Computer vision and radar company iKubu believes an innovative company culture is one of the key ingredients to its success story of building a South African startup in the technology industry.
Franz Struwig, managing director at iKubu, told HumanIPO: “I think the main realisation for us was that you spend so much time at work that you have to do something to express yourself.
“So we try to make our workplace the best place to work.”
As their main focus is on product development within the computer vision and radar field, idea brainstorming usually kicks off with theatre improvisation sessions.
Struwig explained, according to their innovation pipeline, this is the essential first stage in product development, followed by “the Google phase to determine if it’s truly novel”.
iKubu supports a collaborative management style where title consciousness is replaced with self-selected responsibility assignments and employees are encouraged to take ownership of their work.
“You learn a lot through doing – you can almost say the only way we learn is through doing,” Struwig said.
The company also take on external projects to fund their own product development, such as a recent 3D scanner for Australian airline Qantas and a non-military project in Saudi Arabia.
Although detracting time from their initial focus, Struwig views this as a positive, rather than distracting factor.
“The benefit of that is you get exposed to different technologies, you get exposed to different ways of doing things and you know that sort of builds your skills, but since its quite focused we can feed that back into our product development,” he explained.
Furthermore the company is partner, rather than competitor, focused.
Through this approach they take on projects, both externally and internally, by combining skills in bringing out the expertise in building strengths rather than being critical.
Employees also get paid for building their skills with engagement in external training.
According to Struwig, team spirit is built through spending lunchtimes and gym sessions together, staying up to date with the personal lives of colleagues, assisting through difficult times and encouraging people to be comfortable in office.
HumanIPO reported last week on iKubu’s belief in establishing business relationships as a contributing success factor.
iKubu started in 2006 in Johannesburg and moved down to Stellenbosch, close to Cape Town, in 2009 for better life quality.
With a hippopotamus (the English translation of iKubu’s name) as its branding icon, the team of soft- and hardware developers aims to leave deep tracks and a legacy on the tech scene.
