Four years today. A short note, not a war story.
The operational decisions that made it possible for us to ship continuously since February 2022 were not heroic. They were boring, made in the first thirty days, and they held. In rough order of importance:
One — paid people for three months without expecting work
We told everyone in the first week: keep your phone on, take care of your families, work when you can. We paid full salary for three months regardless of output. We lost no one to attrition in 2022.
Two — kept the standup
Fifteen minutes, asynchronous on the bad weeks, five lines a day on the worst. The standup is the company's pulse. We never canceled it.
Three — refused the war pivot
We did not ship a donate button, a "free for Ukraine" plan, or solidarity content. Our customers needed the credit module, not a banner. We shipped the credit module that quarter.
Four — moved the data center, kept the roadmap
We moved primary servers to Warsaw in week two. We did not change what we were building.
None of this was unique to us. I know other companies that made similar calls and got similar outcomes. I write about all of it in the book, but the short version is up top.
— Oleksandr