About: Bandzoogle is a website builder platform for musicians, founded in 2003 by Chris Vinson, of alt-rock band, Rubberman. With a mission to empower musicians to build effective websites for their music, Bandzoogle is used by tens of thousands of artists around the world to build their website and promote their music online.
Bandzoogle is currently led by CEO, Stacey Bedford, who shares her thoughts on work life balance and company culture below.
Location: Distributed
Respectful & conscientious: the Bandzoogle way
Bandzoogle turns 18 in October and we’ve been a fully remote company since day one. Because we’re an old company, we have a strong sense of self. We value long term relationships with our customers and staff. When day-to-day issues come up, we make decisions based on what will keep those relationships thriving in the long term.
I would describe our company culture in how we treat our individuals; respectful and conscientious. Doing the right thing for our staff and members is more important than the bottom line.
We also respect that we all have our own ideas and ways of working productively. Since we’re a fully distributed team, supporting that is a little unique. We have good systems in place to monitor output, so our staff has a lot of freedom about how they get their work done. The ability to work autonomously is rewarded with opportunities and more freedom.
We are big on transparency, and we encourage staff to share their ideas and feelings. Our entire team takes part in our product development and project process. We feel that criticism from our staff and members makes for a better product and workplace, and we address it quickly.
If you joined our Slack channel for a day I think you’d feel that our company is quite informal, but very well structured. We are fun but very scrappy. We push out an incredible amount of work in our 8 hour days. Everyone is always helping out where they can. Oftentimes, our communications team has trouble fitting all of our user facing updates into a monthly calendar.
Work-life balance at Bandzoogle
At Bandzoogle, most of us are musicians so we put a lot of energy into our extra-curricular activities. After 17 years, we have a really good handle on the work life balance that a lot of people struggle with today when they start out remotely.
We don’t have lush offices equipped with chefs, gyms, or game rooms that encourage staff to never leave. We understand that everyone has their own lives, family and interests outside of work and unless there is some exceptional event, we don’t expect or hope that anyone works more than their scheduled shifts.
Working towards a common goal: artists helping artists
Everyone at Bandzoogle works really hard because they care about what they do. Our members can sense that devotion and it’s reciprocated; the average customer sticks around for 4 years, and the average staff member is here for 7 years. Foremost, we respect that we all have a life outside of work.
Because we’re such an open company, everyone here has the opportunity to either excel and do the best where they are, or carve out something new that interests them and adds value for our members.
We’re all pretty informal, but at the same time we all really trust our processes. It is a fun loving group where people are structured and kind.
We all feel that we’re working towards common goals – artists helping artists, and we share a sense of accomplishment.
What are your values?
Autonomy and integrity are huge. We regularly get pitches from VC funding firms to invest in Bandzoogle but we value our ability to make our own decisions and determine the goals of our company above growth.
We know that if we took on funding, we’d no longer be able to control our own journey. We have turned away partnerships and integrations that would have resulted in major growth because they didn’t align with our values.
We really value quality and competence. This is right in our tagline: Band websites that work. We invest a ton into our infrastructure, which has a 99.8% uptime for our customer sites and the fastest load times out of any sitebuilder.
We devote a lot of time and energy into staff education. This includes a paid 3 month onboarding and training process, and a single tier support team who communicate regularly with our developers.
Every team member has access to an annual education bonus. As a result, our customers receive a superior product and if they do need to reach out, everyone at any level is able to help them with anything they need.
We don’t put growth or sales at the forefront of our goals. We take what we need to run the company properly and take care of our staff. This is manifested in commission-free sales, no pricing increases in 15 years, and a very lean team. The funny thing is that ideology has resulted in growth and sales. I think if you have your priorities right, and you do the right thing your success will follow.
Employee Benefits
- Flexible working hours
- Full health coverage (including vision and dental)
- A shiny new MacBook (or whatever you prefer)
- A $1,000 yearly education budget. Learn new skills and we’ll reimburse books, courses, conferences, etc.
- Reimbursement of home office expenses, internet, and use of co-working spaces
- Yearly meet-ups in fun locations, family included!
Career Opportunities
Currently no open positions available.
If you’d like to showcase your unique company culture on Balance the Grind, get in touch with us today!
Every company approaches culture and work-life balance in their own unique way. Company Cultures is a project by Balance the Grind to showcase different workplaces and cultures from around the world.