3 Years at Brainstorm Force – 3 Big Things I Love About It

What my friends and family think is the best part of my job –

1. Remote working
2. Flexibility of timings
3. Work that I am passionate about

Well, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

If I need to sum up what the whole culture of Brainstorm Force thrives on, it’s mutual TRUST

In 2021, I was talking to multiple founders and hiring managers for better opportunities. 

I got connected to Sujay Pawar, the CEO of Brainstorm Force, from my Whatsapp group.

When I asked him about his role at BSF, he humbly replied, “I manage a team right now.”

In a world where self-employed freelancers don’t hesitate bragging themselves as founders and CEOs of 1-person companies, it was surprising.

The way how founders talk about themselves, their team members and especially competitors, tells a lot about them and the culture they built at their company.

And that’s how I decided to join Brainstorm Force.

This letter is different. It’s neither dedicated to anyone nor it has any action items. It’s just a documentation of my journey with BSF so far.

While doing so, I decided to reach out to some of the most senior team members in the company to know what made them stay for so long. You will find some snippets.

Today, I completed 3 years here.

Let me tell you 3 things that I absolutely love about BSF.

I could list more but marketer in me just wanted to make it dramatic by playing with this number 3 😉

1) Take the Ownership – You Are Backed by Strong Leaders

I don’t remember being ‘told’ what to do. 

I just remember the most common phrases used by leaders:
“What do you think about this? Should we do this? How can we achieve this?”

If they find it doubtful, they simply ask more follow-up questions to know your reasoning and your logic. 

Executing new initiatives 

I often discuss new plans with Abhijeet (CMO), he takes a brief pause and nods, “Hmmm”

Appears like he is thinking something deep while I am waiting for his interrogation. 

“Alright! Sounds good. Let’s implement this by Monday”

Before even I feel confident about planning it, he is ready to implement it.

You often just need someone who trusts, pushes and boosts your confidence by supportive gestures like this.

A recent project included some major changes in our infrastructure. 

As Pratik (CTO) wanted to know about its progress, I asked, “should I give you a walkthrough?”

“No, I just want you to have clarity as you will work closely on it. Feel free to implement the best strategy”

Whatever you do. You own that. It’s your responsibility.

But they guide you and trust you when you need. Just knowing this resolves most of the complications.

Take what makes your work easy

• Do you have a new idea and looking to implement it? Feel free to proceed
• Need some tools to get something done? Let us know
• Looking for some external guidance? Let’s get it
• Want to build a fancy remote setup? Sure

I remember when I was hesitant to purchase a tool just because it was expensive.

Sujay’s response was – “How much does it cost? If you feel it can improve your efficiency and productivity, we are happy to purchase it”

This free hand didn’t make me go on shopping spree but it at least made one less thing to worry about.

As long as you’ve a clarity of what you are doing, I don’t think anyone has any issues.

I built the coolest setup last year without being asked about the nitty gritty.

I documented here –

• 3 Best Purchases I Made in 2023
• I Saved 1.3L With This (My Work Setup)

Now my setup is not only productive but great for my health. Majority of the companies don’t do that.

Trust is the biggest currency

I was shocked when Sujay handed over his credit card details when I wanted to purchase a tool.

I mean, I worked with several clients for the same work but nobody trusted me so much. Even our closest people don’t do that when it comes to finances.

I’ve had a chance to connect with some amazing people in the industry. 

From the very beginning, I was trusted with everything from hiring to processing invoices for freelancers. 

I’m really grateful for all these opportunities and the trust that comes with them. 

Throughout my time, I keep wondering if I am secretly being tested for how responsibly I behave given all the trust and sensitive access of the world. 

Still, without a rule you never know when your judgment will come into question.

So I feel safest sticking to the same practice of being mindful and taking decisions responsibly.

I explained such incidents in detail here: Do You Trust People?

Trust feels like an invisible currency that you are handed right on day one. 

It comes with a responsibility and it keeps on compounding as you grow with BSF. 

What if things go wrong?

Now, it’s obvious that sometimes things go wrong.

Does that lead to yelling, public shaming or blame games? 

I have never seen that. 

It is something that we retrospect upon –
What went wrong? What could be improved? Let’s make sure this doesn’t happen again.

For instance, I noticed a team member made a major blunder which was going to cost us a lot.

A simple response from Pratik was – “Please make sure this doesn’t happen again. What should be our next action plan now?”

Another incident where one of the products was called out by some users due to some bug.
It blew up in communities more than it was required. Of course, negative news sells.

Sujay reported to the team and kept the whole episode quite motivating.

He always acts as the face of company. Whenever we got backlash in communities, he was the one who took the responsibility and report it to the team members in most calm tone.

Pretty sure being CEO is not as fancy as it looks.

[You might like to read: Being a Founder]

Teaches 2 things –

1. Shit happens, but it can be dealt with a calm mind without blaming anyone 
2. Focus is always on future and action items (now you know why all my letters have action items)

Our leadership team is full of Captains Cool!

Everyone makes mistakes and it needs to be acknowledged and rectified. 

Innovation cannot happen without mistakes and failures.

Making mistakes is fine. But you can’t repeat the same mistakes. 

2) It’s a Two-Way Learning

Brainstorm Force has 70+ products and everyone is involved in everything with complete transparency.

From founders to interns, each and every team member wears multiple hats. 

Do I need to say more about learning? 

For team members, feedback is instant and extremely constructive. 

Nobody needs to wait till year-end appraisals to know their performance feedback.

Feedback is not just “mazaa nahi aa raha”. 

It’s backed by a strong reason.

We even use the best channels to deliver our feedback. A very new team member appreciated the same in our recent call.

Feedback over messages might lead to miscommunications. Feedbacks over calls are hard to retain.

Solution?

We simply record our screen, speak out while showing exact issues and send those videos.

I absolutely love this feedback system.

It’s a simple yet effective way to fix issues quickly, learn from it and move on.

But what if someone wants to give feedback to management and team leads?

I think I am one of those team members who delivers feedback quite actively – positive as well as negative. Be it for teams, products or the company altogether. 

I could never sense that it bruised anyone’s ego. It’s always appreciated and taken positively.

Result?

More openness and transparency. It bridges the gap without giving a feeling of hierarchy or fear.

I always get amazed to see how things are implemented so promptly. Some of my biggest inputs and asks got in action and it feels so delightful and motivating. 

This gives a confidence of ZERO politics in culture. 

Maybe because we work remotely so there’s no space for that!

No shortage of extra resources to learn

You are encouraged to take courses, assignments, mentors, external coaches and so on. 

While I am writing this, I just completed a course recommended by Sujay. 

We frequently keep getting assignments apart from our regular roles that we need to deliver. 

And none of them is a boring compulsory activity, by the way. These are often optional but great for upskilling.

Upskilling reminds me of entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship is rewarded here

My team is full of entrepreneurs – YouTubers, bloggers, freelancers, agency owners, course creators, product sellers, consultants and what not! 

Everything while managing a full-time job efficiently. 

These extra things not only become their secondary income stream but also teach them new skills and help them stay updated with the latest trends. 

Eventually they bring all these ideas and learnings from outside. 

This is what I love about my team members. 

They don’t settle. They have a fire. They have a passion.

3) Flexibility (loved by every single team member)

I feel so bad when I see some companies with a culture to notify even if they need to answer nature’s call.

I mean, why?

Micromanagement is a foreign concept  

Last week I faced a power outage in my area. It was hot at home and I was anyway not able to work. I just checked if there’s no dependability of team on me and decided to step out and watch a movie in nearest theatre.

A Monday afternoon well spent 😀

No permissions required. But yes, ‘dependability’ is the keyword here. I would not want my team to have any blockers because of me.

For most of the companies, work-from-home is a joke with all tracking and weekly on-site reporting.

Here, we have some team members who take 3 weekly offs to get some extra personal time.
While some team members work 7 days a week so they can manage some personal work by working fewer hours. 

If I need to visit a bank or some Government office, I can simply opt to work on coming Saturday.
Or complete my targets in same working week.

That doesn’t lead to wastage of leaves and we can still focus on important things.

We don’t just work remotely. We all work asynchronously.

We have flexible hours. 

I still work at my fixed schedule though. I prefer sticking to my routine.
I explained it here: My BIG Experiment with Time

But nobody expects you to be available 24×7. 

In fact, nobody expects you to reply instantly even during working hours. Focused deep work is highly valued.

I never got a personal message or call after work till date. Boundaries are highly respected.

I don’t remember anyone’s leaves getting rejected. Can’t vouch for other teams or something that I might not be aware of as every team has a different way of working. 

But it never happened for my team till date. Marketing needs a fresh mind to work and it cannot be forced.

Last year, I saw one of the most senior team members taking a leave because he went to attend his kid’s annual function. That’s such a sweet gesture! 

Do you want to play football or simply not feeling to work because it’s raining heavily? 

You don’t need to lie or take ‘sick’ leaves. 

Taking breaks is totally fine and understood. In fact, I noticed people come back with more productivity.

Does so much flexibility even work?

I’d say, it comes with a responsibility and not everyone can take it. My current team is self-motivated and it just works for us.

Maybe because no one wants to be seen as someone who misuses flexibility. 

This is such a simple psychological concept but keeps everyone on its toes.

These have been my 3 years!

I just feel grateful for the overall environment that we get to work in.

This feeling intensifies because I have worked with dozens of founders and teams as a freelancer.
I observe how most of the people hate their office because of the people they work with.

In my case, I never found Mondays dreadful.

So yeah, all credits to management team who built this culture – Sujay Pawar (CEO), Abhijeet Kaldate (CMO) and Pratik Chaskar (CTO).

My team is full of specialists who are passionate about what they deliver and that makes working on projects even more fun.

Probably the reason why I know at least 5 people in my team who left BSF and joined back. It’s rare in corporates.

Some companies are so poor that all they can offer is “Money”

Now looking at all these things, I don’t want people to set wrong expectations and apply.

Remote working is not easy and importantly, not everyone can fit into it. Even flexibility comes with responsibilities.

I have explained it in detail here: Remote working? Mazze hi mazze!

Just like every organization, we have some expectations and areas to improve as a company. I am sure this will be a continuous cycle. 

If you are interested joining our team of innovators, you can check current openings here.