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Innovative, collaborative startup cultures – how do you get one? Google has been renowned for their culture as the company has grown, the focus on reinforcing their values for innovation and constant learning has been a top priority most likely since the very early days. In a startup, the culture can make or break startups and companies like Google have emerged with a strong identity. What are the building blocks of creating a great culture? The startup ecosystem is also part of cultures, but on a larger level.

People – it’s always primarily the people. Being surrounded by brilliant, passionate and entrepreneurial individuals that share the values required to reaching your vision, the impact can surprise you. Keeping this mind in the early stages when staffing, the startup can build their superhero team from early on and make sure the individuals joining are as passionate as those already on the team.

Ownership – it’s one thing to work for a vision, but earning a part of that vision e.g. through our work investment model, can be a great instrument toward instilling this culture. It runs through everything, working with a model with equity compensation, you naturally attract those people who believe they will add value and arguably, you should be able to attract the most entrepreneurial people this way. Where you in part get to work for yourselves.

Zappos has underlined this point in their operations, where they provide $3000 in instant cash for people to quit – right now. What does this accomplish? The dedicated ones, those that value their positions and futures in the company over $3000 in cash, will stay.

Responsibility – when you have a team of brilliant individuals, they are surely hungry, so they need to be fed! What do brilliant people run on? Responsibility, of problems, issues, developments or other areas of operations, is a foundation to giving the tools to further show their abilities and really take charge. In longer term thinking, you will not know how much responsibility individuals are able to handle, until you’ve reached the line. Furthermore, it’s not a static line, so making sure those creative souls have enough on their plate to keep them satisfied and constantly learning is key.

Vision – where are we going? Why does our startup exist? A clear, unifying vision that is strong enough to get you out of bed and needed enough, to feel purposeful. If the team are all working for the same vision, everyone is looking in the same direction. Sure, a day fits lots of details that seemingly have nothing to do with that vision, but twenty years from now, will you be thinking of the details – or what you had accomplished?

There is also a certain window of opportunity involved with startups, where culture can be harnessed and the directions can be influenced. Further with startups, culture is on the skin – where customers, users and all stakeholders could be able to feel it.

This blog post is inspired by our own startup culture at Grow VC, where we see such collaboration and shared values, that has validated our practices in building our brilliant team. Naturally, there are details in all startups and all companies, but with the right culture in place, the details will not derail you from realizing your vision.

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Tags: community, culture

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 17th, 2010 at 5:30 pm and is filed under How to invest in startups. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.