In this presentation I gave at the Skolkovo Startup Village in Moscow on May 31, 2018 I talk about the traits, tactics, and treasures to nurturing a creative culture.
Hello, welcome, welcome in russian. what we are really talking about today is how to build a startup with creative culture FROM DAY ONE. And I can give you the short answer right now: it’s the little moments.
Hi im tristan pollock, a founder and investor who has build and sold two startups, the most notable being storefront which was called airbnb for retail by the new york times. We raised $10m in venture capital for that company, but before that I was a bootstrapper so I also know how to stay lean. Most recently I spent the last few years investing in almost 200 companies as an angel investor and VC at 500 Startup. I enjoyed looking at areas where tech can support creative people and passions. Think experiential tech like eaze or creative innovation like etsy. I love being at the center of the creative community, the makers, and technical innovation.
Take a second to think of your favorite memories at your current company, role or job. What are they? Write them down, because…
Because even though I am here to help you make work less boring, you already know some of the things you should do.
sure, a startup is fast paced, fun and challenging – but it is also difficult and easy to forget how much the little things matter.
Because inevitably you can’t spell STARTUP without ART – startups are inherently creative. Often times I hear people say that creativity is required for innovation so isn’t every startup creative? That’s right for the most part – but being intentional about your creative culture is the goal.
Im also not talking about solely marketing when im talking about creativity. Yes, apple can make beautiful products and market them beautifully, but it’s their DNA that set them apart
They built a lifestyle into their brand and creativity into their culture.
and it’s tied into your company culture and starts with your employees and their everyday surroundings
Think of it like this – the people surrounding your company project outwards to the office they use to work and project outwards onto the products they are creating who in turn are used and interpreted by customers creating your brand. It is all tied together.
Think of it like this – the people surrounding your company project outwards to the office they use to work and project outwards onto the products they are creating who in turn are used and interpreted by customers creating your brand. It is all tied together.
Think about questions like these. And how do you make each of these moments unique? Lyft designs their all-hands meetings like a late night talk show. Obvious Corp uses holacracy and flat organizational structur to make decisions. SnapChat turned their New Year’s party into a music festival where Drake and Diplo performed.
And 30% like to collaborate in that space. Also access to nature, even in indoor plants, has shown to give a lift to creative focus.
Source: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/red-bull-high-performance-team-unveils-largest-study-of-creative-styles-and-invites-the-public-to-participate-300186337.html
Through reducing stress, improving quality of life, building customer and community relations, increasing creativity and productiivty, enhancing morale, broadens employee appreciation of diversity by encouraging discussions and expression of opinions
Source: http://www.umass.edu/fac/spotlight/1.9.html
That’s a huge problem so I’d like to go into some more tactics and examples you can take back to the office with you.
One, create your company ethos. Two, start thinking about everything as an opportunity to surprise and delight someone. That could be your employees, your coworkers, your customers, your investors, anyone visiting your office, and so on. Let me give some examples of how to create surprise and delight in every moment that I did at my own company.
Every week we would have a Growth Hack Thursday – here we would spend 10 minutes brainstorming quick and dirty creative ideas around a specific growth goal. Then the next 20 would be spent on competing to see who could have the best results. We circle back at the beginning of the meeting the following Thursday to see who performed the best and they win a prize. Then it happens all over again. Think of it like Google’s 20% time. We wanted to create a culture of constant innovation and ideas – even small ideas matter.
We also built our post-Series A office in an art gallery. It was a beautiful high walled space where we displayed our own customer’s fashion and art. We even had a street artist friend from my home state install a yarn art installation hanging from the ceiling. Then on every First Friday we would open up the gallery space for the art walk that occurred sharing our story and the stories of our designers and artists. It showed the real Storefront experience in action for all of our team no matter if they were operations or engineering. It was part of our goal to be a company that lives and breathes what we do. Airbnb also does this by taking their host locations and turning them into conference rooms like a treehouse or airstream.
We also built our post-Series A office in an art gallery. It was a beautiful high walled space where we displayed our own customer’s fashion and art. We even had a street artist friend from my home state install a yarn art installation hanging from the ceiling. Then on every First Friday we would open up the gallery space for the art walk that occurred sharing our story and the stories of our designers and artists. It showed the real Storefront experience in action for all of our team no matter if they were operations or engineering. It was part of our goal to be a company that lives and breathes what we do. Airbnb also does this by taking their host locations and turning them into conference rooms like a treehouse or airstream.
You also may know some of these other companies nurturing their creative culture: google and facebook. Google invested early in their creative freedom – from 20% time to food design in order to feed their employees right and build up their health. That early chef even took some equity not knowing that would make him a millionaire years later. That story happened because of intentional creative culture setting. Facebook hosts an artist in residence throughout the year at its corporate headquarters giving them space to create anything they are inspired to create – from data visualizations to street art murals.
Airbnb designs their conference rooms like their most unique locations – think treehouses and boats. LinkedIn has InCubator, a program that gives engineers time away from their regular work to work on their own product ideas; Apple has Blue Sky, which allows some workers to spend a few weeks on pet projects; and Microsoft created The Garage, a space for employees to build their own products using Microsoft resources. Even the Starbucks Frappuccino was created by employees in their free time and supported by upper management.
So to recap… it’s actually very simple
Whether that’s through weekly creative time, brainstorming, idea support, or something else – always support the risk takers and encourage more people to try out ideas.
It could be artistic photography of your customers on the walls or gamified breakout spaces, but design your office as a space to play instread of a space to sit.
The only way your team will inherently feel that a creative culture exists is if you allow it to breathe by showing you are okay with how you are telling people to act. Show what sort of risk taking is rewarded and support your employees creative ideas with budget and gusto.
