Paxful Isn’t Afraid to Be Different
Tags: Thought Leadership, Cryptocurrency, Employment, Hiring, People Operations

Britta Breckon, Senior People Operations Manager at Paxful

Before I dive into the many reasons why Paxful is unique, I want to ask you a question — would you consider yourself to be a passenger or a driver in your workplace?

At Paxful, there’s no room for passengers.

I’ve been working at Paxful for six months now and it feels like the right time to talk about our culture. We’re very different from the other places I’ve worked — in a good way.

Paxful is a unique and generous employer.

We’re bringing the power of crypto to every corner of the world. We started out as a progressive, people-powered marketplace for money transfers. Now imagine the potential of putting people first in our business. We aim to build communities and give them opportunities they’ve never had. This doesn’t mean we’re trying to conquer — we aim to be the good guys.

This may come as a surprise, but we’re a bootstrapped company without strict budgets. Here at Paxful, our mentality is that “the sky’s the limit.” Whatever resources you need to get the job done, we try our best to provide it.

With unlimited resources, however, comes lots of responsibilities.

Because of the resources we’re given, we have a responsibility to deliver results, take ownership, show courage, and take initiative. We never comfortably settle for what has already been achieved. We always expect everyone to go above and beyond, living and breathing Paxful’s values.

It takes a special kind of person to make the most of this opportunity.

Processes and procedures can be a cage that prevents people from achieving. At Paxful, we have the balance just right so no one is held back by hundreds of processes or dependencies. We are urged to stay connected to the streets — our customers — and build products that make sense for them. There’s no waiting around to plan for the next quarter or even year. We are here to serve our communities now.

We don’t have strict policies on how to move between departments. Anyone at Paxful can work on improving our product.

For us, it’s not just the Product Team that can make improvements to the platform — our users, the community, and even the People Operations team has the power to make suggestions and big changes that improve the Paxful experience. Absolutely anyone who wants to contribute can do so. We have a dream of putting everyone through product manager training. Maybe one day, it will come true!

People Operations encourages employees to use Paxful.

We recently redefined our values and it’s such a pleasure to see how many people relate to them. Living by these mantras helps. If you constantly think about them, you begin to see what you can improve.

Recently, I prepared a present for my uncle, who had a celebration for reaching the official pension age. It was an unusual idea, but I created a Paxful Wallet for him and introduced him to trading. It was really fun!

To create a great product, you have to live what you build.

I’ll leave you with things others have said they wish they had known when they started at Paxful. It beautifully summarizes our culture.

“Fully embrace change — momentum is key and things change quickly. Don’t resist it. Just go with the flow.”

“Understand the product and the platform by really using it.”

“If you have an opinion, it is always welcome.”

“No matter the size of our company, you matter.”

To me, this is what it means to be at Paxful and have your work make an impact for all.