Our guiding principle when we started 16 years back was:

We will build a happy place to work.

And every one of our millions of tiny decisions over the past sixteen years has been guided by this goal of happiness. Happiness is essential at work, especially when work is as creative as software development. So sticking to this principle is very important for us. It isn’t easy. There are many decisions you have to take in a business where you are forced to decide between money and happiness. But I’m proud to say in most of those decisions points we chose happiness over anything else.

Our first real test

Really early on, just a six months after our first real big project and after we got hold of some real money, finally, we had our first such decision point:

Do we keep the money safe for rainy days or do we do a celebratory party?

This was a time when our future wasn’t very certain. Yes, we did deliver a great product and our first customer confirmed that they would continue with us to build the version 2. But everything was still up in the air, the customer was actually starting to recover the huge loss they had, we didn’t have any new business leads, we had no idea what would happen in a few months, let alone years. Yet I clearly remember the decision process that went like:

What we decide today will set the tone of the company.

Are we courageous enough to stick with our goal of happiness?

Do we want to be exceptional?

or are we going to sell ourselves to mediocrity by playing safe?

When we were young! A picture at Cox’s bazaar from our first big party

As you can guess from that line of reasoning, we decided to be be exceptional :) and arranged for an all expenses paid 4 day trip to the beach town of Cox’s Bazaar, staying at the most expensive hotel there (at that time) and having lots and lots of fun!

You might ask, as I ask myself now - Were we fools? Were we irresponsible? Irrational?

The answer is always a big NO. That single courageous decision set the tone, fixed the music and set us on a path that we have been on for the past 16 years. Happiness above money. This single formula made us successful as a business but more importantly successful as group of humans.

That first party led to our tradition of doing lavish anniversary parties and product release parties. Celebrating victories is a basic human need for happiness and for renewal of energy.

Our second party was a 12 day trip to Goa! And over the years we have done numerous trips and parties in Thailand, Malaysia, Bhutan, Nepal, India and all over Bangladesh.

We started a revolution that has been copied by many other companies around us. Yet when we started many warned us that this was not sustainable, it was a not business viable. They said that our enthusiasm and money will fizzle out as became more mature :) Didn’t happen for sixteen years, and I don’t see happening in the next sixteen :p

Some pictures from our trips and parties… you can find more at our facebook photos.