Fatwallet.com does things right

05/08

So, it’s been a week since returning from my recent visit to the fatwallet.com offices in Barntown Ill. Lot’s of fun stuff has been going on for me personally but I wanted to make sure I got this post our before I moved on to other topics. Tim Storm the CEO at fatwallet was a guy I meet at TED PalmSprings this year, correction, I overheard a conversation that Tim was partisipating in and when he dropped the tidbit that fatwallet.com was his company I went into full fanboy mode. For the uninitiated, fatwallet.com is a community of bargain hunters, and I’ve been a long time user of the site. It started when I was a totally broke geek in school and wanted to find good deals on computer components to trick out my computer. The site also comes in really handy on “Black Friday” the day shopping holiday that coincides with the day after Thanksgiving.
Back to talking about Tim, so he was talking about how he ran the site and that was when I blurted towards them “OMG, I am such a fan! Your site has saved me a bundle over the last couple years and last Black Friday, I saved at least 2 grand… Oh, Hi, I’m Chris”

We hung out acouple times over lunch during the course of the rest of the conference and by the time we’d all leave we would become good friends. Since TED, we’d kept up with each others developments on twitter. He congratulated me on my departure from AT&T, I have him a virtual hi-5 on talking delivery of his new Tesla Roadster, and when I said I may be interested in a software change of pace, Tim invited me to come out to Rockton (Barnville) Ill.

Over the course of a couple of days I got a sense of how Tim manages a diverse group of talented people and has built a company that would make an MBA student’s head explode. Fatwallet is a company that could easily be pulled out of a trendy business park in Silicon Valley (except fatwallet is profitable) and is ran the way Google is in all of it’s PR documents. Colorful walls and an awesome arcade greet every visitor, and on the day I came in affixed to the purple painted cow were a bundle of balloons and a huge sign welcoming their newest employee.

Tim happens to be an avid reader and he asks that all of his employees read a set of books that will give them a common vocabulary. Everyone works on a performance based system, establishing goals daily and talking about any issues that may be blocking their efforts. This gives coworkers the ability to lend a hand to a colleague that may be struggling and in the long run allows everyone to get more work done. Fatwallet is a company that does not skimp on perks, they frequently hold game days and everyday after lunch the engineers take aim at each other in a game of Call of Duty.

Tuesday is “TED Talk Tuesday”, Tim pulls out a huge projection TV and gathers all of the employees to watch a TED talk. This provides an opportunity for all of his employees to share their ideas and on the day I was there I was fortunate enough to do a demo of what I presented at TED this year.

All and all the trip was a fantastic opportunity for me to hang out with some amazing people and I got a taste of rural life. Oh, and I got to drive Tim’s Tesla… and it was sweet.

I’ll post pictures when I find my card reader