decision

In the book what you do is who you are, Ben Horowitz talks about how a team takes a decision. He talks about 3 primary modes.

  1. My way or the highway: As a CEO I know what is right and I will make the decision.
  2. Everyone has a say: Before going out with a feature or announcement everyone takes decisions together.
  3. Everyone has an input then I decide.

The author says using the 3ed method is most appropriate. 

checklist

In the book “What you do is who you” are Ben Horowitz has a shared cultural checklist for founders building companies.

  1. Cultural Design: Culture should be the same who you are in real life or professional. 
  2. Cultural Orientation: Monkey see, monkey do. Ensure the newer employees are mentored well to join your bandwagon.
  3. Shocking Rules.  
  4. Incorporate outside leadership 
  5. Object lessons 
  6. Make ethics implicit
  7. Give cultural tenants deep meaning
  8. Walk the talk: You have to equally follow ethics what you have defined for your organization.
  9. Make the decision that demonstrates priorities: You have to abide by it and that is when others will follow. 

We are different, so is the purpose or our rocketship. It can be different for us all.

culture

Ben Horowitz in his book “What you do who you are” about Slack’s culture.

  1. Smart
  2. Humble
  3. Hardworking
  4. Collaborative

Slack’s founder says every Slack employee should have these virtues. 

It got me thinking about how most startups are paying 100X salary and taking bullshit from A performers. The toxic culture at many big billion companies is a result of not having core virtues. 

C for sales

While reading “What you do is who you are”, the author shares an incident. He talks about the sales philosophy of Mark Cranny at his Loudcloud days.

Cranny also talks about the four C’s.  

  1. Competence: your salesperson should know in and out of the product.
  2. Confidence: your salesperson should pitch with it.
  3. Courage: your salesperson should have self-belief in a product he/she is selling.
  4. Conviction: not to be sold by the customer on why she wasn’t going to buy your product.

He believed that you were either selling or being sold: if you weren’t selling a customer on your product then the customer was selling you on why she wasn’t going to buy it. I loved it and felt like sharing. 

customer success

Growth comes with too many things to handle. If you are catering customers where they are dependent on you for everyday chores, customer success should be paramount.

In the book, category creation the author talks about the Customer Success Team. A team dedicated to delighting end-users.

As a leader of your organization, it becomes super important to define the success on which the CSM team aligns to. There have been many occurrences where product development prioritizes CSM requests to last, that should not happen.

Last not least, celebrate small wins.

consumption

We consume information, news, content in many ways. As per the author of category creation, these are the common modes.  

  • Visual: consists of images, pictures. 
  • Musical: sound and music.
  • Verbal: words, speech, and writings.
  • Physical: body, hands, and sense of touch.  
  • Logical: requires cognitive capabilities 
  • Social: where actions are taken in collaboration
  • Solitary: where actions are taken alone

I found it worth sharing. 

company of one

The book is the author’s journey where he talks about running a company on his terms: a small team, a focussed market, and limited customers. Like any other book on the organizational building, it talks about the culture, mission, and health of employees.

I agree with most of what the author mentions. He cites the example of Basecamp, Buffer, and other startups on how they were built. Reading it has been a welcome change in the era where every author is shoving you with how to build the next unicorn.

A fresh breather with a special mention that small companies can be built and stay self-sustainable. The focus on core: delighting their customers, solving their pain points and making them their evangelists.