Why we run Hardal as an open startup

We're recording. By the way, we're recording. Okay, you can cut this part. He made me turn on my voice recording, then he took that too, saying the sound quality was better. If our production isn't as good as it is, there's nothing we can do. I'll still record the sound, maybe mine will be bad or something. Are you going to record from your phone? Will you record from your phone?

I sent it to the laptop later. We can add it, but I don't think there'll be anything we can add to it here. Anyway, it's working in the browser. So, hello Berk. Hi, how are you? I'm fine. How about you? Today, we've been having a conversation for about 10 minutes, adjusting the light, the sound, and everything. I think we started from a good place, with a good topic, as our first videocast experience.

Exactly, what is it in general? Let's hear from you about the topic today. What is the Open Startup concept? Why does it exist? And why did Hardal decide to do this? By Hardal, I mean Berkay and Barış. Why are they doing something like this? We wanted to talk about that. Actually, let me ask you the first question, answer your question: What is Open Startup? I mean, like this...

Honestly, in Türkiye, I've never observed a company developing its financial data or all its marketing and business strategies publicly, like writing an open-source application. I honestly haven't seen anything like that in Türkiye. Have you? Have you ever encountered anything like that? No, I haven't. In fact, somewhere... I forgot, there was a company called Sherpa, the former founder of Sharp (he's not around anymore, but I think it was Yakup Bayrak), he brought up the topic of why there aren't any startups like that.

I haven't seen anything like that in Türkiye, but abroad, I think there are some pretty good examples. Why didn't we do something like that? Or how did it start? I think it's a very good point. Like, " My company, everything will be confidential, no one will even know another person's salary. I have a uniform, if they find out, I'll be ruined." Minds AB (a Turkish slang term for a company)...

In Turkey, everything is open, we do our business like this, we earn this much money at the end of this business, and with this money, we do this." I think moving towards such openness is very... on the other hand... It's also liberating; it removes many question marks from your mind, and recently, it's become very prominent, you're moving towards a more communal, more open approach. Actually, when we look at it, Web 3.0 and cryptocurrency are also starting points for this decentralized and open structure.

There's a reference to that, I think. We decided to be open in Helsinki, right? Am I remembering wrong? It seems like we made a decision there to display financial data in a dashboard, and then we switched to that model. Actually, I don't think it's just about publishing financial data in a dashboard; as you said, for example, Calon is a good example of this. They're doing this for all company employees, from the CEO to the CEO, according to their level: Level 1, Level 2, Level 3.

Why Level 1? I think I can hear your voice now. They've created a formula for why someone should be Level 2 instead of Level 1, and it takes into account their workplace, country, economic position, place of residence, etc. There are formula parameters, and accordingly, the level categories are listed, and it shows the CEO's salary, the developer's salary, how much a 2-year developer earns, etc. They've put all of this into a table, and I think this is very critical information.

It really shows transparency within the company. We see this on LinkedIn, for example, now March 8th is coming, Women's Day, etc., and there was a campaign asking why women earn 111% less than men on average, is there income inequality, etc. Now, when things are kept secret, if you don't know how much your boss earns or how much your teammate earns, you start thinking, "Am I working for free?"

Within this concept, I think we've taken a good step. But really, I haven't come across an example of this in Türkiye, I don't think we can be the only ones doing it. If there is, let's call out from here, people should share, there must be. Also, I think there are stages to this, the Cal.com thing is very good, if you're curious, Cal.com slopen comes up, I think.

It's not just salary data, it lists everything, I'm sure. I think it's an internal process like this. They also use it as a dashboard, a very large dashboard because it has everything you're looking for. On the other hand, there's another example, Post-Hog. They have a resources section and a handbook section. The handbook is more like a manifesto. Okay, there aren't many things there, like "Why did we do this?"

Etc., but when you go into the resources section, it clearly explains who is responsible for what, what their job is, how they work, what their marketing assets are, their sales strategy, how they do marketing, etc. That's also very good. Our next step right now is to reach that level, and they've included a salary calculator. So you enter this information and get an estimated salary range. They don't have GBA financial data, but the transparency on this side is something we like.

Another example is Post-Hog; they don't have financial data, but they have financial policies, meaning Post- Hog's investments. For example, there's Versan, if I remember correctly, and Uber, etc. They have a very extensive investor profile, but they haven't made their financial processes or status public like Cal.com. But they've said, "We want to be an independent startup." Our thing is independent. So our goals are this, our policy is this...

Because they've written everything down, even sales strategies. For example, they've written down everything, like how to approach a customer who doesn't want the product, where to stop, where not to push, where to put a comma, where to put a period, all in a kind of handbook. I think that's a great thing. They even had a handbook with details like how to approach someone using a competitor's product.

I think it's good that these things are written down because they also lay the foundations of the culture, and it's also good that you can look at it from the outside. Another example comes to mind, Signal 37, Signal Signals, Signal... This is the parent company of the founders of Basecamp and Hey. They also have an employee handbook, which is openly available, and it has everything about what it's like to work at that company.

For example, the thing I liked most was the part about, " We will never sell the company, so we don't give anyone stock options." So, they have a clause that says they distribute 10% of the company's decision-making power to the company every year, based on a coefficient that is distributed according to the number of products people have worked for, or how many years they've worked for the company.

For example, they just put that in there, which I think is a very nice detail. By the way, this is a document that spans pages. It explains everything, from how to get fired internally to the point of termination. I think that's a good example of this in all their products. They do that, by the way. It's not just about the internal working conditions within the company, but also how things will be when someone leaves.

For example, they wrote a clone of Slack last year. Their policy is, if we're going to make something in-house, let's make it and sell it. They saw that they were paying a lot of money, so they developed an advance payment system, something like an Slack that you pay once and install on their own servers. It even includes sales policies. Actually, they 've written books about the stages they went through while producing these things, and all these books are available on their websites.

One of them is quite popular. Rework... Yes, there was another one, but I forgot. They even did something like that regarding working from home, something about how much of your work you cover, and so on. I forgot that too, but the idea of two founding partners sitting down and writing a manifesto-like book, really reminds me of how employees in the company know everything. It's like the employees are like founding partners themselves, able to determine how much added value they'll create, because there's no closed box, and they're evaluating resources.

We would never see that in a corporate company, etc. You meet with HR when you start a job, and then you meet with HR when you leave. In between, a 10-year employee gets a decadence award, a 5-year seniority award, a 10- year award, etc. You get a lot of awards, but you retire knowing absolutely nothing about the company. I think there's also this: we describe it so beautifully, but...

Looking at it from another perspective, why is n't this so widespread? Because that closed-box concept, or the concept of information behind a certain wall, actually gives managers or founders an incredible playing field. Because when you write something down and put it on paper, you become responsible for it and bound by it. Otherwise, everything is much more flexible and a bit more arbitrary. I think the reason most companies are on the other side is this: if I write a sales strategy, I have to stick to it; if I set a rule, I have to follow it.

So the fewer rules I set, the more responsible I will be, because it's very easy to give a rule to an employee, but it's very difficult to set a rule that is your own responsibility because you have to follow it. The point you made is somewhat correct; employees also feel a sense of responsibility, actually. You are giving them power in every point you open up. I think that's the most challenging part of the job.

Otherwise, I don't think there's a problem with disclosing the turnover; it's good information to write it everywhere. But when you start sharing unpleasant information, or when you share information and don't follow it, then things get serious, and I think most people do n't want to take that responsibility, but I think it's very liberating. I hope we... We'll get to the point we want because we also have a way to become more Open.

But it's definitely enjoyable, I think. Even things like that are understandable. By the way, we do Open, but it's not a show of how well we're managing the company. We also write about things when we're doing badly. It's the same with our dashboard. For example, in December, things went pretty badly, and the price dropped. We could have not written that, but we wrote it so everyone could see it, company employees could see it, our competitors could see it.

But writing about the positives and negatives of the financial side is one thing, or writing about the goals is another. Writing about all the strategic points within the company is incredibly valuable information for competitors, stakeholders, and the people using the product. How do we sell? Where do we make money? How should our branding be? What should the typography on our website be? What should the size of the logo be?

Don't use this next to it, understand that next to it, etc. Because you're giving that plan in an organized way, it makes everyone feel more comfortable, and I think there's no point in worrying about whether competitors see it or not. That's why we have such a concert, for example, we never had... You know, we say this because when we ask each other, "Should we share this?", and they say, "What's the harm?

We already bring it up in presentations, let's share it then," then I think it's not like we're just trying to show how well we're managing the company. I think there's no problem. We're just trying to show how we write these rule sets for strategic decisions, how we structure them, and how we expect people to follow them. Absolutely, absolutely. For example, you mentioned that December drop in our open event, for instance.

Everyone who saw it asked about it first because it was very obvious. It was going up and up and up, then suddenly there was a drop, and then it continued to go down, and everyone was asking, "What happened in December?" It was quite noticeable. As you said, if we encountered a slight problem, a bit of a smoothing think about it differently in the future, I don't know, but the pie seems too big to me.

I do n't think there's any logic in saying, "I'm going to be at loggerheads with my competitors." We even reached out to the founders of companies we consider our competitors and held Meets, or when we saw them at an event, we went up to them and said, " What are you doing? What are your plans? Look, we're..." We've even openly discussed our product strategy with them because we're trying to move in that direction.

Because otherwise, it seems ridiculous to me to share information with an enemy like that. There's no point in sharing it directly with them. Otherwise, I think things work much better. Absolutely, for example, we never shy away from things like, for instance, Staple, which we identified as a competitor at one point. We met with their team in New York and so on. We even had a Tigla Meet.

Meeting with competitors and getting ideas from them is not like it used to be for new generation companies. I think this policy is good, and we are among the first to experience it. I mean, how was it before? I would go to a company's website, and there would be an "About Us" section, and under that, a basic vision and mission, and a picture of Atatürk, and a picture of the company building.

Of course, there were no drones or anything like that back then. So, when you went to a lahmacun shop's website, it would say, "Since 1900, whatever... the lahmacuns made by the late Hasan Efendi," and so on. It's the same as when you go to any holding company's website now. It's the same, but when you turn these mission and vision statements into a handbook, a set of rules like, " How should our tone and voice be when managing customers?", that's when you truly become a company.

Regardless of whether it's public or not, they don't make such a handbook public because it doesn't exist, and consequently, things become chaotic, both for competitors and for internal strategic management. Because, in fact, your competitors can be your own employees. You don't know what kind of psychology people are in; they might start their own company tomorrow. We were like that too, we started one, and so on. So, companies are born, grow, and die, but the rulebooks that these people actually produce will always be lasting, and I can say that I enjoyed this handbook and the Open Startup culture the most.

I even liked something you mentioned earlier; when I looked at it, I thought, " calc'n no notion," and they used a Git book. By the way, it's free, really free. We're just wasting our time; where's the documentation? They did it like this, bro, it's very interesting. I don't know if you saw it, bro, they did something called PR. Do you know what a PR model is? The 'P' stands for proud, the 'R' stands for responsible, remember?

Like your brother's PR, we did it. Yes, bro, and he didn't look anywhere. When we were doing this, it was like two diligent students writing the same things without copying each other. When I saw it now, it really struck me, it's very similar. I think 'Passion' stands for ' P', and when you combine 'Passion', Pearl was doing it subtly, but the 'E' stands for empathy, and the 'R' stands for responsible.

Look, they have it too, it's pretty good. It's great. Let me check it, bro. We were going to put ours in, but they put the handbook first. I think we can put it in, but I liked that we did this without seeing it from them. So, it means we're on the same path, they put it in the Voice, the tone, the company's tone, how should it be?

There's a tone guideline. The guys, Tex, bro, they wrote this: Look, Tex Talk, LOL, or by the way, abbreviated. They say they don't use these, they don't use BDV? They do n't use "by the way," they use "LOL" too, things you use a lot, like, "we could do something like that too," or "we could use 'by the way'," or something like that. I don't know, but they wrote that everything has a reason, right?

It was in that thing too, "Don't assume anything, don't guess anything," meaning don't assume, of course, that every step you take has been thought out by someone else, and that's why they made a handbook. So, it means they tell you where to put a comma and where to put a period, that's all they write. Because they said, "We think LOL and 'by the way' aren't professional. We are more professional than that," meaning the Z-Z generation.

They added a note underneath saying, "We think we are more professional than that approach." I think it's nice that they wrote something like that, it shows their perspective. For example, from the outside, it looks very cool, but it seems like in Post Dooka, they wrote down which emojis they use up to this point, and they're writing the "inside J" emojis. That's a really nice thing, for example, we could write the "inside J" emojis, it could be good for someone new to the company to see.

Exactly. That makes sense. I liked it too, man. You should close it right now and continue with the handbook. It's very enjoyable. In fact, I think the format we started with was very good. Putting each other's pictures from Konya and writing "Eee" there was nice. Yes, man. So, to summarize slightly, well said. But it was a good thing. Yes, I hope we see more open startups in the coming years.

I mean, I'm really enjoying it, honestly. Making everything open. Many of our development projects are already open source. Everything is on GitUp, all our microservices, our Design Guide, our website, everything is open. Our documentation, everything is open. And just like with the product, we've decided to make our entire journey and rules within the company open as well. A handbook will be released in the coming period. But as I said, we can't be the first to do these examples.

There must be others, but if not, we can invite people to do it. It's a nice thing, an enjoyable thing. By the way, let me tell you, this webinar we're doing is like a podcast or videocast. I guess it won't always be in this concept. For example, next week it will be something completely different. We can definitely discuss something, like dementia, but we don't know for sure.

But let's do something like this every week, exactly. Great job! See you then, bye bye.