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Comment by znq | Hacker News Reader

Author here. For us it means optimizing for happiness instead of profit. More practically speaking what we do is ensuring everyone has a sufficient base salary, but then also participates in a quarterly bonus program (profit sharing). But the key is actually that everyone can work from wherever they want and as much as they want (as long as it is properly planned in advance). And then on top of that we organize fun retreats like spending a month in Cape Town or Martinique, or going skiing together in Austria or just a few days ago we went together to the Italian Alps for a week of hiking.

So this is what lifestyle business means for us: having a good time with great people.

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I think that's a good definition. One often sees "lifestyle business" used as some sort of code for not paying very well but, at the end of the day, not having appreciably more flexibility or lifestyle-related benefits than any other small business.

Nothing against small consulting/design/etc. small businesses. But if they're fairly typical, at least figuratively, 9-5 gigs in the office or at customer sites with a few weeks off a year, it's hard to see them as lifestyle businesses.

I would tweak that to say you optimize for happiness instead of growth. Oftentimes, profit will be far more important to a lifestyle business than a VC rocketship, simply because the rocketship can sustain itself through funding rather than profit, and a business whose sole purpose is to maintain a comfortable standard of living for it's employees is pointless without profiting.

how do you deal with kids/school? Do you take your kids along with you?

I personally do not have kids yet, but some of our employees have kids and even newborn babies. One of them just came back from a trip to Norway. It's all doable and probably less of a problem than people think :-)

I think they were asking you what do the parents in your organization do on some of these longer outings - do they come and bring their kids, come without their families, or stay home?

Got it! So I'd stay we've two groups of people in the company: those that like the freedom to spend it at home and those that like the freedom to go traveling. To answer your question: the retreats we offer are voluntary so not everyone joins. But we do have a group of people who are strong travelers and also having kids now and they just take them with them. This is however quite now to us and we're planning a trip to Martinique where we are considering hiring a nanny as well.

That's awesome. I think you're handling that really well. I suspect a lot of US-based startups use these things as a screening tool to not hire too many people with families/outside obligations. It's a perk on paper, but you're a "bad culture fit" if you can't do weekly happy hour or a week long retreat because you want to see your kids.

Are you hiring?!

Actually yes :-) http://mobilejazz.com/jobs

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