How do you grow a company successfully? How do you build a company that values its culture over its profit margins? Can you successfully grow a company that started in NYC, in Lebanon? This week, Paul and Rich sit down to talk about the growth of Postlight and the amazing new team in Beirut!

The Postlight office in Beirut, Lebanon!

Growing in Two Places: This week Paul Ford and Rich Ziade sit down to talk about the growth of Postlight. We chat about how Rich’s Lebanese background informs the culture at Postlight, the misconceptions around outsourcing work, how to let your own team of engineers make hiring decisions, and the lessons we’ve learned from growing a company across an ocean. Paul and Rich also revel in the snacks they miss from Lebanon!

7:28 — Rich: “Being Lebanese is part of the way we do business.”

9:24 — Rich: “There’s no factory farm of humans that you lease out, to put some code out in Lebanon. They just don’t think that way.”

12:15 — Rich: “A team starts to form and they said, ‘we want to be part of you, we dont want you to just throw stuff across the ocean because you had a thing that needed to get done that wasn’t interesting. We want to join you’. And to hear that from the other side was really, really interesting.”

14:49 — Paul: “We got a clear signal back saying, ‘[outsourcing] wont work, just like it wont work anywhere. You need to have us be part of your culture, we need to connect, and then we’ll do work at the quality that you expect. And we want that for ourselves and you should want it from us.’”

15:07 — Paul: “What you don’t get is some easy, spreadsheet savings; but what you do get is increased capacity to do quality work, which is actually where our growth is as a company.”

16:48 — Rich: “We’re actually not driven by metrics. We’re driven by doing great work, finding great opportunities, doing great work again.”

24:05— Paul: “Theres a really good chance here that the good cultural things that helped us grow, are gonna happen in Beirut too.”

LINKS

• Rich’s article on Postlight Lebanon
• Freaknomics Episode on the Most Successful Expats
• Shakira
• Kinkos

 

Track Changes is the weekly technology and culture podcast from Postlight, hosted by Paul Ford and Rich Ziade. Production, show notes and transcripts by EDITAUDIO. Podcast logo and design by Will Denton of Postlight.

   

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