Working at a startup often means moving quickly, and Medsender is no exception. But our CEO is fond of a piece of advice he once received that reminds us we don’t have to move mountains daily. That piece of advice was the one percent rule. 

“You don’t make massive changes in short times. If you just keep improving things one percent at a time it compounds. At first, you might not notice, but eventually, you’ve created a sustainable new set of habits,” said our CEO. 

Remembering the one percent rule forces us to improve ourselves constantly at Medsender. At the end of our weekly team meetings, we discuss how we have improved ourselves just one percent from the previous week. The improvement does not necessarily need to be work-related, but it’s a great way to hear about what groundbreaking things your co-workers are working towards. 

It’s as simple as that. One percent may seem like a small improvement, but these small improvements compound over time. If we can pinpoint one thing that we’ve done actively to better ourselves and our work, then we are working towards a higher goal. The aim of the one percent rule is to remind us to keep driving forward.

Here are some one percents from this week’s team meeting: 

1. One team member recently re-organized the support workflow pipeline and created a place for customer success on top of customer support for our product. 
2. One of our engineers spent time improving our two-factor authentication system. Instead of just receiving a code for verification through your email, our customers now have the option to choose authentication via email or text message. 
3. One of our interns this week worked on improving the accuracy of one of our artificial intelligence models. That AI model became 6% more accurate, and even beyond that, our intern went an extra one percent by hopping onto support calls this week.
4. Noticing that patients can only reply through the web app, one engineer started working on allowing patients to reply via SMS. The goal was that once patients received a text, they would be able to send a text back.

Our team was able to do small but mighty things this week. It’s these small changes that over time will help us reach the heights to which we aspire.