Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 5
Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 5
Little Summaries of Company Building: Part 5
 Previous Notes:


Observations from experiences on company building: 

  • Personality Aggregation: Startups are like closely-knit teams. Understand that every team member has a unique method of working. Past plays a large part in influencing this. Upbringing. The work culture at earlier employers. Friend circle. Family atmosphere. Understand every team member as soon as they join the journey. Make them comfortable. Your process design, goal setting, and passage to vision will become easier. 
 
  • Phase-Specific Support: Life will have the not-so-good phases now and then. Death of a family member. Divorce. Pet adoption. New baby. Injury. Health problem. No one is immune. Create hard-coded processes to help a team member get through these phases. Allow down-shifting. And quick bounce backs. Support them and their loved ones.  

  • Extreme Transparency: This is a controversial one. Public tracking of goals can put execution pressure on team members. But there are ways to achieve extreme transparency. The primary benefit is that team members outside a team know the ground-level data. Idea is to create a helpful atmosphere and not a hyper-competitive one. If you choose to go this route, work hard to be nice since this is a hard one. 

  • Defined Ownership: Imagine the company building process as a set of many small blocks. And let every team member claim ownership. Could be a piece of code or design. Improvement in customer satisfaction. First set of net new customers in a new category. Anything. Small is good, but stretch it as the startup grows. Make the ownership blocks quantifiable. Announce across the company on a regular basis. Each team member's ownership blocks will add with time. And they will get a single-minded focus towards achieving the larger company vision. And if it makes you happy, these are cheaper than cash compensation and startup equity. Bean counters like it. On a side note, I am alive today because of a bean counter. 

  • Recurring Recharging: Set up a recurring calendar for non-work time. Happy hour, weekend hikes, group games, sports, or a picnic. Experiment with and without families. Food, beverages, and environment make a tried and tested combination for fun. During this time, observe, listen and learn. Try to avoid any top-down talks even if it is casual. Assume the role of a server. 

  • Value Protection: Team members will leave. Managing your emotions is good. Creating a culture that rewards longevity is better. And best is to understand that you as a founder need to protect value. Value is what gets you sustained valuations. Design methods so there is minimal loss of value when a team member leaves.
Let's Talk: If you have a true experience that resonates, please send me an email.
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