Start with Shared Values

I was very fortunate to meet Patrick within a week of stepping onto Stanford campus. And the very first time we met, I still remember it was a 15-minute walk. It was gorgeous out. We were just talking about each other, each other's backgrounds. And the first signal of, ah, we might have something here is we both talk really quickly and we get very excitable. So instantly that energy was just there, almost that chemistry that you're looking for. And so 15 minutes in, he pitches me the idea for Free Will. And having done some impact investing before, I thought, wow, this is a combination of 3 incredibly unsexy industries, but that together are incredibly innovative and could really be a win-win-win across the board. And so our first meeting after that, you know, I'm a math person. Growing up, I did math competitions. I would think, okay, we're going to business model, we're going to size the total addressable market. But it was really Patrick's push to say, like, actually, let's just get in a room and talk about values. Like, are we even close? And so we spent an hour and a half in a small classroom with whiteboard just writing down, hey, what is the way in which we would like to interact with each other, with our customers, with our employees, like, with the world? What do we want to represent? And that ended up being one of the most important meetings that we've had in our 5 years at Free Will. And it continues to be today the reason why people join, the reason why people buy from us, and the way that we operate with each other. So we ended up with 4 values: kindness, joy, courage, and focus. And one thing I tell folks is, you know, yes, you can have pretty values on your website, but unless it is a day-to-day lived experience, they aren't real values. And I think we've done a lot of work setting up the traditions and just the experience as soon as you reach us, whether it's as an employee or as a customer, to really feel those values.