After talking with several technology startups in town I realized that some of our core strategies, which I believed most others would employ, are in fact fairly unusual. Of course, each company has their own strategy and approach, and it’s important to experiment. Here are a few items we do that aren’t as common:
- Spend 1/3 of our sales time making cold calls
- Provide a LCD scoreboard in our lobby with our quarterly goals including financial info
- Require that all potential employees write a two page essay as part of the process (five short answer questions)
- Conduct Quarterly Check-ins where we answer four quick questions about ourselves (what did you do, what are you going to do, how can you improve, and how are you following the values)
I’m sure there are additional unique items we do on a regular basis but this is a good start. My recommendation is to continually try new initiatives, keep the ones that are working, and throw out the ones that are stale.
What else? What are some core strategies you employ that are unique?
David Cummings on Startups 
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