Our Philosophy

Our Mission

Our mission is to make small businesses more economically competitive than big business, by bringing them cost-effective, powerful, Open Source solutions.

We believe that small, loose federations of small companies working cooperatively is better for people, business, and the environment, because it better distributes wealth, power, and resource usage while becoming integrated into ecological systems.

Company Values

We are striving to create a company that places people first. While we're creating a traditional service business, we think there's lots of room for accommodating people with creative scheduling and work environments.

We value:

• Quality
• Balance
• Flexibility in employee hours and locations
• Accountability
• Sustainability
• Open Source
• Giving back to the community

Specifics:

Quality

Talent. We seek people who take pride in their craft, and always strive to improve it. While we may be forced to take shortcuts to keep the costs within budget, these shortcuts should be acknowledged as such, with the better approach identified.

Balance

Employees are not obligated to work full time, but will be compensated for hours actually worked. We believe people work best when work is balanced with family, play, physical activity, and a well-rounded life. While there may be overtime for certain projects, our goal is to not work employees more than 40 hours a week, and encourage employees to work shorter schedules.

Flexibility

There will be set days and times when everyone is expected to be available for conferencing, hashing out problems, and generally working together, often on-site. Certain people will be on phone/email duty for specific hours. Employees are otherwise expected to manage their own schedules, and are free to work where and when they want, as long as the work gets done on time.

Accountability

We are accountable to our clients for the work we're doing, and we expect our employees to be accountable for their work. We strive to set clear, reasonable expectations, and then expect them to be met. We provide systems to help our clients manage their businesses, and use them extensively ourselves. So while we don't care where or when the work gets done, we do expect it to get done on time and on budget.

Sustainability

Our business is our customers. All consulting and advice should take a long-term view, recognizing that a healthy relationship with our customers is far more important than a short-term sale. The more successful we can make our customers, the more business we will gain in return. We should never advocate selling a solution that does not make sense for the customer. Likewise, vendors, contractors, and suppliers support us and should always be paid promptly and treated with respect. You reap what you sow, and our most important crop is good will.

Open Source

At our heart, we're an Open Source company. We believe that openness, transparency, and sharing are better ways of running a business. While we will have a few proprietary products, and will sometimes take on projects on a work-for-hire basis, we're much more interested in sharing our knowledge and adding value by being thought leaders and paid for developing new ideas. There are plenty of problems that need solving in this world--there is little value for society in hoarding ideas and keeping people out. We should get paid fairly for our services, bringing great solutions to people who need them.

Giving Back

Open Source depends upon people giving back to the community, and we recognize this need. Freelock will support open source projects financially and with development time as available. All employees are encouraged to give back to the community, and 10% of their regular work hours may be devoted to giving back in one of three ways: working on an open source project, working on a web site related to a community-oriented organization or club, or working on projects for a non-profit. Freelock may provide additional resources, such as hosting or project tools, to employee-contributed projects.