Why Wildbit’s Belief that Businesses are Imaginary May Become the Way forward for Work

Sales grew for years, then suddenly stagnated.

Natalie Nagele and her husband Chris Nagele, the co-founders of the software company Wild bit, immediately jumped into solution mode.

They were determined to find out why the company was growing on a plateau and what to do to get it started again.

Until they wondered why growth was so important to them. In the end, it became clear to the duo that they wanted a business that served people, not the other way around. They fixed their growth problem, but not in the way you’d expect.

With insights from Buffer’s Podcast “Small Business, Big Lessons” – episode five, and the accompanying unpublished interview, shared Natalie Wildbit’s path from a growth-oriented business machine to a company excited about finding ways to work less.

Turn the business script over

When Wildbit’s growth plateaued after years of success, Natalie and Chris felt out of control. The business they had put their heart and soul into suddenly crashed into a wall, or so it seemed.

“Up until that point, we felt like the growth happened only with us,” said Natalie. “We weren’t really responsible for it. So when we reached a plateau, we felt very out of control. “

Strategically thinking about what to do next, they decided to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Instead of wondering how to tweak a particular ad or start a new campaign, they wondered what the business was really for, why the growth needed to continue at its previous rate, and whether a plateau was really a bad thing.

The two began to seek advice from people they trusted. Natalie noticed one conversation in particular. She spoke to a banker friend of hers about the situation, and the banker told her that corporations are a tool to “continue building wealth.”

“What does that mean anyway?” Natalie said of the idea that a business is all about continuing to build wealth. Of course she understood the concept of having more money – and she wanted to – but she felt that business had to be about more than just money.

On reflection, Natalie concluded that a company is flexible and malleable as long as it acts in the best interests of the people it serves.

“I believe that companies are designed by people and therefore are there to do good for people, and they serve us,” said Natalie.

Specifically, Natalie believes companies are made to serve four groups:

1. Shareholders: Those with financial support and incentives in the company.

2 co-workers: The people who keep the business going every day.

3. Community: Any person outside the organization who is affected by the organization (including families of employees and people who live in the local community in which the company operates).

4. The environment: Be good stewards of the planet.

With the realization that companies should serve the people, Wildbit changed its mission. Rather than focus on growth and wealth creation, Natalie and Chris focus on building a people-centric company.

“Every time we make a decision we ask, who is this for?” Said Natalie.

Companies are imaginary, people are real

Natalie and Chris, a new business where people come first, had yet to grapple with the issue of growth. To pay good wages, offer benefits, and be a good environmentalist, you need to make money.

Thinking through the growth challenge led Natalie to another insight: Companies are imaginary.

A company structure is simply a piece of paper. While some companies have physical rooms, the idea of ​​a company is imaginary. It is only made true by the people who operate it.

“[Businesses are] just a bunch of people, “said Natalie. “And if every person is unique, then every company is unique, and therefore they are all beautiful.”

Consistent with this belief that people make otherwise imaginary companies real, Natalie and Chris made the decision to prioritize employees over everything else. If they did, Natalie thought, the growth problem would resolve itself.

“If the team feels safe and fulfilled, we can move mountains,” said Natalie.

A company that supports employees

As part of a mission to put employees first, Wildbit has made some important changes.

1. In-depth work focus: Natalie firmly believes that people are more productive and happier when they can do deep, uninterrupted work. Fortunately, the company’s remote nature relies on deep work by default – meetings and distractions are on top of that, but basically, employees can find a quiet place to work on their projects.

“One of the nice things about our remote team is that you get the gift of deep work,” said Natalie. “It’s built in somehow.”

2. Work fewer hours: When the company started, people rushed to get their work done. After a few years in the business, Natalie and Chris introduced a ban on night and weekend work. Then came the idea that nobody should work more than 40 hours a week, which was radical for the hectic software industry at the time. With the new people-first mentality, they pushed it even further. Now everyone at Wildbit works a four-day week or a 32-hour week. And Natalie knows that this is not about cramming five days of work into four. It’s a profound change in the way people work.

“I think of a four-day week because you just work extremely consciously,” said Natalie.

3. Collective learning: After switching to Human first, Natalie and Chris wanted to make sure they were learning together with the staff. This meant listening to the employees as a collective and understanding what obstacles hinder deep work or create additional work. The entire team now reports how many deep work and “shallow work” hours they got per week, all with a view to team-wide exploration of how the company can be improved or iterated. Natalie is also aware of seeing herself as a manager and questions where she is asking too much of employees

“We didn’t see any decrease in performance, but we asked too much attention,” said Natalie. “… leadership role [is to] watch these hours and say, hmm, what can I change? Are we asking too much of people? “

Iterating into a future after work

With increasing automation and a new understanding of the fragility of life pervading our modern society, many people, including Natalie, are wondering whether we are entering a “post-work” era.

It’s not that people aren’t working at a time after work, just that we don’t prioritize jobs as the most important way we spend waking hours. Natalie said she has already seen this mindset creep into the software industry, an industry known for proudly speaking for more hours than anyone else. Well, according to Natalie, talented people don’t want to work 90 hours a week for an unknown, faceless corporation that is abusing its power.

“They have brilliant people who are very ready to work and say, I’m not going to settle for that, we’re going to start changing the narratives,” said Natalie.

While work isn’t a priority, the post-work era doesn’t mean people don’t care, value, or want more about money. It is not a poverty sentence. Instead, according to Natalie, you realize that you can make a lot and make a lot and offer a job that is geared towards serving people rather than hiring people to serve an imaginary business structure.

“It doesn’t have to be that unique,” said Natalie. “The narrative is not honest. It was developed so that we can do things the way we are. “