Our Philosophy

Our Mission

Our mission is to make small and mid-sized businesses more economically competitive than big business, by bringing them cost-effective, powerful, Open Source solutions.

We believe that small, loose federations of small companies working cooperatively is better for people, business, and the environment, because it better distributes wealth, power, and resource usage while becoming integrated into ecological systems.

Company Guiding Principles

After many years of working with hundreds of clients, four key principles have emerged as underlying everything we do:

  • Change
  • Ownership
  • Results
  • Stewardship

Change

We live in a rapidly changing world. Our business landscape constantly changes. Businesses need to constantly adapt to stay alive. Change is an underlying fact of life, and if we can anticipate that change, we can prepare to benefit from it, rather than be hurt by it.

We build business systems that are not only capable of rapid change as needed, but with proper planning can be used to capitalize on change.

We look for customers who recognize the value of experimenting to find what works, recognize that change comes with a cost, and look for ways to turn change from something to be feared to something that leads to new opportunities.

Ownership

In a proprietary, software-as-a-service world, you don't own anything. We believe you should own your business systems, not just rent them, for several reasons. First is vendor lock-in. With open source applications, nobody can take away a service you rely upon -- it's all under your control, and you can always find assistance customizing or maintaining it to suit your needs. Your data is under your control. Your environment is under your control.

Ownership allows for maximum flexibility, greatly lowers your risk, and allows you to prioritize your needs according to your schedule.

Ownership does come at a substantially higher cost than renting, but for business critical systems, it's the only responsible option. And in the software world, the only way you can own your software is by using open source -- anything proprietary can potentially be taken away from you.

As employees in our business, ownership translates to accountability, following through, making decisions that are viable in the long-term, avoiding short-term shortcuts that might cause problems down the road, and ultimately through employee ownership of the company.

Results

Results speak to the value we provide. We constantly ask the question, "why are we doing this?" If we cannot tie a feature or a project to a business or project goal, it becomes highly suspect and dropped to the bottom of the list -- or off the list entirely.

Going into a project, we start by identifying the goals and the desired results. We look for ways of measuring these results wherever possible. And then we partner with our customers to recommend courses of action they might not have considered to drive those results.

Part of the planning for everything we develop is identifying the criteria for success. We can then use those plans as a concrete way to measure success, and ensure quality.

Stewardship

Finally, we are in business to create value. This does not happen in a vacuum. We succeed because we are members of many different communities: the Drupal community, the Open Source community, the Seattle community, the Pacific Northwest, the Earth. We believe in making solutions that benefit our communities, leaves the world a better place.

We contribute back to the communities we're part of, through offering services, volunteering, and donations. We are proud to be able to provide value to the world around us.

If this sounds like the kind of company you've been looking for Contact us today to get started! If you still have questions, learn about why we want to be your partner on the web.