Nearly three years ago, I emphasized the advantages of expanding both our team and our family as a small business owner in 'Choosing Your Family'. Since then, we have continued this trend by welcoming new team members to Ablesoft and adding new family members across the group. Business growth was bolstered by solidifying our core values and strengthening our software infrastructure. By doing so, we can now be more selective in our hiring process, ensuring that new hires align with our business and can provide value to customers more efficiently. Personally, I used to dismiss the concept of 'core values' as mundane, but now, having experienced the benefits it has brought to Ablesoft, I urge fellow business owners to invest in the topic more seriously.
Since the article was written we added a full-time and part-time developer along with a sales and marketing intern. Carson, our part-time developer and a former pharmacy professional, joined us in October 2022 after transitioning to software development. His passion for gaming and computer building has proven invaluable in quickly grasping technical concepts and solving intricate problems. Brian and Jacob were both hired this summer. Brian, a recent computer science graduate, is working full time, applying his skills right away. Meanwhile, Jacob, a student at Illinois State, is exploring the value of software and learning how to effectively communicate it to others.
In all three cases, our employment decisions were based not only on technical abilities but also on alignment with the core values we have refined over the past five years at Ablesoft: forward thinking, personable, accountable, value-driven, and adaptive. These values were derived from recognizing what our customers appreciate about us and the qualities we have observed in our long-term team members. However, their alignment with our values was not the sole reason for bringing them on board. Another contributing factor is our investment in the Ablesoft Core, our shared project structure used across applications. This infrastructure enables us to train and utilize the skills of junior developers much more efficiently than in the past. Our commitment to hiring based on core values and investing in the Ablesoft Core has yielded a productive work environment where new hires can quickly contribute to projects and feel engaged.
In the past five years, our families have also experienced growth. Eric now has a two-year-old, I recently welcomed a four-month-old, and Alan will soon have two children joining his family. While we can't hold our children accountable to our Core values or utilize the Ablesoft Core with them, this period marks an exciting time of expansion for both our business and our families. We hope you take a moment to visit our team page and become familiar with the faces behind the software that provides you value.