Trimtab Business Principles

In our experience, there are a core set of business principles by which a business should be operated from. These are the core principles that we want to define our culture, guide our strategy, and lead our operations.

  Customer Principles:

1. We do not have a single client, we only have customers.
2. There is no such thing as IT or information technology, only business technology.
3. We will never promise more than we can deliver. If we do, we will bear any cost to make it right.
4. Our business strives to be a designer - an emerging synthesis of artist, inventor, mechanic, objective economist and evolutionary strategist.
5. We believe profit in business comes from repeat customers, customers that boast about your project or service, and that bring friends with them.
6. We regularly choose to not work with customers who do not share our vision.

Team Member Principles:

1. We do not have a single employee, our team only has players. We fully embrace the notion of synergy.
2. Our players spend 80% of their time on their core responsibilities, they spend the other 20% on whatever they are passionate about that will make our business better.
3. We consistently give and receive open and honest criticism. We say exactly what is on our mind.
4. Laying blame costs our team members $2. We will always take full responsibility for our mistakes and go out of our way to resolve them.
5. We are one team. There is no player of the month award. We are not measured against each other but rather as a team, by the weakest aspects of our team. We cannot afford the destructive effects of competition.
6. We are not ever afraid to make a request.
7. We believe that quality is everyone's responsibility.
8. Our team’s leaders understand that all people are different and that the performance of anyone is governed largely by the system that he works in, the responsibility of management.

Operational Principles:

1. We do not ever play zero-sum games.
2. We are absolutely willing to fail as long as we learn from each failure and get better. Every strike brings us closer to our next home run.
3. We think laterally and exercise our creativity.
4. We place emphasis on the ability to synthesize rather than analyze.
5. We do not ever force growth. We grow organically, as a result of providing a transformational product.

Financial Principles:

1. We do not have an "exit strategy". We are building our company for VERY long term success. We will not involve ourselves with people who have alternative intentions.
2. We do not borrow money, period. Additionally, we operate on a cash basis. Using "float" and other financial games to increase profitability is not our business. We are all about the cash flow.
3. We will not ever split our stock as this has no real benefit to our owners.
4. We find that we will, in general, do the opposite of what the financial community thinks is beneficial to our business as they do not typically have the best interests of our customers and players in mind.
5. We are fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.
6. We are extremely conservative in our accounting and reporting and we recognize this benefits our business.

Citizenship Principles:

1. We believe integrity and responsibility are the essence of everything successful.
2. We will "do no evil". We make the community around us a more prosperous place.
3. We exist to serve our customers without doing damage to the system ecology.