Values Are Not Posters: The Code We Live By

01. Human Above Everything

Humans first. Everything else second.

We don’t look at brands or organisations—we look at the humans behind them.

Our vision places people at the centre of everything: their clarity, their calmness, and their lived experience. We judge our success not by metrics or outputs, but by a simple human truth: Did this person feel freer and closer to what matters because of us? This applies to everyone—clients, teammates, and partners—without hierarchy.

In The Heart of Business, Hubert Joly reminds us that "purposeful work is a key part of our humanity." He argues that a company isn't a machine, but a "human community." He captures the essence of our mission perfectly:

We believe every human carries that magic when they are given the right environment of honesty and compassion. That’s why we use one universal set of human questions:

For us, that magic is the fuel for the Passion we bring to our code. We don’t look for "the right people" as if they are spare parts for a machine; we look for the spark in every person, knowing that when a human feels seen and safe, they do their best work.

Before the software, before the systems, and before the strategy—we are humans working with humans.

02. Clarity & Passion

Maximum impact. Minimum noise.

Clarity is how we honour our vision inside Threls. If we want to free our clients from noise, we must first remove the noise from ourselves. This means stripping away the "corporate theatre"—unnecessary meetings, drama, and assumptions—to make room for the quiet mind required for craftsmanship.

But clarity without passion is cold. At Threls, that passion is driven by our CTO, Gary, and a rule he has lived by for over a decade: "99% commitment will result in 100% failure."

For Gary, this started on a football pitch in his home-town during a 90-minute match they had worked toward all year. Anything less than 100% was a letdown to the team, the family, and the objective. He carried that intensity into his rugby journey and, eventually, into the heart of our engineering culture.

Passion is our Quality Safeguard. We say this from experience: cutting corners or over-exaggerating knowledge always comes back to bite. We have learned that we can find alternatives or communicate concerns about deadlines, but we never bypass quality processes, even under pressure.

We are clear with our clients: issues happen, and people get sick. But as long as we give 100% and keep the client informed, we can achieve the goal. We bake this passion into our structure through:

Peer Reviews & Standards

We use collective oversight to ensure our best practices are maintained and that our code remains standardized and maintainable.

Automated Vigilance

We employ a suite of automated testing, security scans, and performance checks to catch what the human eye misses, ensuring the product is healthy before it ever reaches a user.

The "Daily Analysis”

We don't just ask "What are you doing?" We ask "What is your goal for today?" By setting specific daily objectives, we stay on the right track and communicate progress—or roadblocks—instantly.

We prioritize by asking the hard questions: Who is affected by this issue? What is the recurrence? We don't fix things just because they exist; we fix them because they matter to the client's priority. We "start stupid"—building the simplest version of a plan and troubleshooting our way up to the answer.

Clarity gives us the direction. Gary’s 100% commitment gives us the energy. Craftsmanship is born where both meet.

03. Community

Deep roots. High reach.

We exist because of community. Our founders were shaped by a village that believed in them—a place where reputation was built on showing up for your neighbors and doing the hard work when no one was watching. That belief became the fuel for everything we have built over the last seven years.

But let’s be honest: those seven years weren’t a fairy tale. Along the way, we carried our own baggage. We faced the friction of growing pains, the weight of heavy decisions, and the internal struggles that come when you try to build something meaningful from nothing. It wasn’t always smooth, and it wasn’t always pretty.

As we hit the five-year mark, we realized that for this community to survive its own growth, it had to evolve. It could no longer start and stop with us. In our mid-thirties, possessing the most energy we’ve ever had but also recognizing the limitations of our own perspectives, we made a radical, humble decision: True empowerment isn't just making space for others to thrive; it’s having the humility to be led by them. We understood that leadership is about serving the mission, not our own egos. Because of the deep trust we share—a trust where friends and colleagues have become an extension of family—we took the leap. We chose to be led by our CEO and CTO, trusting their specialized vision to navigate the complexities we had built.

This commitment to the collective—baggage and all—is best captured by a moment I shared with Omar, our CEO. During a particularly stressful week, when the weight of leadership felt heavy and the "baggage" felt loudest, he didn't try to "fix" me. He gave me a metaphor that defines how we work:

That is community to us. It isn’t just a "happy hour." It is the sacred commitment to never abandon each other during the flight, even when the engines are struggling. We honour the roots that raised us by lifting our community as we grow, and by having the courage to trust the hands that now hold the controls.

04. Freedom

Owned by no one. Accountable to you.

We believe in freedom. It is the reason Threls was created and the reason it continues to grow on its own terms. We are proudly self-funded and independent. We grow at our own pace and answer only to our clients and to each other—never to investors, external pressures, or someone else’s agenda.

But seven years has taught us that freedom is not the absence of structure; it is the presence of Self-Discipline. As Peter Hollins writes in The Science of Self-Discipline:

This value was defined for us by the first four people who joined our mission: Joshua, Christian, FrankPaul, and Renee. All four are now the leaders driving our Twine product, but their journey started with a pivotal decision. They chose to move away from the guaranteed safety of traditional, established careers to take a risk on a young startup.

They didn’t come for a “relaxed” life; they came because they believed in the power of freedom—the freedom to be more themselves and to have a direct impact on what we build. They traded the comfort of a "safe job" for the high-stakes energy of our early uphill climbs. They didn't just give us "work"; they gave us the fuel to keep moving. We shaped our trajectory together through long hours and the kind of challenges that only a young, independent company faces. They learned the "Master Builder" truth: Freedom is a more demanding journey than safety, but it’s the only one that leads to true growth.

We agree with Rebecca Henderson’s argument in Reimagining Capitalism that business has a moral obligation to solve real problems, not just generate short-term profit. Our independence allows us to hold that line.

We never looked blindly at competitors to tell us what the future should be. We research deeply, but we see things through our own eyes and make our own calls. We refuse to follow the "status quo" because we believe that a life of following pre-set patterns is the easy path, but chasing your own vision is the only path that truly matters.

We built Threls so we could be free—and every decision we make protects that freedom. We live by the philosophy that the dreams that keep you awake at night are the only ones worth chasing. As A.P.J. Abdul Kalam famously said:

That is the freedom we protect. The freedom to stay awake for the things that matter.

05. Courage

Hard truths over easy lies.

For us, courage is not loud or dramatic—it is the quiet strength to act with integrity. It means standing up for what we believe is right, even when it is inconvenient or costly. We’ve learned over our seven-year journey that not lying is the bare minimum; it doesn’t make you courageous. True courage is the proactive choice to speak the truth before it is too late.

By accepting that we might be disliked for our rigid acceptance criteria or our blunt honesty, we protect the very Freedom we worked so hard to build over the last seven years. We find the focus to serve the clients who actually value the truth. We don't strive to be disliked, but we strive to be honest enough that it becomes a possibility.

This protects our clarity, and it protects you.

06. Deep Connection

One relationship at a time.

We are not here for transactions. We are here for lifelong partnerships. We don’t look for clients, suppliers, or collaborators—we look for people we can walk alongside. Deep connection is the heart of how we work. It means building relationships that grow with time, that deepen through honesty, and that extend far beyond a project delivery.

The Strength of Friction

For me, this was forged through a relationship with a close friend during the early, high-pressure days of structuring Threls. We were defining our soul, and that required friction. There were much-needed but painful fights. My friend created a space where I could be raw, but he didn't just offer sympathy. He challenged me. He forced me to look at the pain differently—not as a sign that things were breaking, but as a sign that we were building something strong enough to last.

He taught me that being understood is comfort, but being challenged while being understood is transformation.

Beyond the Internal

This philosophy extends directly to our clients. We believe that once a relationship is built on this kind of depth, the opportunities are endless. It can start as a simple piece of advice—even if that advice is "we aren't the right fit for this, you should speak to this other company." It can grow into a small, periodic service, or it can evolve into something that changes the trajectory of both our businesses.

This is exactly how our flagship product, Twine, was born. Our deep connection with Lighthouse Supermarket went beyond the typical vendor-client dynamic. Because we had the safety to be honest and the trust to be challenged, we didn't just build software for them; we formed a company together.

Mining for the Hidden Gold

To reach this level of partnership, you cannot have the noise of dozens of superficial clients. You need the space to think, to digest, and to understand. We believe there is "hidden gold" in every deep partnership—those rare, transformative insights that can only be found if you are truly at peace with your environment.

Finding that gold requires us to be 100% present in every meeting and every conversation. It means joining a call not to "check a box," but to truly add value. Over the years, we have occasionally fallen into the trap of allowing too much noise in, but we have learned to keep refining our focus. We give every conversation personal importance because we know that a single deep connection is worth more than a hundred transactions.

This is what deep connection means to us: the safety to be honest, the trust to be challenged, and the shared history that turns a business meeting into a joint venture.