Who we are, and how it works

Introduction

Many people are wondering what is happening at Terra. Here's an overview of our team, our culture, and how things work

What we do

Terra is an API that makes it easy for apps to connect to wearables. Currently, apps and developers in the fitness, wellness, sleep, and overall health spaces are using us. Terra was launched in early 2021, and since then we've been growing like crazy. But this is just the beginning. We are now reaching the scale of any type of consumer app using us.

The goal and vision

Think if Spotify and Netflix create music and movies based on your heart rate, and stress levels, in real-time. We want to enable apps to achieve that reality, through our super easy-to-use API.

Funding

To achieve our grand goal, we couldn't have made it without the support of some incredible investors. We are lucky enough to be supported by General Catalyst, Samsung NEXT, and Next Ventures and we were part of Y-Combinator's W21 batch.

How things work

Great people: We are always in the process of building the best team in the world - after all, our competitive advantage is who we are. We are searching for the best, and when we find them, we let them show us the way. Our team consists of people that are getting things done, are incredibly resourceful, and are intense learners.

We stick to the fundamentals. When doing interviews, we are looking for three things: a) Values, b) Chemistry, and c) Complementary skill set. As you can see, values are the most important part here.

Reasoning: We are reasoning through first principles: In engineering, when solving a problem, we tend to think from first principles. This helps to have a good foundation and a strong starting point. Once the foundation is set, then we create feedback loops. It looks like this:

Basically, we are solving problems by using feedback loops, and we grow as a team, by learning from mistakes. And the funny thing is that the more mistakes we make, the better we become.

And this leads me to another point. When thinking in first principles, and building via feedback loops, you immediately discover that everything is buildable, and everything is possible. So you default to yes. It's not a question of if we should build something difficult, it's a question of how we do it. And when you think about ‘how', then you become resourceful.

Another thing that people find very surprising when they meet us, is that we are extremely transparent. We say things as they are, and we stick to the point. Having that approach makes you super efficient - you say fewer things, and you do more things. It's all about the signal.

Our culture

Speaking to users, building product

One of the counterintuitive pieces of advice we have is that when you are building something big, you need to start by building something small. Find the first ten users that love what you are building, and then they will bring another 100. The way we innovate is by having an intense focus on delivering product improvements, that are given to us by our customers. We speak to them daily, and we build and ship immediately, based on their feedback. The signal always comes from users.

Doing things that don't scale

Whenever we innovate, we build something very scrappy at the beginning. It possibly takes less than a day in development time. If it works for the customers, then we build something that takes a week. If that works, then we improve it over time.

High momentum, high velocity

We are running as fast as possible. This helps us make more mistakes, improve the feedback loop, and improve the outcome. Growth is what keeps us going, and we never take our attention off it. And momentum always needs direction. We try to focus on doing the right things, and hence we progress closer to the goal.

Delta of learning, over static knowledge

We prioritize the rate of learning, over experience. Building something difficult has a very steep learning curve, and hence we are always in the search of extreme learners, rather than people with existing knowledge.

Team comes first

We can only achieve our vision with the best people. But at the same time, the best people are part of a unit, and that unit can benefit or detriment from each individual's actions. The answers to our actions come from questioning: will my action help the team, or not, and hence bring the team closer to the vision.

If you came here, because you are applying for a role - we really appreciate it! When applying, use a 💪🏻 emoji in your application, as you have unlocked the achievement :)

Here are a few of the books that are an internal part of the culture. Every new joiner reads one and gives a presentation to the team. They then become culture:

Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb
Antifragile, by Nassim Taleb
The Barcelona Way, by Damian Hughes
Deep work, by Cal Newport
And Thinking Fast and slow, by Daniel Kahneman

We also like food :) We usually do dinners, to celebrate our small wins.

Hiring

Wasn't it clear already, that we are always hiring? :) Here's where you can apply, and here's some more information about our Team members. (we made it a bit more fun, more real :) )