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Lets Build A CompAny We’re proud To Be ApArT of...

Nobody wants to work in a bank job. A job where you watch the clock and hope that 5.30pm rolls over so you can leave and do it all over again tomorrow.

At Appster, we are working to build a team of A-Players who are excited about our company mission and are fanatical about mastering their craft.

As Appster grows we wanted to build the kind of company we’d want to work for. A company that we could all be proud of being a part of building.

That starts with defining our Culture.

George Carlin

Oh, you hate your job?

Why didn’t you say so? There’s a support group for

that. It’s called everybody, and they meet at the bar.

01Why Is ThIs sTuff ImporTAnT

02WhAT We’re

03our Core VAlues

04our BrAnd promIses

05WorkIng AT AppsTer

06fAQ

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your ac tions; they become habit. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

Margaret ThatcherBritish Prime Minister

Brand is CulTureCulTure is Brand.

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Company Culture isn’t a buzzword or a bunch of marketing hype. Management legend Peter Drucker said ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’.

The most innovative and disruptive companies we admire all credit culture as their secret sauce.

Culture is the people, the mission and the values we are guided by.

Culture is how we work, it’s what the day-to-day looks at Appster feels like.

It’s how we make decisions and it’s the fuel which determines what we grow up to be.

Our Culture will determine our destiny.

What is CulTure?“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch

your words; they become actions. Watch your ac-

tions; they become habit. Watch your habits; they

become character. Watch your character; it be-

comes your destiny.”With the invention of the internet and social media there’s no way to hide.

The things which drive cul-ture: people, values and our mission are the same things which people associate and judge our brand.

Bad Cultures always ‘implode’ and damage themselves. Great companies always have an incredible internal company Cultures.

For us it’s about continually becoming more congruent and authentic as a brand.

We’re not Apple.We’re not Google.We’re Appster.

“Ship Fast and Fail Elegantly”

“Build a development hub for the greatest ideas and innovations in the world”

For us the key to building a great culture is simple. Put the right people people in the right seats, experienced servant leadership from senior executives and ensuring everyone has transparency through

Objectives and key results about how their work affects Appster.

Or simply: Make sure you look after the A players, Nurture the B Players and Exit the C Players.

Culture is theulTImATe reCruITIng Tool To geT The BesT people...“Customers will never love a company until the

employees love it first” - Simon Sinek

The BEST people will only work where there is a clear vision and great culture.Without happy & fulfilled employees, we cannot service our clients.

We believe the biggest reasons people leave companies are:01 They feel their job isn’t meaningful to the firm’s success02 They hate their management.03 They aren’t naturally good at their job.

This is

neVer endIng sTory

Culture isn’t a set of values on the wall that come out once a

year. Culture also isn’t a ping pong tables and speeches.

Our Culture is what we choose to reward in our team and what

causes us to end relationships with staff, vendors and partners.

Enron claimed to value integrity and respect, but that doesn’t

mean they lived by those values in any way, resulting in one of

the largest white collar crimes in modern history.

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How manyWorldChAngIng IdeAs Never Became Reality

A Cure for cancer ?

A new Replacementfor oil ?

An optical device tobring people back to20-20 vision

“Incredible ideas recruit.

Incredible Execution.”

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We Are

noT AnoTher App CompAnyIn 10 years from now we don’t want to be a small ‘funky app

developer that makes cool apps’

We need to hire SUPERSTARS, super smart and super passionate

people in the right roles in order to make our ‘dent in the universe’

Without a strong culture we cannot achieve our goals.

Let’s talk a little about those goals:

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Appsters

VIsIonCreate an Unprecedented Development Hub For the

Greatest Ideas & Innovations in the World

That means competing against some of the biggest brands in the world

Appsters

Bold VIsIon“Create an Unprecedented Development Hub For the

Greatest Ideas & Innovations in the World”

We BelIeVe In

Change is Good.

High Performance

Relentess Discipline

We are Dreamers

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We Believe We’re on a noble MissionWe Can solve the world’s greatest

problems through

Our Mission:

“Challenge Assumptions. Disrupt The Status Quo.

The First Industry We’re Disrupting is Software Development. Rather

than stick to a single industry, we will build capability in areas such

as Medical Innovations, Green Technology, Housing, or wherever we

believe we can help, and add massive value to an industry.

Our Culture Code

WhAT We BelIeVe in...The greatest minds in the world will spend 3+ years at Ap-pster Camp doing the best work of their lives, and building

things that will change the world.

A Letter from our CToHi Appsterfarians,

With the recent discussions on A players, B players and C players, I thought

I’d take the time to further explain this concept.

Please keep in mind that we are all A, B and C-players in different parts

of our lives. The question is - are you happy to be a C-player in a specific

area?

For example, those of you who witnessed me singing Karaoke at the last

“Illuminati” Tribe outing will know that I am definitely a C-player as a singer!!

Importantly, as I have no real interest in becoming a professional Karaoke

singer, then I am happy with that!

At Appster, with regards to our job roles, we have a mix of A-players,

B-players and, yes even some, C-players in the company.

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WhAT IT meAns ?As Appster is in a rapidly expanding mode, we need people who are either very good at

what they do (A-Players) —or— people who are solid performers with a great attitude who

want to become very good (B-Players).

• If you are an A-Player then we will reward you above and beyond your standard remuneration

and salary package! (More on this later)

• If you are a B-Player then we will work with you to become an A-Player or, at least, a B+

Player.

• If you are a C-Player then we will work with you to become a B-Player —or— help you find

more suitable work outside Appster.

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Top 10 sIgns you Are An

A-plAyer

1. You are passionate about what your area of expertise and

really enjoy what you do;

2. You want to become the best at what you do and are always

reading, learning, practicing to become a true Master of your

craft.

3. You profoundly care about the quality of the work you pro-

duce and will take extra steps to make sure it is done right.

4. You hate mediocre work and mediocre behaviour, and peo-

ple who do “just enough” to get by.

5. You happily help others who need or ask for help. You share

your knowledge and understanding.

6. You are confident in your ability but are humble about it.

7. You know that not everything is easy but willingly accept new

challenges and are open to new possibilities and ideas.

8. You are a problem solver and thinker. You are not easily dis-

couraged. If you get stuck or bogged down, you willingly seek

help and assistance.

9. You know that time is precious and take steps to make the

maximum use of your time. You are careful not to cause other

people to waste their time either.

10. …and the Top sign you are an A-player is...

11. You are willing to push through difficult circumstances and

situations. You know that there can be “no gain without pain”.

You are willing to sacrifice today in order to achieve a greater

reward in the future!

Top 10 sIgns you Are An

B-plAyer

1. You enjoy your work but you are not particularly passionate

about it.

2. You are good at what you do but you are not a Master of

your craft —or— you are not actively reading, learning or prac-

ticing your craft.

3. You are care about your work but there are more important

things in life that you care about more.

4. You don’t like mediocre work but sometimes you feel like it

doesn’t matter if you don’t produce your best.

5. You want to help others when you can but are concerned

this will take too much time.

6. You are confident in what you know but are afraid that others

will criticise your work.

7. You are willing to accept challenges but have trouble accept-

ing ideas that you think are wrong or silly.

8. You can solve problems and always keen to try but you need

help from others who are more experienced than you or have

more understanding than you.

9. You know time is precious and try to work fast but need more

time to complete complex tasks or need help from others.

10. …and the Top sign you are an B-player is...

11. You are willing to work hard and even work through difficult

situations but only if you are properly motivated or get a good

salary hike at appraisal time.

Top 10 sIgns you Are An

C-plAyer

1. You don’t particularly enjoy your work and have trouble get-

ting out of bed in the morning to come to the office.

2. You are not particularly good at what you do or you are hav-

ing serious difficulty improving your skills.

3. You do not particularly care about your work. It is just a job.

4. You willing accept mediocre work as a fact of life. You think

no one else will notice or care.

5. You avoid helping others in case they will realise you are not

that good or that you have short-comings.

6. You are not confident in what you do and frequently look to

ways to avoid being confronted about it.

7. You do not want challenges because you are afraid to make

mistakes or fail.

8. You frequently need help to solve problems and often get

stuck.

9. You have no concept of time and you allow tasks to take as

long as they take.

10. …and the Top sign you are an C-player is...

11. You take frequent emergency leave, even if you are not sick,

and you care more about table tennis and the cab picking you

up from your front door than making a contribution.

How Will We

AChIeVe All of ThIs?PEOPLE

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02relenTless dIsCIplIne

01ChAnge Is good

WEBelIeVeIn

04WE arE DrEamErs. We CreATe The World We WAnT To lIVe In.

03hIghperformAnCe

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01ChAnge Is goodAnyone who has worked at Appster from the early days will

regularly remark how much we’ve changed and continue to

evolve.

Change is in our DNA. People who thrive at Appster understand

that we’re in one of the fastest moving businesses in the world.

Appster does what takes some other companies 12 months in a

month and we reinvent ourselves every quarter.

why?

Because when you’re the market leader or a challenger brand

people want to steal from you.

They copy our marketing, they copy our processes and try to steal

our products. But they cannot beat our culture and our hustle.

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WhAT IT meAns ?

We are ALWAYS innovating in every product/department/area/process

We must always be finding ways to do things better, more efficiently

and delight our clients and customers. Nothing can be ‘sacred’.

We don’t believe in the phrase: “That’s how we’ve always done it”

We’re ALWAYS pushing our VALUE WEDGE

Customers don’t care about how hard we work, how smart we are or whether

we believe we’re the best. We are obsessed with improving ourselves and offering

more value. We call every innovation a value wedge, constantly pushing what we do

to the next level. Every Quarter we release new ones.

We need to be constantly Learning and Listening to the Market and our Team. Negative

feedback is a blessing. We embrace feedback at every stage, we study the data

and see trends. Then we go off our “gut” how to improve and disrupt what we’re doing. We are

constructively paranoid and always seeking to improve.

Massive Change, Requires Massive Stability. WE FIRE TINY BULLETS, THEN CANNONS.

In the past we’ve been accused of instituting change for the sake of change, we plead guilty.

Today

we’d like to think we’re smarter. We like to test things on a small scale, and constantly be ex-

perimenting

when things work we roll it out aggressively. We call this firing bullets first then cannons.

02relenTless dIsCIplIne(Gettin’ it Done)At Appster we prize Doing over Thinking.

We believe a plan ruthlessly executed today is vastly

better than a plan executed perfectly tomorrow.

We beat our competitors to a bloody pulp, and we are

the best in every industry we enter because we are

better than they are at one thing:

EXECUTION.

Execution takes Discipline, Consistency and constant

Effort. It’s not always the fun stuff, but it’s about focusing

on doing the right things everyday - even when we don’t

feel like it.

“When our competitors are sleeping, we are working”

“Most businesses also have a desperate need for greater discipline. Mediocre companies rarely display the relentless culture of discipline—disciplined people who engage in disciplined thought and who take disciplined action—that we find in truly great companies. A culture of discipline is not a principle of business; it is a principle of greatness.”

Jim Collins

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10XersFanatical Discipline

10X companies display an exceptional level of consistent action. They do only those things

which are aligned with their values, goals, performance standards and methods. In fact, 10X

companies are utterly relentless and unbending in focusing on their quests.

WhAT ThAT looks lIke:EXECUTION, EXECUTION, EXECUTION. (Ship it!)

We value doers over talkers. For us there’s too many people in the world that focus on talking

about what they’re going to do. As Steve Ballmer said the best advice he ever got: If you’re go-

ing to do a job, do a job! (With lots of yelling and sweating)

Meeting Discipline. Dailys, Retrospectives and Feedback Loops.

We are ‘Agile’ in every part of our organization. We have regular disciplines like daily standups,

project retrospectives and feedback systems which take time out of your day to complete. But

we do these anyways. Why? Because it’s about doing the right things consistently.

Hire Disciplined People, so we can focus on growing Appster not managing people.

Every year we operate, our recruitment and hiring guidelines become stricter and stricter.

Why? Because beyond just technical understanding we seek people who can self-manage and

handle autonomy well. That means we can spend more time focusing on company growth and

less time micromanaging people.

“Do yo’ thing!”

03hIghperformAnCe

ON HIRINGLIkE:Companies die when they hire B and C Players

When you hire B players they hire C players and the company’s

talent pool rapidly dies. We need to focus on hiring A-players,

people who are within the top 10% of the talent pool for any

particular roles.

We don’t believe in stacking where only a certain amount of people

are ‘A’ players even if the whole team rocks. We believe in a whole

company of ‘A’ players measured against an objective scorecard

system and transparent Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).

If you’re a GREAT Manager you’ll seek out people better

than yourself, because your teams results speak for you.

At Appster, we praise and reward leaders based on their teams

performance. We utilise world class recruitment tools including

tandem interviews, personality profiling, technical testing and

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no sensITIVe soulsRuthless Execution

and being in a fast growth company doesn’t make time for whining, arguing, bureaucracy. Petty

problems.

We don’t want to spend money on bloated HR departments to solve meaningless problems

when we could be spending that time and money on innovation.

We don’t have time for drama and politics.

We value people who ignore drama and get their work done. If you feel upset by something,

tell them about it. Don’t have backroom meetings about it.

Appster is not an ideal place for sensitive souls.

If you aren’t a high performance person who thrives on solving challenges and getting it done.

If you take offense easily. If you take constructive feedback personally. If you waste time on

petty problems then Appster isn’t for you.

remunerATIon = resulTsRuthless Execution

That means rewards, raises, progression within the company is NOT based on how long you’ve

been in your role or your experience.

It is based solely on your performance.

High-performers create their own destiny at Appster by going above and beyond and adding

massive value to help us grow.

We don’t believe in achievers who tear others down to reach their goals. A rising tide lifts all

ships!

Stock Options:

• 20% of Appster is assigned to ‘A-Players’, Top Performers are given options.

• We are Results Driven. We use a range of tools to identify who performs and who doesn’t.

04We Are DreAmers. We CreATe The World We WAnT To lIVe In.

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Let’s get passionate about changing the world and make a CONSCIOUS

effort to cultivate our belief in our vision.

We can do the impossible, and we need to have

an open mind to be able to do this.

We Create Our Reality. Reality Distortion.

But WhAt Does AppsTerTm

sTAnd for As A BrAnd?WE HAVE THREE BRAND PROMISES.

01InCredIBle eXeCuTIonIncredible Ideas require Incredible Ex-

ecution.

02fAnATICAl CusTomer serVICeWe’re transparent and believe in collaboration. We

Don’t Accept Everyone. But We Work hard to deliver

fanatical customer experiences.

03eduCATIon & mArkeT eXperTIseWe’re thought leaders educating the WORLD on

innovation and disruption using software.

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01InCredIBle eXeCuTIon

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• We Are Always Balancing between Budget, Timeline and Features as well as Quality.

• We need to be Radically Honest with ourselves and Clients about

whether they can build a 1 Bedroom house or the Taj Mahal.

• We Make Winning Products. We don’t Ship Crap, but we don’t Gold Plate.

We Collaborate not argue over contracts.

• We Need to Constantly be Improving and Reinventing Processes. We are never done.

• 1 Great Developer is Worth 1 Average Ones. We need to be ruthless about the

people we let into our team.

• From 2011 to TODAY... Massive Change, but not enough.

We need To Be relenTless “If We Could Do Anything -- What Would Be the Perfect

Way to Take an Idea from Concept into Reality”

WE WILL CONSTANTLY BE INNOVATING ON HOW WE EXECUTE:

Product Strategy, Business Strategy, Results Focused Development, World-Class Execution

and Product Innovation, Investors and Capital, Results Focused Development

02fAnATICAl CusTomer serVICe

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• Let’s Face it... A Great Experience is not just a Late App, Release

Agreement and Goodbye.

• Our #1 Rule: Treat Every Client, Like They Are Your Only One.

• Customers aren’t always right, but they pay our salaries.

WAys To TreAT your only ClIenT• Take a deep interest in their success.

• Take a deep interest in their personal life

• Provide them with remarkable special treatment

• Make special treatment automatic

(ie. BUILD in standard procedures for special client treatment)

• Little things mean a lot - send cards, write letters, special

greetings, provide information, etc

What Would the PERFECT Development Experience Be?

03A PuBLisher BrAnDWe hIre & pArTner WITh ThoughT-leAders Who proVIde mAssIVe VAlue To ClIenTs And The greATer CommunITy

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WhAT does ThAT meAn?• We will Publish 20,000+ of pieces of valuable content over the next 5 Years.

• We must constantly EDUCATE our audience

• We Must Build a Learning Culture at Appster...

To thrive at Appster we want obsessed learners!

WhAT hAVe We AChIeVed so fAr?• Opened Offices in India, Australia and Now USA within 3 Years.

• Increased Satisfaction on Rapid Concept Workshop™ over Scoping to 98.5%

• Establishment and Optimisation of our Development Operations in India/Aust.

THE WORLD IS DISCOVERING APPSTER

hoW CAn Youhelp?

• Get behind the Mission & Vision

Have some heart. GET PASSIONATE.

• Live by the Values

Change is Good. Relentless Discipline. High Performance. We are

Dreamers. Together we create the world we want to live in.

• Help us improve

Give us feedback internally. Listen to our customers. Be obsessed with

helping the company move forward by contributing your ideas.

• Learn

Invest in yourself. We provide plenty of resources and learning tools via our

internal wikis. Upskill yourself to stay relevant in the organization and add

more value.

• We’re in this TOGETHER

We are a family, we all play a part in making this happen.

“Occum faciis dem nul-lupt atiorio nsectas pel-iqui volestrum volorpos aut”

Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter? A scientist? An apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action. Do it, or don’t do it. It may help you to think of it this way; If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don’t do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet. You shame the angels that watch over you and you spite the almighty who created you. And only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter further along on its path back to God. Creative work is not a selfish act, or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. GIVE US, WHAT YOU’VE GOT.

Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

We Have Much Work to Do!

A.k.A. IT’s All TAlk

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