Culture deck for Kasten, a cloud-native startup in the enterprise space. This documents how we want to create a great culture and what we need to accomplish for that to happen.

1. Kasten Culture Deckv0.1
This deck, just like the company, will always be a work in progress.
Feedback welcome and appreciated!

2. Culture is a
shared outlook

3. “Culture is Strategy”
- Jim Collins

4. Enables us to outcompete others
Helps build a successful and profitable
company
A Great Culture:

5. Values
Define and exemplify our culture
Define our individual behavior
Attracts amazing coworkers
Used to promote, reward, and part

6. Our Core Values
• Transparency
• Trust and Responsibility
• Independence and Autonomy
• Focus
• Simplicity
• Frugality
• Being Impact and Result-Driven

7. Transparency
“Sunlight is the best
disinfectant”
- Louis D. Brandeis

8. Transparency
• Applies to everyone in our team
• Share wherever possible and legal and even when it hurts!
• Encourages consensus (but does not dictate a democracy)
• Implies clear and concise communication
• Strongly encourages use of public communication channels
(Slack channels, Wiki, Mailing Lists) over 1:1 messages

9. Trust and Responsibility
• Use good judgement in everything you do!
• Allows us to reduce friction and processes
• Allows us to depend on each other and increase autonomy and job
satisfaction
• Be reasonable with expenses (treat company’s money like your own)
• Do take time off to recharge and don’t worry about sick time or
needing to take care of personal stuff

10. Independence and Autonomy
• Use the trust placed in you to Do The Right Thing ™
• Be biased towards execution
• No matter where it might be, it is your duty to speak up if you see
problems and, even better, see if you can fix it

11. Focus
• While the temptation will be strong, we need to commit to our
mission
• We need to build for the customers we are targeting and not get
distracted along the way
• We should not sell to customers we cannot satisfy
• That said, engaging customers to both guide our roadmap and to coverge
later is encouraged

12. Simplicity
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”
• We live in a complex world that we are simplifying for customers. We
should not ignore our own house either.
• Reduce complexity in our product, processes, and teams. Refactor
everything when complexity seeps in.
• Complexity is bane of growth and limits our future prospects
• Build for the long-term

13. Frugality
• Money is finite and we want to control our destiny as much as
possible
• Invest in people, tools, and the things that will make us successful

14. Being Impact and Result-Driven
• We don’t measure the time you spend in your seat
• That said, as a local company, we do expect you to be there for your team
during reasonable working hours
• We do measure impact you make on our plans
• We value people that are agile and biased towards execution
• As a startup, no plan survives contact with the customer
• We value people that display a strong sense of ownership
• We value people that are humble and inquisitive

15. We will succeed because we,
as a team, live these values

16. Talking about teams…
• We value folks that help build 10x teams. This comes in many forms:
• Common development standards and code hygiene for scaling company
• Culture that helps onboard, invest in, and develop team members
(A common thread in our culture decks)
• We will not tolerate disruptive personalities that
poison teams

17. Customer Team Self
“We’re a team, not a family” -Netflix
Putting our customers first allows us to build a successful company
Strong teams, and not any one individual, will make us succeed
Customer and team success will naturally drive individual success

18. We (and that means you)
are all torch bearers for our culture

19. Credits: This Deck Stands on the Shoulder of Giants
And many other great organizations and people that we have been
fortunate to learn from