As CEO of ShipperHQ its a job that requires a great deal of effort, and comes with it a great deal of responsibility.
My husband was a small merchant, which is how I got into this space, I was there with him and understand fully the demands of eCommerce, and how small changes can cause big successes or big failures.
I also understand as a company owner myself that stability is key, you want integrity and trust from the vendors you work with.
Not many people know this but I never actually wanted to start ShipperHQ. I just had merchants reaching out to me back in 2008 and I responded to their needs. I still feel in a way I’m doing that today, all I really want to do is help people, of course I’ve realised that as part of that I need to ensure I maintain my own stability and that of my family and co-workers.
ShipperHQ is proud to serve this space, and takes its responsibility very seriously.
We have worked for years with massive merchants, many that you see on the streets of US, UK and other countries around the world. We know shipping is important, and we are innovating daily to make life better for you. I wish we could do more and faster, but let me say we are trying.
As part of the work at ShipperHQ as CEO when you grow a company you have to ensure that your own ethics and reasons for doing this are translated to your staff.
As much as I’d personally like to sit on every client call, answer every mail, deal with every agency, well I can’t, someone needs to steer the ship and right now thats me. I’m also pretty technical (female yes) so that takes up a fair bit of my time trying to get better solutions for you all.
We decided therefore this year to work out 3 core values that we would all adhere to.
A lot of companies do this. For us as a bootstrapped company that has been profitable since day 1, and single founder owned, I think its important to say we did this to help make our business better.
We will have this prominently displayed in all our offices, it will be a factor in every decision we make, in every new hire we take on, and how we do business from today, in late December 2018. That you have my word on.
So I’ll share them, I hope you find it interesting.
Core Value 1: – Always Responsive
This was key to me, and about how we scale this company.
Its very hard to get staff to care about something as much as the CEO. We as a company need to be responsive, on every level. Whether thats a support email, a question around partnership, a new enquiry on our services. We are here, on many channels, you can reach us.
Already we have a Chat channel on our website, we can be reached by phone, email and our agency partners have a slack channel to communicate directly with us.
If you see us not being responsive reach out to me, I’ll sort it.
Core Value 2: – Unflinchingly Honest
I’ve a terrible memory, which means I kind of have to speak the truth all the time else I’d fall over! But thats not why I’m honest, I just like things in black and white, ultimately I’m a programmer and thats how my mind works, its logical.
Even when I worked in London I really couldnt stand the boring business meetings where there is a lot of fluff and no action. Lets cut that bullshit I say. Time is short, we want to do things and there is a lot to do.
So honesty I think works well, yes its blunt, have I annoyed people over the years, yep, but I’ve also found I’ve got a lot of stuff done with clients as a result of just being honest.
I also try not to say we can do something if we can’t, lets just be honest. Here is my situation, this is yours, lets try to find a solve.
I’m fed up of tech companies that promise the world and don’t deliver. Do it else be quiet. We would rather under-promise and over-deliver, and because we don’t have funding we can do that, the buck stops here.
Core Value 3: – Focused Innovation
As a programmer/tech architect I obviously love technology. But I’ve always loved it from the perspective of solving problems.
I’m not into theory, I’m not into writing code for writing code’s sake. I want to advance eCommerce and I want to get merchants to a better place. Its that simple.
To do that we need to innovate, and do so fast. But it needs to be directed in the right areas, where there is most benefit. I’m a big believer in the 80:20 rule, and I’m a big believer in reality.
I’m not here to play games, I’m here to help people with technology. And this company is too.
The Company
What’s interesting about the above is that the team actually came up with them, not me. These values are personal to me, I strongly believe in them, but I know it takes a team.
I wish all our clients, our staff, and the general eCommerce community a great holiday and happy and healthy New Year.
