Viking Culture

The “Viking” vs. “Village” Approach to Startup Culture

At DTwo, we are intentionally building a culture defined by collective momentum and shared responsibility — a concept my longtime friend Didi Dotan and I refer to as the Viking Culture.

The Core Analogy: The Viking Ship

To understand this mindset, imagine a Viking ship. Every person on board is rowing, and everyone is rowing in the exact same direction.

• No one is too special to row. You want to do something special like be a navigator? Row, then navigate.
• The alternative is having a Village, where everyone has a static, specialized role (the blacksmith, the merchant, the noble). In engineering, this often leads to a “Village Culture” — a slow, bureaucratic environment where ownership is unclear and debates last for months while progress stalls.

Breaking Down Silos

In a Viking Culture, we eliminate the rigid boundaries that often plague tech teams. We don’t have “pure” architects, designers, or testers who refuse to step outside their job descriptions.

• Business-Driven Agility: If the company’s most urgent need is a UI overhaul, the whole team focuses on UI. If we are facing a quality crisis, everyone tests and fixes bugs.
• End-to-End Accountability: There is no “throwing code over the wall”. If your work causes a production issue, you are the one responsible for fixing it, regardless of what part of the tech stack you typically work on.

Expertise Without Ego

This doesn’t mean we don’t value specialization. We recognize that everyone has one or more areas of expertise — whether it’s front-end development or back-end development or cloud infrastructure.

• Leadership through Expertise: Specialists lead the charge when the team is working in their domain and provide oversight for others.
• Priority on Delivery: The ultimate value is placed on getting things done.

Why It Matters

For a “zero-to-one” startup, this culture is vital. It attracts people who are passionate about hard work and want to be surrounded by like-minded peers. More importantly, it ensures the team’s output is dictated by actual business needs rather than simply trying to find work for people based on their specific job titles.