I actually like my job… I’ve always liked programming, but never like who I’ve programmed for… until now!

I think the other important thing to mention here is that when you create an environment like this, and run your organization as such, it is also important to not adopt a "too cool for the room" attitude. I turned down a great opportunity for a company that touted all these fun benefits, but they turned out to be a bunch of cocky jerks that thought I should feel privileged to work in their presence. Just ’cause you have a Wii and a cool loft-style open office, doesn’t mean that you’ve got it down. The attitude of the management is equally important, and it sounds like you guys have the right one.

Keep it up!

e.g. Ikea Web Development, a neo-beatnik company.

Hiring your first developer is a critical time. This is where the tone of company culture at Brightmix will be set for all time. It’s easy at this point to hire someone that’s a friend, who will in turn recommend a friend when you bring on your fourth, and so on and so forth. Then next thing you know the office is one big click. Then comes along the one guy who wasn’t hired off of employee referral who walks into work, realizes it’s a good ole boy club, and hates it. Or worse, you have to let someone go and their half dozen friends quit with them and you lose your entire development staff.

As you employ more people and take on more work, more of your time will be spent running the company and handling the clients than writing code. In a three person company, everyone codes. In 15 person company, someone has to process payroll, do annual reviews, administer benefits, deal with a much larger client list, resolve problems between conflicting team members, remember to order flowers because Bob’s grandfather passed away, deal with the neighbors because your employees are taking up more than their fair share of the parking lot, provide evidence when a former employee files for unemployment, handle accounts payable and receivable, send bad clients to collections, deal with that new client in the financial industry that wants to know if your employees have all had criminal background checks and drug screenings, etc..

It’s a real pain when you’re so big that you can’t accomplish those things in just one afternoon and too small to cost-effectively hire non-technical support staff to do them for you.

At that point, who the bosses are becomes less important to the employees as who their co-workers are. Why? They’re working less and less directly with you and more and more directly with their peers. Is that 40 year old developer that brings much needed experience, maturity, and industry contacts to the table going to get along with the 21 year old developer that just can’t get over the fact that his co-worker is 40?

Basically, you need someone that is going to fit into a homogenous group of 3 developers but in a few years will also fit into a diverse group of many more developers. Additionally, at your current size they’re going to need to fill many roles. They have to be developers that don’t mind talking to clients, putting on their business hat, or changing light bulbs.