Early Stage Founder Fundamentals: Culture

You have a culture, ensure it’s explicitly defined

Anyone that has met me knows I am passionate about culture. In one of my previous roles I led a team of people who were tasked to define, identify and correct company culture. Anytime I am searching for a role, culture is the FIRST thing I consider.

I’d love to encourage founders to be even more passionate about culture.

First, let us talk about what we mean by ‘culture’ in a start-up setting. I have seen many descriptions but my favourite is:

Your company culture is a combination of your shared vision, and the way your internal team and the organisation acts. Typically, in a start-up situation, the culture is heavily influenced by the founders of the company.

Culture is a combination of your purpose as an organisation, what you value, how you interact and who you hire.

It should also be said, whether you explicitly define it or not, you do have a culture. Not explicitly defining it doesn’t mean you don’t have one, it just means you have one that you have no control over.

So, what can you do to help build and retain a great culture? And why is it so important?

1. Your culture is a living thing, document it and regularly evaluate and modify it to fit your stage:

As a founder, ensure that you: i) document your culture ii) regularly evaluate that culture and iii) modify your culture by the stage you are in. It is okay to change. It is encouraged that you change.

Some things to consider:

• What is the Purpose of your company.
• The values you want to live by and what they mean; saying “Trust” is good, but going further and saying “Trust to us means knowing that the person next to you is thinking of the best outcome for the company, and is doing it in the best way to benefit everyone. We do not second guess each other. You are the expert in your space”.
• Guiding principles could be some interesting or fun anecdotes that guide your decision making e.g. customer focus might state that “we only build what adds value to our customers”.
• Lastly, take some time to think about what your key roles are and what are some of their key responsibilities. Meaning, what does the CEO do that the CPO or COO doesnt i.e which decision do they own. A great exercise at the start would also be, what skills would you like them to have.

Drop me an email if you’d like a copy of the template

2. Recruit and hire VERY carefully

Choose the first 10 employees very carefully, as they determine the next 100

Yevgeniy Brikman, Gruntwork

Please, I beg of you, do not hire out of pressure, take your time and hire someone who buys into your vision, someone who understands the pressures of a start up and someone that compliments your skill. Having done HR, it is much easier to stretch yourselves for 2 more months than the trouble of needing to fire someone. For everyone involved.

3. Lead by example

Founders, in a company of 2 people, you define the culture. Writing down your values and company culture does not only act as a guide for hiring, it acts as a tool to hold you accountable.

If people join the organisation and find you rewarding theft or corruption (…okay these are extreme examples), but if you reward a lack of work-life balance, if you never say thank you or recognise employees, or if you build features based on guesswork, then you end up with an organisation that does that. Now imagine all that unpleasant behaviour with $20m in the bank from investors. Trust me when I say it’s a circus and you will have very high turnover of great talent.