We do something in our planning at Startups.com that is relatively unheard of in the startup business: We optimize for happiness.

Now, before you think I’m going to start on some bullshit rant about how profits don’t matter and work/life balance is all that’s important — forget about that.

Profits matter, and work/life balance is as real as Santa Claus.

This isn’t about foosball tables and company outings — at all.

It’s about how incredibly hard you have to work to make personal happiness the one immutable goal of your startup.

We put an insane amount of work into optimizing for happiness, and we do it because we value our personal happiness above all else.

So, you could say that we take happiness very seriously. Well, here’s how we do it: