brad garland

The stars aligned, it was a ‘God thing’, or maybe I just got damn lucky but no matter what way you call it, I have rock stars as a development team. Mark, Dave, and Lisa each work their tails off for our company and each bring their own unique perspectives to make Banktastic and this platform great.

As we began building out Banktastic we began, unintentionally, building towards ideals or principles that we believe in. Those principles are still what guide us today and anytime their is a argument discussion about doing something we lean on them to make the final decision. If I’ve mentioned them to you before, please proceed past but if not here they are with some detail attached to each:

1) People are inherently good

As we build this platform, we assume people are going to use it with good intentions and not to hurt other people. Do we therefore think the world is always smelling rosy? Of course not, but we are willing to trust peoples good nature first and learn from our mistakes along the way. This has already paid off as people with the expertise to hurt have helped make our system more secure. People are inherently good if you are open and trust in them.

2) Openness wins

Nothing frustrates us more than services that require you to register to read the entire article or be behind the ‘walled garden’ to even see what’s going on. So Banktastic wasn’t going to be that way. You would be able to see all sections, without registration, only when you wanted to be apart of the conversation would you have to register. Why? We wanted to make sure your efforts were recorded and you got credited for that. You deserve to be recognized for your expertise!

3) Community is king

Maybe it’s the Gen Y in us but we don’t like to party alone. The more the merrier we say. People are smart and we want to show that off. So if it means friending up, ‘banking’ things, thumbs up, policing the system, etc. We want the community to be considered in every feature we create. The community is greater than the sum of its parts.

These are our principles as we continue to build this platform. They are probably not perfect but its what guides each new addition into our system. I would encourage every new start-up to have a set of principles that they believe in and to let those principles guide them as they build their product.

What are your principles as you build your products? I love to learn about yours. Have a great long Labor Day weekend everybody!

I couldn’t help myself.

I’m sure there are going to be another thousand reviews on the software but the beauty of the web is that people are also interested in my take. So I did three parts.

1) From a Apple fanboy perspective
2) From a financial services perspective
3) From a private ‘internal only’ to my guys at The Garland Group/Banktastic perspective

Enjoy and if you have any additional thoughts, let me hear from you, k?

Part 1 - Apple Fanboy Perspective


Part 2 - Financial Services Perspective


Part 3 - Private Video to my guys (you gotta be pretty special to get this link, :) )