{"id":8183,"date":"2014-07-25T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-25T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/creator\/?p=8183"},"modified":"2020-03-30T19:00:28","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T23:00:28","slug":"press-release-secret-weapon-determine-startups-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/ideas\/professional-development\/press-release-secret-weapon-determine-startups-culture","title":{"rendered":"The press release: a secret weapon to determine your startup\u2019s culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Successful entrepreneurs like Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, exhort startups to write down their core values on Day 1 and make company culture a first-order concern from the very beginning.<\/p>\n

Have you tried it? The problem is that after you look at what you wrote,\u00a0you\u2019ll probably see a bunch of boring clich\u00e9s. Many of your company values might sound suspiciously similar to those of Zappos and Netflix. Your company couldn\u2019t sound less exciting.<\/p>\n

Molly Graham, former Head of Mobile at Facebook, who worked with Mark Zuckerberg to define Facebook\u2019s company culture in 2008,\u00a0recognized this common pitfall<\/a>. She came up with an ingenious solution to the problem, rooted in a simple trick that Amazon uses to build its products, which helped Facebook own the Hacker brand that defined the company through its IPO.<\/p>\n

How Amazon Ensures Products that Excite Customers<\/b><\/h3>\n

At Amazon, before the product has been built or even spec\u2019d, the product manager has a vital task that shapes the entire product development process: writing the press release<\/a>, a tool used to announce the finished product.<\/p>\n

Written from the perspective of the customer, the content should be \u201ccentered around the customer problem, how current solutions (internal or external) fail, and how the new product will blow away existing solutions, describes Ian McAllister, general manager at Amazon. It should be short \u2013 only a few paragraphs long.<\/p>\n

The power of the press release is the product manager\u2019s ability to distill the essence of why customers will get excited about a new product. \u201cThe product manager should keep iterating on the press release until they\u2019ve come up with [customer] benefits that actually sound like benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n

As McAllister says, \u201cIf the benefits listed don\u2019t sound very interesting or exciting to customers, then\u00a0perhaps they\u2019re not (and shouldn\u2019t be built).\u201d<\/p>\n

Your Startup Culture Press Release<\/b><\/h3>\n

When you\u2019re trying to define your culture, you have a bunch of adjectives and phrases that describe you and your company. Graham realized at Facebook that those adjectives need to be turned into a story that leaves the boring bits out and cuts to the heart of why the company is different and compelling.<\/p>\n

For Amazon, the pre-product press release is the\u00a0story that answers the fundamental question of why<\/a>\u00a0the product is interesting to customers. Graham had an insight \u2014 why not apply the same idea to company culture? Her solution was powerful but simple:\u00a0put down on paper what you want\u00a0Fast Company<\/i>\u00a0to write about your culture in two years<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Like the Amazon press release, if it\u2019s boring, do another draft. Keep going until you have something that your current and potential customers, your employees, and your supporters recognize as unique and distinctive. Graham goes as far as to say, \u201cYou should only write down your story if you are willing to stick your neck out and make it controversial.\u201d Why? Because company culture should not only sound appealing to the people you want, but also should sound unappealing to the people you don\u2019t want.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re not willing to take a stand with your company culture, you shouldn\u2019t bother.<\/b>\u00a0It will be dull and antiseptic, unable to guide decision-making on tough questions, and no one will care.<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n

Amazon calls its philosophy \u201cworking backwards<\/a>,<\/b>\u201d and at its core, it\u2019s about \u201cdriv[ing] simplicity through a continuous, explicit customer focus,\u201d says CTO Werner Vogels. \u201c[Y]ou start with your customer and work your way backwards until you get to the minimum set of requirements to satisfy what you try to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n

The press release bridges that critical perspective gap between inside and outside, nailing \u201chow the world will see the product \u2014 not just how we think about it internally.\u201d Do you want Fast Company<\/i>\u00a0to write two years down the line about how your company\u2019s amazing customer service starts and ends with its\u00a0company culture around delivering WOW (Zappos)<\/a>? Or do you want it to write about the Hacker Way, your philosophy on breaking rules to make rapid progress (Facebook)?<\/p>\n

Start at the end.\u00a0Think about that compelling, specific, and controversial company story that you want\u00a0Fast Company<\/i>\u00a0to tell, and work backwards\u00a0to figure out your company values and what you need to do to get there.<\/p>\n

This story originally appeared in IDoneThis’s blog.<\/i><\/a><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Successful entrepreneurs like Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, exhort startups to write down their core values on Day 1 and make company culture a first-order concern from the very beginning. Have you tried it? The problem is that after you look at what you wrote,\u00a0you\u2019ll probably see a bunch of boring clich\u00e9s. Many of your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":931,"featured_media":8206,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43902],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-professional-development"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe press release: a secret weapon to determine your startup\u2019s culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Successful entrepreneurs like Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, exhort startups to write down their core values on Day 1 and make company culture a first-order c\u2026\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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