Open Welcome

People are everything.

We know that this company, our products, services, and livelihood are nothing without great people. We take care of our employees the best we can. We may not be the top offer you could get, but we fairly compensate our team and firmly believe that pay should not be the reason you come to (and stay with) Differential.

Culture matters.

A lot. This is something we talk about regularly and over-invest in relative to our size. You are talented. You are valued. You are sought-after. Also, life is too dang short not to love what you do. We know all of this and understand that we must create a great place to work. But, you are responsible for helping us continuously improve, so we are always open to suggestions. We are dedicated to being available and attentively listening to you.

We care about the work.

We're not sure if we'll ever get a chance to work on curing cancer (but who knows, we'd put money on software eventually playing a significant role!), and not every project

Open Our Mission

Rapidly Unlock Value for Good People with Meaningful Ideas

Rapidly – While speed is relative, even if a project will take a year, we seek opportunities where a significant portion of the value we offer is speed to market.

Unlock Value – We work on projects with potential to create massive value.

For Good People – Life is too short to work with jerks or with bad clients (note: good people can be bad clients).

With Meaningful Ideas – We want to help launch products that we are proud of and that have a deeper purpose (beyond money) with a chance for significant impact.

Open Core Values

Less, but Better

Focus on getting the right stuff done, not the most stuff. "Think 80/20."

We believe doing better often means doing less. Less-but-better meetings; we don't have a lot of meetings, and the meetings we do have are focused and effective. We focus on landing the best possible clients/partners, not the most clients; we'd rather build deep, lasting relationships with a few companies than have small projects with dozens. A great team is much more valuable than a big team; we're not against growth, but we fight the agency model of just "adding bodies" (that are often expendable).

Entrepreneurial Mindset

We take ownership and pride in our work and move at startup speed. "Done well today is better than perfect tomorrow."

We take ownership in our work. We are scrappy; we accomplish a ton with limited resources. We are proactive; we naturally find opportunities for improvement because we care and err on the side of taking action and asking for forgiveness (vs. permission). Build for c

Open Our History

Where We Came From

March 2013 — Incorporated and First Client (Cladwell)

October 2014 — Venture Studio (work with startups for equity)

October 2014 — Separated Entities Into a Holding Company and a Services Company

April 2015 — Focus on Services or Spin Off

October 2015 — "Remove Barriers to Growth" for Middle Market Companies

February 2017 — Digital-Product Agency (Helping Big Company Intrapreneurs Build Digital Products like a Startup)

March 2022 - Digital Products Company focused on Studio (Building Custom Software) and Ventures (Commercializing Digital Products)

Open Onboarding

As soon as you sign your contract, you will fill out your I-9 employment forms, as well as receive your Differential email and access to Differential's services (see "Tools We Use").

You'll then get an email outlining what to expect in the coming weeks and months, including how to prepare for your first day and week.

We're thrilled to have you on the team, and look forward to helping you rapidly unlock value. Ready? Set. Go!

Company Structure

After much research, discussion, trial and error (and more to come, no doubt), we've landed on a team-based leadership structure. We value diversity of experiences and thought across all teams, so anyone can (and should) find ways to contribute to teams that are non-core for them.

To learn more about the different teams and leaders, see [Differential Accountability Chart and Core Processes](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dz67tr9DbYb49NUK3aGq5hkJEsBfCLkRACp4jwbcNB0/

Open Benefits

Flexible Vacation

Because we hire good people that we trust — and because we believe in the benefits of taking time off (building into your family, recreation, exploration, re-charging, friendships, etc.) — we have a flexible vacation policy.

Full-time, salaried employees of Differential at the time of hire are eligible for paid time off.

How it Works and Restrictions

• Flexible Time Off is on a Request and Approval Basis. PTO must be approved by HR prior to taking time off. We want you to take PTO in order to do your best work. We just need to be able to plan for it appropriately.
• PTO requests require permission, and performance or business needs may deem the request ineligible.
• PTO requests are made through Rippling, which will automatically get added to the shared Differential Google calendar. This is for capacity management and planning purposes (we must make sure we're fulfilling business obligations).
• Please share your vacation plans with the immediate team you're working with

Open Side Work

Background

As with many agencies — and especially development agencies — you might be approached and asked to do side work outside of Differential. Here's how we expect you to handle those opportunities as they come up. When in doubt, ask HR.

What is Side Work?

Side work can come in many forms, but in general it is anything for which you are using your skills and talents that doesn't directly benefit the company. Side work will take some of your time, attention, and talents away from Differential.

Some examples of side work include:

• Entrepreneurial or Passion Projects – These can be something you are passionate about, but there isn't an opportunity to bring that inside of Differential (i.e. blogging, writing a book, remodeling a house, creating a company or business on the side).
• Community and Charity Projects – These benefit the community at large, may indirectly benefit Differential, but are not directly supported by Differential (i.e. being a board member of a non-profit, me