AUSTIN, TX — Brennan Lackey, 31, founder and CEO of SyncWell, a B2B SaaS startup that has raised $3.4 million in seed funding, told his fourteen employees during Monday’s all-hands meeting that “we are more than a company — we are a family,” a designation that does not, according to the employee handbook, include equity compensation, employer-matched retirement contributions, or dental coverage beyond cleanings.

“Brennan says ‘family’ a lot,” said software engineer Rosa Chung, 27, who has been with the company for eighteen months. “My actual family offers me unconditional support. This family offers me a ping-pong table and a 2 a.m. Slack message asking if the deploy is ready.”

The company’s Slack workspace includes channels titled #we-are-family, #gratitude-wall, and #wins-only, the last of which Chung described as “psychologically coercive.” The PTO policy is listed as “unlimited,” though multiple employees confirmed that no one has taken more than four consecutive days off since the company’s founding in 2024.

“He said he couldn’t do stock options because ‘we’re all owners in spirit.’ My landlord does not accept spiritual ownership as rent.”

Lackey, who drives a Model S and recently moved into a renovated bungalow in East Austin, responded to questions about compensation by saying the company is “pre-revenue but post-vision” and that “the real equity is the relationships we’re building.”

Three employees have reportedly cried at their desks this week, a figure Lackey attributed to “passion.”

At press time, Lackey had scheduled a mandatory team-building retreat at a lake house he personally owns, and was asking each employee to contribute $75 toward catering.