When you start a company, you have the benefit of a clean slate. It is the perfect time to define what you want your company’s culture to be. Be thoughtful and proactively take steps to foster that culture.
As the founder of a startup, I have come up with a few tips for first-time entrepreneurs as they lay down the bricks for their new venture.
1. Define and Write Down What You Want the Company Culture to Be
The founders need to be clear about what they want the company culture to be. The first step is to write their ideas down. As Visier, we knew from Day One that we wanted the culture to be ambitious, innovative, and fast moving. Our vision has always been to build a lasting and respected legacy. So we encourage our team to have great aspirations, to take smart risks and take a very long view of our future. We also seek inspiration from other founders and entrepreneurs.
2. Customers Should Be the Focus, but the Engineers Must Be Free to Innovate
Startups are typically developing something new and untried in their market. Founders must walk a fine line between allowing engineers build their dreams and while also creating a product that is sellable and useful for customers. Every employee and every decision should be driven by this underlying question: “How is this going to help the customer and can we sell it?”
3. Respect, Transparency, and Integrity
Startups are small and employees have a survival dependency on each other. As a result, it is imperative to create an environment where respect for fellow employees is widespread. There should be total transparency in communication up and down the organization — no hiding of problems, data, or results. We must be one team moving forward together. We must also trust that the people in the organization can be mature enough to handle the transparency.
4. Fun and Games
While work is important, make sure that fun and stress relief are part of your startup culture. Startups demand commitment and long hours from their employees. Considering that we spend a better part of our waking lives at work, it is imperative to feel that the work is satisfying and that employees feel they are a part of something special. Allowing time for social interaction, sports, outings, and shared meals are important elements for a startup that wants to thrive.
5. Foster Innovation and Entrepreneurship
In a small business, every employee needs to play multiple roles. There is very little management supervision, and so the startup has to count on its employees to have the initiative and allow them the freedom to do what is right for the customer and the business. In this regard, everyone needs to be creative and entrepreneurial to succeed. The best performing businesses provide broad guidelines for employees within which they can operate, but then lets them go ahead and perform their role as best as they see fit.
6. Reward Employees
Most startups are likely to fail, and so employees who join startups take a big risk. The have to see that this risk will pay off, even if they have to wait a little. Therefore a founder of a startup has to design a reward system that provides the long term upside opportunity but does not require the company to spend cash it does not have. Most startups focus on sharing the long-term value by equity in the firm with employees.
7. Recognize contributions
An equally important reward is recognizing employees for their contribution. At Visier, every engineer is invited to present his or her work to the product team. Every account executive introduces their new customer at a company-wide meeting. Key contributors are invited to industry events. Product teams present their solutions to the Visier Board. We review the success of every customer with the support team. Sharing the pride in one’s accomplishments with the team is a strong component of our culture.
8. Maintaining the Culture You Built While the Company Is Growing
As you grow, it is very challenging to maintain the initial culture. At Visier, we started with a handful of people in a townhouse in downtown Vancouver. It was easy to communicate, ensure everyone was on the same page, and build a shared culture. Now that we are over one hundred people in two offices with a regionally distributed sales team, we have to work very hard to maintain and further our culture.
For example, at our company-wide kick off day, we took a couple of hours to share what we call culture stories. Groups of people shared stories of individuals or teams who best illustrated a particular cultural element or value. It was inspiring to hear, and it will always be a Visier tradition.
Finally, as a founder, I make it a practice to interview as many employee applicants as possible, and one of the points I focus on is the likelihood of a good cultural fit. I don’t necessarily make the final hiring decision, but if I feel the prospect will not fit into the team, I usually argue against making an offer.