How to Create Culture in an Early Stage Company
When my co-founders and I first started to hire employees for our startup, Trance, we often got the advice to find the right culture fit first and foremost. What we didn’t quite know was how to build a sense of culture in the first place. 6 years in, one of the things I’m proudest of is the culture that we built. Below is a list of tangible ways of going about building culture.
1. Your team will follow what you do, which sets the base for “culture.”
If you stay late, that will set the precedent for everyone you hire. If you leave at a reasonable time and make time for other things in life, so will they. Think about this when you consider what atmosphere you want to set — “work is the main priority” or “work and life are both priorities”.
This isn’t just about work hours though. The language you use, the breaks you take, the level of formality you maintain — all of this will be the base that defines your work culture so be very thoughtful about the model you set.
2. Let team members contribute traditions.
If someone makes a suggestion that seems like a good idea, make sure you actually implement it. One of our first hires brought in a board game for lunch one day, we played and everyone loved it and board games at lunch became a tradition.
Our office used to be inside a dance studio and we held our daily Scrum meetings inside the studio. One of our interns suggested that we stretch if we want to during Scrum and called it Strum. One of our other teammates started to play the sound of a guitar strumming at the beginning of each meeting. To this day, I can’t stop referring to standup meetings as Strum.
3. Try to have lunches together as much as possible.
When a new hire starts, they don’t initiate taking a lunch break. They wait to see what happens during lunch typically. Take this opportunity to say, “want to do lunch?” when you get up for it yourself. This creates a culture of taking lunch breaks and spending time getting to know each other, even if you aren’t able to join every single time. Don’t underestimate the power of taking lunch breaks together towards employee happiness.
4. Have events or team building activities regularly. Suggestion: quarterly
Startups don’t always have a lot of funds to support activities, but it is possible to do fun things on a budget. Check out my previous article (bullet #3) to see more on this. This helps your team be engaged and contributes towards the culture you are building.
5. Celebrate your accomplishments and consider saving them in a “Happy Times” folder.
I’ll admit, I’m a celebrations person. I used to celebrate the longest day of the summer when I was a kid. What celebrations do is make you feel gratitude, and feeling gratitude is known to be a big factor towards happiness. So celebrate each other. Take a few minutes to recognize milestones, accomplishments, work anniversaries, birthdays.
One of our developers felt like we went from one product shipment to another without taking a moment to appreciate it. So we started taking a few minutes to drink a glass of sparkling apple cider together every time we shipped (new tradition!)
We made sure to take pictures during these celebrations and put them in a folder called “happy times”. We also saved screenshots of memorable user stories. I love going through them to remember all the great things we have done especially when I need a mood boost.
6. Nip things in the bud before it affects culture.
Sometimes problems are very easy to see. Other times, it may not be as obvious but if you are an intuitive person, you can probably sense if something doesn’t feel right. Does it feel like someone isn’t being themselves lately? Have a conversation with them privately. Ask if everything is okay. The longer you wait, the bigger the problem might become. So don’t wait for things to fester and affect your culture.
7. Have 1:1s with direct reports and don’t let these get consistently rescheduled.
How often you set your recurring one-on-ones vary from company to company, but I believe it’s important to give a place for your employees to be able to talk with you openly. There are so many things to take care of in a startup at any given time that these can often fall off your calendar, and I’ll admit that I’ve done this myself. That will make employees feel like they don’t matter, that they are easily de-prioritized. You never know on which one-on-one your employee has something they really want to go over. Are you making them feel heard?
8. Ask for feedback and learn to take it with a non-defensive attitude.
Lastly, it’s important to understand whether you’re creating a good culture for the people you hire. Are you allowing for different types of people and personalities to feel comfortable? Any toxic culture that employees are feeling that you didn’t think about? Make sure you have a non-defensive attitude to make everyone feel comfortable giving you feedback you need to hear.
Hope this helps early stage entrepreneurs! As always, happy to hear your thoughts and feedback.
