Jeff Lin, Bust Out Solutions
I started my web development and design company, Bust Out Solutions, in 2004 while traveling around the United States on my mission to pursue the ultimate carefree life. I had just quit my software engineering job in Minneapolis and started doing all the things I wanted to do but couldn’t because of my 9 to 5 office job. I packed up my apartment and basically hopped around the United States going wherever I wanted, whenever I felt like it. At one point I came across an opportunity to live in Hawaii for an extended period of time, so of course I jumped on it.
I spent a lot of time outdoors as anybody naturally would in the Aloha State, but I also spent considerable time tinkering around on my laptop at the one coffee shop I could find that had free wi-fi and would tolerate me bumming around while nursing one pot of tea for hours and hours. I built a website for myself to chronicle my travels, then one for a friend’s family business, then one for my friend’s friend’s business for which I got paid enough money to sustain my beach bumming just a bit longer. I got into a routine where I could work at the coffee shop for a few hours each morning, then hike around the hills, ride my bike along the coast, or just sit on the beach the rest of the day. It was a truly brilliant arrangement, and I decided that this was the right way to balance work and play.
The Bust Out Way
Bust Out Solutions is a small company of highly talented individuals. My number one criteria for hiring team members is pure, raw talent. I look for individuals who can execute on many levels including artistic design, logical programming, and clear communication. Our designers write code and our programmers have a strong understanding of design. The unique talent of our team lies in our ability to seamlessly cross between artistic subjectivity and formal logic while analyzing and understanding business strategy to create a genuine user experience.
Location is Irrelevant
Top talent is not easy to come by, so geographic location has very little to do with the selection. We have team members in 7 different cities around the U.S. and only a handful who work in our Minneapolis office on a “regular” basis. When building a business on the talent of the individuals, I can sacrifice face time for top-notch quality. We do periodically bring our remote team members to Minneapolis when face time feels necessary, otherwise we rely heavily on your basic modes of modern communication: email, phone, Skype, GTalk, Basecamp, and text messaging. With all the tools and technologies to communicate, you really have to work hard to disconnect.
Office Hours Are Bad
We don’t keep standard office hours. For one thing, it doesn’t really matter when half your team isn’t in the office anyway. Programmers write the best code and designers create the most beautiful designs when they have full concentration, and that often occurs at 1 am when nobody else is around to bug them. Controlled office hours would simply work against us and decrease our level of quality. Good work is done at any time of day, so if the time isn’t right then we’re not going to waste our time and our clients’ money.
ROWE Is Not Optional
Bust Out Solutions has been working with CultureRx and the ROWE revolution for years. We built this website and help Cali and Jody with anything tech-related. Over the years, we’ve really gotten to understand and appreciate ROWE. However, it’s not by choice that we are a Results-Only Work Environment. It’s absolutely out of necessity. If we tried to work any other way, the quality of our work would drop, morale would decrease, and I’d probably run away to Hawaii looking for a new job. There are some decision I make on behalf of the company, but the way we operate was not one of them. I made the decision to build a business based on top talent, and ROWE just fell into place.
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