Dogu is a software company founded in 2011 by students from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology who decided to take the road less traveled and build their own company.
Since 2012, we achieved more than 185% year-on-year revenue growth. Today, Dogu has a team of 19 brave nerds working from 5 offices to build and operate amazing products: SalesScreen and LiveScreen.
The name Dogu is an acronym for Data og Utvikling which in Norwegian means Data and Development. We would have trademarked it, but Dogu happens to also be a Japanese mythical figurine dating back to over 10 000 years ago.
So, what sets us apart and what makes us special?
Aside from our finesse at the most important of startup sports, such as foosball, pingpong and beer pong, we do a LOT of activities together. We have a monthly budget for team building, which can be used for anything from Friday lunches at a restaurant to GoKarts and Lazer Tag to buying a new BBQ grill or Playstation 4 to play. But it’s not the STUFF that’s important, it’s the PEOPLE. Every day, we talk about the importance of building great culture. We invest in our people, in a BIG way!
Professional development and growth is hugely important to us and we place a premium on face-to-face time and team building activities. We serve as groomsmen in each other’s weddings, we enjoy hanging out together on the weekends, and we plan each other’s bachelor parties. As cliche’ as it may sound, we really are best friends… and at the end of the day, that commitment that we have to each other pours out in our passion for building great products.
We have a very horizontal leadership structure and do things not because we have to but because we want to. This company is 100% employee owned and we all care about the growth and success because we are invested in it… I’m not talking financially, I’m talking emotionally. We care about what we do and while one of our product mottos is “Never stop at “good enough” when you can be GREAT!”, we strive to go beyond great. We want to be known as entrepreneurs who dream big, plan well and dare to do the impossible.
In addition to what sets us apart as people, there are some unique traits that set us apart as a company:
1. We are bootstrapped
Dogu has never received outside funding. This has taught us a great deal about the need of creating great products that people are willing to pay money for, being cost-savings minded and adopting an agile approach to all aspects of our business.
2. We are employee-owned
Dogu is 100% owned by 12 of its employees keeping shareholders’ and employees’ interests completely aligned.
3. We are profitable
Since 2012, the company has been been profitable every single year.
4. We are growing
Since 2012, Dogu has grown its revenues by over 185% year-over-year.
5. We are idea-driven
Top-to-bottom decision making is not our strongest suit. We always encourage everyone to come up with, debate and implement new ideas.
6. We are distributed
Back in the day, Dogu was located in one office in Trondheim. Our team is now distributed across Norway (Trondheim, Oslo, Bergen), USA (San Diego), France (Bayeux) and Holland (Amsterdam).
7. We are flexible
While sitting together is necessary sometimes, we do not believe that you need to sit in an office from 9 to 17 to do your best work. We empower our team to work from where they want and on a flexible time schedule. All one needs is a laptop and a good internet connection.
8. We are geared up
As true digital craftsmen, we want nothing but the best tools to do our work. We use the best tools available, such as Slack, Zoom, Office 365, Dropbox, Pipedrive, Trello, Github and of course, SalesScreen.
9. We are brave nerds
We love technology and are never scared to push the boundaries of what is possible. Our team may not be the largest but our developers are surely amongst the brightest.
10. We are business minded
Technology is only useful when it helps individuals and organizations achieve what was previously not possible. We strive everyday to understand our customers and find ways to help drive their business to become more profitable.
11. We are agile
We are a small team and we cherish this. It has forced us to be agile in everything we do, to iterate quickly through possible solutions and to continuously bring improvements to our products and to our organization.
12. We are independent
We are a small company with big responsibilities and we flourish with team work. But we are also good at taking ownership to get things done when we see something that needs to be improved.
13. We are trustworthy
In the course of a few years, we have gone from being a 3 man unknown consultancy company to becoming a company with Products trusted by some of the most renowned companies in the Nordics: Nordea, Gjensidige, Subaru, Schibsted, Privatmegleren, Visma.
14. We are family
We see the Dogu team as a tightly knitted family who shares memories together and will keep on writing great stories. That also means that we try to include our better halves for social events.
15. We are Dogu
In December 2015, Dogu’s employees wrote and collectively approved the following internal vision: Dogu shall strive to be excellent and offer the best working environment possible while creating great stories for generations to come.
