What’s the Secret to Becoming a Top Startup Employer? These Three Things.

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I’ve spent the last 15 years of my career helping to build incredible cultures and teams at some of the best companies in Silicon Valley. I’ve seen what it takes to build a great place to work, and what being a great place to work can do for business results. Spoiler alert: It’s everything.

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When I joined the team earlier this year it wasn’t just the incredible founding story, vision for the future of homebuilding, and groundbreaking traction. I saw a team of builders dedicated not only to reinventing homebuilding but to building a truly incredible company.

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My biggest take-away from 15 years of culture building is this: great company culture doesn’t happen, you have to build it.

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Knowing how hard our team has worked, I’m honored to share that Homebound has earned a spot on Forbes’ annual list of the Best Startup Employers in the country, ranking 33rd out of the 2,500 companies evaluated for employee satisfaction, employee reputation, and company growth.

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So…what does it take to build an incredible startup employer? Three simple things.

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Mission matters.

We’ve set out to make it possible for anyone, anywhere to build a home. We came together after the devastating wildfires in 2017 to start Homebound, and to date we’ve focused our homebuilding on the disaster-impacted communities that need us most. Our shared mission is our connective tissue–it’s the foundation on which our company was created.

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That mission was especially important this year, one of the hardest many of us have experienced, as the team quickly transitioned to working remotely, dealt with a particularly challenging wildfire season, and continued to charge forward against the headwinds of building a company at this stage. This is tough stuff, and there are times it can feel impossible, but when you view obstacles and failures as part of the process of building, that makes all the difference in rallying your team to do their best work.

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Solve for the long term

Building a home is a big decision. For most of our homeowners, they’re building a house they plan to raise their family in, a place where they’ll retire. We’re building for their long term.

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We adopt the same mentality when it comes to our team. We’re focused on solving an especially challenging problem. And to do that, we need to approach the problem in a new way. Core to our strategy at Homebound is building a team unlike any other in homebuilding or technology. We talk about it as One Team, and it’s our competitive advantage.

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We know that what we’re building can’t be done by one person, one type of person, or one skillset. It takes builders, project managers, engineers, designers, and operators working together every day, coming at problems with completely different experiences and perspectives. It takes empathy, respect, and a willingness to learn from each other. We each bring something critical to our shared success.

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Growth mindset starts at the top

I know, I know…growth mindset. If you’ve read anything about culture, leadership, and company performance in the past 10 years you know that growth mindset has become the de facto aspirational company value. While it may be easy to dismiss, creating a growth mindset culture is shorthand for a company that values continuous improvement, frequent feedback, professional stretch opportunities, and a safe environment to experiment and fail.

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Sounds pretty great, right?

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When I first met Nikki Pechet, Homebound’s CEO, she talked about taking on a previous role leading a function she’d never led before. She was hesitant to take it on initially knowing she didn’t have the functional experience. Eventually, she acquiesced but said, “If I’m going to lead this function, I want to learn from the very best people in the world.” So she reached out to the best talent from the best companies in the world and learned everything she possibly could.

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Nikki is fearless in the face of challenges and problems where the answers aren’t obvious. And we’ve instilled that mindset across our business. We know our success is dependent upon all of us confronting problems we’ve never solved before. And Homebound is filled with people who are tenacious, curious, and humble. No one’s done what we’re doing before, and that means we’re all learning and building together.

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We want to create an incredible company where our employees have the most transformative stop on their career journey and learn more than they thought possible. Come build with us.

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Looking for a great place to work? Homebound is hiring for a number of key roles. Click here to see open positions.