Freedom for businesses

We swear by open-source products. Rushabh, the CEO at Frappe strongly believes in liberating businesses from the costly grip of proprietary software. While this choice may result in lower revenue, it aligns with our commitment to contributing to society. It's not just about money; within the Frappe community of 19,000 users, there's a profound sense of collaboration and trust. When we meet the community at any event, the energy is inspiring. One company’s value has influenced and motivated so many others to do the right thing. It feels like a revolution.

Unanimous decision making

At Frappe, company decisions are taken unanimously. So let’s say someone has the brilliant idea of extending Frappe events globally. They present a Gameplan proposal (our internal thread-based forum, and a Frappe product), outlining reasons and potential budget. Interested folks participate in the conversation and even volunteer for the project. To decide whether to proceed, the proposal is brought to Frappe All-Hands (our weekly Frappe meetings), where it undergoes thorough discussion, debate, and a vote till a consensus is reached or a counter proposal is shared. Basically every member of the team gets a seat on the table and an equal right to vote and voice their opinion. A truly democratic system, isn’t it?

Work flexibility

The policy is named “Pick your own work” and for a reason. Each person gets to decide what they want to work on, with whom and how much responsibility they wish to assume. There's no rigid hierarchy; instead, groups of people collaborate, with some mentors chosen by the people themselves.

Personally, I started as a consultant, juggling support, customer onboarding, and ERP implementations. Today, I work as a marketing manager – the best job so far. People don’t just move department to department of course, there are regulations in place like a 6 month commitment to the new role and performance tracking. But it’s all good as long as there is little talent and a lot of dedication. We get to explore our strengths, weaknesses and find our true calling. The idea is that if we enjoy our work, we will be more passionate and productive. This has proven true in my own experience!

While a hybrid work culture, the flexibility to operate within our preferred time cycles, and the freedom to move in and out of the office are commonplace in other tech companies, I won't dwell on these aspects.

Pick your own pay policy

Let me start with this: Our salaries are openly known to everyone in the company to create a transparent system. The pick your own pay policy enables team members to take charge of their own pay, responsibilities and hence career trajectory. At the beginning of every financial year, people set their individual and team goals and accordingly ask for a pay. Ambitious ones take a tall hike while those who prefer to work in their comfort zone, ask for a smaller one.

You might be wondering what if people take a 100% hike? It has happened before and our average salary hike one of the years has gone up to 62% too. The result? The person either doubles his/her outcome or loses their jobs over several performance feedbacks. It’s a risky game but it is also how we have an efficient and responsible team today.

As radical as it sounds, the idea is very simple. We want to cultivate a culture of trust. Trust people to ask for the right pay and trust them to deliver excellent work. If no manager tells anyone what to do, how to do or when to do, everyone will think for themselves and hold themselves accountable for their income and outcome. Believe it or not, PYOP has worked out for us in the past 3 years now!

Company-wide discussions

Regular company-wide discussions, involving everyone from the CEO to interns, enable better strategizing and faster adaptation. With no middle management, communication is direct, allowing us to address issues at their core. Interestingly any individual can be called out and cross-questioned on any forum, including the CEO. It's not usually brutal, but it reflects our commitment to open dialogue and accountability.

An open culture encourages team members to have deeper discussions and understanding of a wide array of topics from revenue and policies to culture and philosophy. One of the recent topics has been “What is your why?” brought up by Rushabh at the Ranthambore offsite. It made people reflect on why they wake up everyday and do what they do, what is their intrinsic motivation to succeed? What is their definition of success? Many team members shared their personal stories openly and it helped us empathize with each definition of success and realize why people work the way they do.

Conclusion

There are many other things which might be a little common but I’ll just mention a few that are not that popular: plastic free office and events, unlimited leaves, organic marketing only (let’s be honest, those unexpected ads are annoying) and an attitude backed by accountability (which means no pin pointing fingers when something breaks, the first thought for any new problem is “how do we fix this?”)

There are some downsides to such policies but we believe in experimenting, finding our own paths and learning through exploration. There is a thrill in this chaos!