How to create a scaleable startup culture and why you should care
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Indiegogo's Steve Tam describes why and how to build a great company culture at Tech Toronto Meetup October 2015
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How to create a scaleable startup culture and why you should care
- 1. How to create a scalable startup culture (and why you should care!)
- 2. What is culture at a startup? Well, it’s you.
- 3. Why should you care? Good company culture = happy employees Companies with happy employees outperform the competition by 20%
- 4. PURPOSE
- 6. PLACE
- 10. PEOPLE
Editor's Notes
- People talk about culture all the time, but what is it really? It’s the company’s underlying values that touch everything from the it’s Purpose, to its Place, right down to it’s People. REMEMBER THOSE 3 P’S Before the cutting edge workspace and a laundry list of sought-after benefits, a startup’s culture is its founders. Many founders forget or don’t have time to shape a culture from the get-go. But as soon as you start hiring, it’s time to define and implement your culture, before it defines you.
- Stat on entrepreneur.com Companies with happy employees outperform the competition by 20%. When you start thinking about your business’ culture, first look at yourself - what are YOUR values? Think about how you intend to grow and how you’d want your employees to describe working for you when they’re out with their friends. This will take time and self awareness, but it will help in the long run in terms of hiring talent that fits, because building a winning team early on is one of the main factors to long term success. And as you know, retaining talent in the tech industry is just as tough - unfortunately there could be a lot of movement while many aim to chase the next shiny new company. Good culture prevents that.
- So, let’s start with the first “P” Purpose.
- Once you’ve determined your core company values, make sure your team knows them! A must-have key value for us is ‘We’re Here to Win’. And we demonstrate that a lot around the office ;) Another top value? ‘We Care’- and that doesn’t only apply to our customers. It applies to our team. My motto is, “If you don’t care, you can’t win.” Next, get a social committee, host hackathons, lunch and learns and events. Get people involved in more than just their everyday jobs! And that all happens at the….
- I was an elementary school teacher for 12 years before founding VarageSale. You may think those two worlds couldn’t be any more different from each other, but I’ve found many similarities between culture in the classroom and in the office. The goal is common: a happy, healthy culture leads to happier people which increases productivity and probability of success. I’ve always seen it that way. When I was teaching, I never had desks organized in rows, instead I organized the desks for collaboration. Taking attendance wasn’t how I started the day, instead I listened to any issues my class was coming in with. And I seldom enforced silence as a form of discipline. Instead, I positioned myself as a facilitator and put my students in charge of their own success. I bring that same thinking to VarageSale.
- The environment of your Place is really important. We value open spaces where people can breathe, and areas where anyone can grab a moment or collaborate on a project. Our kitchen is at the center of the office, and that was an intentional choice. Like family, it’s where we come together at various points during our busy days to re-connect. Lastly we ensure our office space is a true representation of our product, so we are surrounded by the communities we host. Every meeting area is named after a VarageSale community, and decorated like it, for example, the kitchen represents New Orleans, and right over there is a huge scene of Bourbon Street- and those New Orlean’s lights
- Our office is surrounded by the company’s values, they’re literally written all over the walls! Now, when you’re first starting out, you’re not working out of offices like this - hey, our first office was at our kitchen table and then we had a one man office at a Uhaul building! But when we did get our first real space back when we lived in Montreal we enforced great culture from the start. Top priority was to get good talent in the door, (that part is obvious), but the next priority was to get to know them- get to know your staff! So we ate lunch together everyday, we talked and developed our relationships. As we grew, we opened a second office in Toronto and eventually moved the company here. But during that transition, when I’d visit the Toronto office, it just didn’t feel as warm. Mission critical for me to change that, so I asked our COO who ran the Toronto office to shift her priority. Priority #1? Get the team to build their relationships - Get the team to eat lunch together. (Sarah story) So now both teams, in both provinces were eating lunch together and you know what? It worked. Because when Carl and I decided to move VarageSale HQ to Toronto, everyone followed. And three years later, most of them still work for us. And that brings me to the last “P”
- People.
- The people that you chose, need to talented enough to inspire those around them AND a culture fit to your company. They need to have both those things. And if they don’t, then you need to send them out the door. And That means anyone involved in hiring needs to be well-versed in the DNA of your culture. People are powerful in that they can build your culture up or bring it down. And, once they’re in the door, you need to work just as a hard to keep them. I believe our people are our best assets and I take the time to make sure they feel that way. It really all come down to this: -inspire them -listening to their needs -empower them and most of all, just care about them. I care so much about our staff- I really do. If someone is sick- send them chicken soup. If someone experiences a death in the family, go to the funeral, if someone is not happy with something at work- don’t ignore it. Don’t just tell them you care, show them. So make sure you don’t put off defining your culture until it defines itself. And prepare to evolve it as you grow. Because it might just be what elevates you to success!