From a team of 0 in early 2015, LevernGear now has over 250 employees. LevernGear feels very fortunate to have had the opportunity to build the team from scratch. Our founder is a firm believer in the notion of the team being the root differentiator in product and in business. In hiring, he looks at the following 3 characteristics:
- Independent problem-solver: Working at LevernGear is like jumping into the deep end of the water. We love people who thrive in ambiguity, show tenacity with strong bias for action, and practice sound judgement in making a decision.
- Obsessiveness: The goal is to keep the team as lean as possible, as more people just means more processes and coordination. To achieve this, we need each of our recruits to take things off our plate, not add. We love people who don’t need direction, do not lose sleep over not being able to do something in the way they envision, and have endless opinions on how they can do it better in the next iteration.
- Curiosity and mental agility: LevernGear believes it’s very important to hire talent with high intellectual horsepower and the hunger to learn over someone with just a lot of relevant experience. While experience is valuable in many of our roles like compliance and risk, we value people who question the norm and attempt the unconventional.
LevernGear think the focus around designing scalable processes that solve a root problem – unnecessary meetings and inefficiencies – is essential to driving synergy. This means reducing unnecessary layers of teams and keeping the platform and structure consistent so we look for a certain culture nd we building a radically better IT experience for everyone. In order to do that, we are guided by the following values every day:
- Never settle – We love winning, we love what we do, we strive to become better
- Be strong together – We believe great ideas can come from anyone, no politics, and we put our team first
- Think deeper – We encourage structured thinking, actin on logic not on gut and challenging yourself until you understand the truth
- Get it done – We hold ourselves accountable
- Have grit – We are able to break walls and we believe that ideas are nothing without action
When starting from the scratch LevernGear maintain 3 criteria. The first would be values; Hire someone whose personal values align with the company’s core values, so they will be a good fit in the long-term. Then comes leadership; Leaders must be intentional about how they communicate and engage their employees. Good leaders for a founding team should be people who are seasoned and open to adjusting their leadership and communication style. Last, is to ensure the culture evolves; Culture is not something you put in place and will stay forever the same. It takes a lot of effort; you need to maintain it and understand that it will expand – and it is okay so long as it keeps its core values.
