could is shaped by its operations. While this may, in some cases, be partially true, more often than not, it’s the other way around and it is useful and prudent to let culture dictate operations. Let nature (culture) set the ground for nurture (operations) and both will thrive.
There is a difference between having a lot to do and being busy. And there is an even bigger difference between being busy and getting things done, i.e. being effective.
We're getting close but need to make a foundational decision before the deal can be done - we have to make a choice about what kind of entity this cooperative is going to be. Shall we be Cooperative Corporation or Cooperative Partnership LLC?
For years, we've talked about how we might diversify ownership of Dojo4. Ara and I have been 50/50 owners of this little company for several years now, but have recently decided to move ahead and substantively explore transforming Dojo4 into a worker-owned co-op.
It was like pulling teeth to get everyone in a room once a week to check in with each other. Just the word 'meeting' made people avoid eye contact with me…
We ask each other a question every Friday at dojo4. It helps us understand ourselves each other better. Recently the question was: what makes an exemplary leader?
Wow, this is taking us a really long time to do. Granted, I had a baby and we bought our building since we first started the process to transition to a cooperative 6 months ago. But, this process takes serious attention, commitment, and buy-in, all of which can be in short supply when you are also trying to run a business, even a small business like Dojo4.
Dojo4 Playbook of best technical and operations practices. How to run a small custom tech agency, open-sourced for all to use (and build on).
Years ago, okay maybe decades ago, I worked at the most successful Boulder restaurant that nobody even knows is there…
Surviving is the new thriving.