I keep hearing from my founder friends about many aspects of startups. Sometimes the conversation boils down to culture.
The definition of culture differs from founder to founder. For some, it reflects in every action of theirs: sales, hiring, product. Running a startup is like watching the game of thrones, surviving in chaos.
Marty Cagen in his book talks about PPP rule, People, process and product. Hire a bunch of smart people, build a solid organizational process and it will result in an amazing product.
How will you hire smart folks when you don’t have the right culture?
I know paying 10X the market salary will get you a pedigree, but how many of those will stay with you and be part of your journey? Will, they not jump to your competitor who just raised 2X more than yours and is a Unicorn?
To me, culture starts with trust, transparency and having a common organizational goal. If you have these things sorted, the organization runs on its own.
Unfortunately, survivorship bias is huge in entrepreneurship that everyone shoots for becoming next Uber, WeWork Et All. The dopamine hit we get bagging startup award of year supersedes over profitability.
Sometimes I wonder if founders have taken “Eric Cartman’s 4 brotastic steps to startup success” seriously.
