How to Build a Startup Culture — and keep great people
Three years ago, I started my life in the startup world. Meeting new people, endless coding, building products, and pitching to customers…
Three years ago, I started my life in the startup world. Meeting new people, endless coding, building products, and pitching to customers have become my daily life. What I feel most proud about and would love to share is not a successful startup story, but the team culture that we have built.
On numerous occasions, talented people have shown a great interest in joining our team after visiting us or having just one lunch with us! This makes me wonder, what is it that makes us so enticing?
So, I’ve started asking around. This post is based on my experiences. Especially, the following things:
- Joining the Techstars family gives me the opportunity to talk with hundreds of teams in different stages, from the different countries around the world. We are able to exchange information between several of the founders about the way we do things and I have discovered that every team has its own culture.
- Went through tough times and still stuck together. For a small company like us, there are a lot of reasons your company can fall apart, such as co-founder issues, a financial crisis, etc. With the limited resources that we have, a simple team retreat can suspend most of our business activities.
- Work closely with companies on different scales. I always like to mention that I want to have more understanding about their company culture. (Yes, we are still alive if you need to measure user experience.)
Why is it important?
Culture defines how we act. It’s extremely important to startups. In the same company, we expect team members to be creative, to be self-managed, and to be engaged. This way we can move fast and break things in the way that big companies couldn’t. Having aligned on culture also means that we are aligned on making decisions. It results in the efficiency of the team’s work.
Culture is the people
By default, it’s the people who sum up how you do things in an organization. If you are a team of two and you and your co-founder are always unhappy, then your team’s culture is “unhappy”.
There was a day, when an experienced and successful founder of an IPO company asked us,
“If your company was a human, what words would describe it?”
Co-founder A: “Discipline. I wanted to deliver great quality of the product, so I’ll say that discipline among my team is the most important thing.”
Co-founder B: “Trust. My customers and friends always trust me. I trust them too. Trust is the most important factor; everything should be built on it no matter what we do.”
Co-founder C: “Agile. My team moves fast and is open-minded to change. We see the trend; we build things and go-to market strategy.”
Team member D: “Empathy. I always put myself in the other’s shoes. Empathy makes people understand each other. I can use it to understand users, too. I can avoid making the product that people don’t want.”
Team member E: “Happiness. Starting a business is hard and painful. Since I can’t change that, I at least want to make sure that I am happy during the process. I am a positive thinker, you know?”
Well, this process kinda shows how your company culture might look like now. Start by simply asking your team members.
We know you can’t have it all. It’s not what you say, it’s how you act. As long as you observe what your team really does, some values will be highlighted and some will feel less important for now. So, don’t rush it. Let the team organically have its own culture.
For example, Techstars has the culture of #GiveFirst and well-delivered it to the startup community, which is what the Techstars companies actually do. Thousands of founders contribute in sharing experiences, mentoring, and connecting people to each other.
Honesty in what you say is also a good practice. You can’t use “positivity” if you are always mad and careless with your team member. And there is no proof that you will not be successful if your culture is mean, negative, and mad. Embrace it!
Internal Transparency
Being transparent is the first step. For some reasons, founders are usually scared to share “everything” with the team. However, how could the team possibly be on the same page if the information is misleading or not transparent enough?
Being transparent also means allowing people to make decisions. Founders should leave some decisions to the right people in the team and trust them. Making self-managed decisions does not mean getting all of the members’ agreement, but the expert and the people related. The decision-maker must take all relevant advice into consideration, but they can still make the decision. This is called the advice process.
With transparency, you may find out some decisions also include personal reasons. And that’s fine, because the team is all about the people and it strengthens your culture when you care.
Build on what you got
As we can see, co-founders and core members will significantly affect the culture. Based on this, you could do iterations of refinements — making it more than just a few words. Creating an expressive value and working on vivid visions. For seeking ideas, you can always look back to the answers that you already have:
Why do you do it?
What problems are you solving?
How do you do it?
Here are some good examples that I know of:
I bet there is more! Feel free to list more in the comments.
Wrap-up
Once your culture is obvious and concrete, I believe it’s easier to hire the talents with a similar culture. Great people usually have their own working style that they like and they want to work with great people. They’ll know if they can fit in or not. Explanation is unnecessary.
Lastly, if you don’t have a great product and the momentums along the road, no one can save you from that.
