Our New Company Values: A Shared Compass for the Future

Whereby has always been at the forefront of championing genuine, people-centered values by creating a transparent, flexible, and purpose-driven culture. We’re not just about being remote, we’re about designing an environment that puts people first at every level.

But in a constantly evolving startup environment, values sometimes need to evolve too. Two years ago, we pivoted our teams to focus on building and supporting Whereby Embedded, our video call API. That change brought not just a new direction for the business, but also a shift in our team and how we work. As our business evolved, so did everything else, including our values.

This wasn’t just a leadership exercise, we wanted our values to reflect who we really are as a team. While many startups define their values early in their journey, we’ve had time to grow, and we think our values should too, so we focused on what truly represents the lived experience of our Wherebirds (the internal name for our team members) in this new chapter of Whereby.

This process was important because it felt like the right time for a fresh start. Values reflect the kind of company we are and what each team member believes in every day they come to work. Refreshing our values became a key milestone to underline our focus on Embedded and shape the future of our Wherebirds.

Our previous values were foundational, so instead of replacing them, we chose to refine and strengthen what we already had so they continue to inspire us, and reflect the new Whereby we’re building and sharing with the world.

🎯 Our Refreshed Values

Here’s what our team proudly co-created. Each and every Wherebird helped shape these:

• One Team – We are one Whereby. We win and learn together.

• Trust by Default – We start with trust and build from there.

• Proactively Transparent – Openness and honesty make us stronger.

• Customer Focused – Everything we do starts with our customers.

• Results Driven – We focus on impact, not just effort.

• Constantly Adaptive – Change is inevitable – we make the most of it.

These values guide our decision-making every day. They shape how we hire, how we lead, and how we work together.

You can find a deeper dive into what each value means and how it works in practice on our public Notion.

🛠 How We Built Our New Values Together

We asked the whole team for feedback on which values had served us well in the past, which inspired them most, and what mattered to them now. That input laid the groundwork for our offsite workshop in October 2024, where we came together to build these refreshed values.

We split the entire company into cross-functional teams and gave them a clear challenge: using the most resonant values from our survey (or adding new ones), identify a shortlist of five that answered “yes” to key questions: 

• Can these values be used to guide you when you make a decision? 

• Do these values embody the aspects of Whereby that you're most proud of? 

• Are you and your teammates consistently living these values in your day-to-day work? 

• Will these values remain relevant and meaningful in the future?

This process fostered transparency and collaboration. Engineers worked alongside Sales. Customer Success collaborated with Operations. Everyone had a voice. We embraced Claire Hughes Johnson, Stripe’s former COO’s, advice to “say the things you think you cannot say”, and that openness shaped the conversation.

One value we intentionally emphasized this time was being Customer Focused. While this has always been part of our culture, we felt it deserved to be named explicitly. Everything we do starts with our customers, and this is now the most lived and visible value in our internal surveys.

We know values only come alive in practice. We’re not perfect, and we strive to be better. We’re listening, learning, and evolving together.

We’re incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished over the past year. We chose to wait to share these publicly until we’d seen them embodied in practice, and now we know they reflect who we truly are.

Here’s to the amazing team at Whereby, who embody these values every day: adapting constantly, driving results, putting customers first, leading with transparency, building trust, and moving forward as One Team.