Category: Corp Culture

We have a very simple vacation policy: be reasonable. That’s it. We don’t track vacation days, sick days, or flex days. Not tracking vacation days doesn’t mean people take as much time off without getting their job done, rather it means that we track results and people make sure their work gets done on their own.

If a team member wants to take time off we ask them to coordinate with their team in advance proportional to the amount of time off (e.g. give a week’s notice to take a day off, a month’s notice to take a week off, etc). The idea is that it’s the employee’s responsibility to make sure their results are taken care of and not the manager’s responsibility.

When I explain to people that we have a “no vacation tracking policy” I’m inevitably asked what do we do if someone abuses it. The answer: we’d let them know they aren’t meeting our “be reasonable” goal and we’d part ways if it continues. It’s never happened.

As part of our good work, good people, and good pay approach, we believe employees are our most important asset. Empowering team members to come and go as they please as well as take as much or little time off as needed while their work still gets done helps contribute to our strong culture.

What else? What other thoughts do you have on this vacation policy?

Corporate culture is only the sustainable, controllable competitive advantage for startups. It really is. Think about it: what other factors in business can you control? The market? Nope. The economy? Nope. Tsunamis or civil war? Nope. Corporate culture? Yes.

There’s a reason cult is the first part of culture. Many of the most famous corporate cultures are like cults, like Zappos. When I did a summer internship at IBM after my freshman year at Duke there was another intern there from Northwestern who kept saying she wanted to work at the SAS Institute. I asked why? She said people love it and never want to leave. I asked why again. She said it was a cult she wanted to join. True story.

Here are some ideas to put the cult in culture:

• Require unanimous consent for new hires so that everyone has a vested say in the hiring process
• Measure your employee Net Promoter Score each quarter and score above 70
• Create the best environment you can afford (great office space, snacks, equipment, etc)
• Find the right balance between good work, good people, and good pay

Creating a strong corporate culture is hard work. Do it, and the rewards and results will be profound.

What else? What other ways can you put the cult in culture?

When building a startup you often come across a variety of people, some of which you think would be great for your team but you can’t afford or don’t need just yet. As your startup takes off and gains traction, more and more people will come out of the woodwork and express interest in working for you. People want to be part of a successful organization, especially one that has the potential to be a rocket ship.

Entrepreneurs should keep a list of people they want to hire.

Much like recruiters and sports agents work hard at networking and developing relationship with potential clients, you need to do the same with talented people you want on your team. Developing relationships and a pipeline of talent in advance of needing it is much more preferable to doing it while things are going so well that you don’t have time for it. Of course, this is a high class problem to have. Regardless, you need to keep a list of people you want to hire.

What else? What should be kept in mind when developing a list of people you want to hire?

If you’re bootstrapping, you should keep the costs to furnish an office as close to $0 as possible while you get the business off the ground. Once the business starts growing and you move from the seed stage to early stage, and especially growth stage, there’s the tendency to progressively improve the office in an effort to look more credible for recruiting, but especially for egos.

Here are ballpark costs to outfit a startup with mid-to-high-end furnishings:

• Open workspace with “L” shaped desk, cabinet, and electrical – $1,500/person (nice cubicles are $3,500/person)
• Herman Miller Aeron chair – $600/person
• MacBook Air/Pro – $1,500/person
• 25″ monitor – $350/person
• Wired ethernet port – $100/person
• Desk accessories like keyboard, mouse, etc – $150/person

So, for $4,200 per person you’ll have a great, professional environment. Add another five grand for things like a nice coffee maker (a must!), switches, routers, access points, foos ball, ping pong, and more (not counting build-out of the office, conference room furniture, etc). The final ingredient is blazing fast Internet ($2,000/month) and you’ll have a sweet set up.

What else? What other costs are necessary to furnish a nice startup office?

P.S. We’re hiring and have the environment outlined above (apply online).

We all know that startups created the majority of net-new jobs over the past 20 years. We also know that startups, especially tech ones, are innovative as opposed to replicative resulting in a greater likelihood of failure. There’s another aspect of startups that I believe is important for society as a whole that isn’t appreciated as much:

Startups with a strong corporate culture introduce non-startup type people to a more profoundly positive professional path.

What I mean by this is that many people who haven’t worked at a startup with a strong corporate culture haven’t experienced what it’s like to get a greater sense of satisfaction and accomplishment in the professional realm of their life. The majority of our employees had never worked for a startup before and constantly talk about how much more rewarding, fun, and exciting it is on a regular basis compared to their previous jobs. It isn’t that their previous jobs, or companies, were bad, because they weren’t, but rather they had never worked in an environment where everyone was so passionate and enthusiastic about what they did. Startups are like that.

Successful startups set the bar high when it comes to employee engagement. Successful startups get non-startup people addicted to the thrills of startup life and prompt them to join other startups, or start their own. Successful startups help improve the world beyond new products and new jobs by introducing people to a new level of professional fulfillment.

What else? What other ways are startups important for non-startup type employees?

One of the biggest things I underestimated when I started my company over 10 years ago was the importance of corporate culture. In fact, underestimated is the wrong word — I didn’t even recognize it as something to consider. Corporate culture is now the most important part of the company. Why so important? It’s our only sustainable competitive advantage where we have complete control.

Co-founders are keepers of the culture and need to guard it however they can. Here are a few ways to develop and maintain a strong culture:

• Define the culture and attributes you look for in a person (ours are positive, self-starting, and supportive)
• Develop a rhythm where the culture is talked about on a regular basis (e.g. weekly team meetings, quarterly reviews/check-ins, etc)
• Empower other team members to own the culture (e.g. require unanimous decision for new hires, have a culture book that documents why things are the way they are, etc)

The corporate culture is critical to long-term success and the co-founders need to guard it. Co-founders are keepers of the culture.

What else? What other tips do you have to develop and maintain a strong culture?

Hanging around other entrepreneurs and constantly talking about startups makes me forget sometimes that most startup employees, especially in Atlanta, aren’t focused on the startup community. In fact, many of the people at my company have degrees and backgrounds in different fields, but work in the technology field because there are good opportunities. They are smart people who get things done.

Here are some examples:

• Desire to be a school teacher but instead train clients on how to use the software
• Divinity degree that works in customer support
• Journalism degree that works as a client advocate
• English major that works as a software engineer

The most important thing is to find people that align with your corporate culture and then figure out what they do well. Don’t worry if they aren’t focused on startups or have an unrelated degree: get the right people on the bus and provide the best environment for them to flourish.

Twelve years ago I did a summer internship at IBM in RTP. I was an undergrad at Duke and excited about the opportunity to work for a large technology company writing Java code . My role was to build example apps for what would eventually become WebSphere. At the time, my department was writing components and infrastructure objects for a big beta client: the State of Connecticut.

IBM was a study in contrasts. Every morning when I came in and every day when I left I had to log in to a mainframe app on a green screen to record my time. That’s right, I used a mainframe app as a time keeping system while building web-based apps in Java. At the end of each payroll period I’d log in to the same green screen app and double check my hours. I had never used a green screen app before and have never used one since.

One of the initiatives IBM had that summer was asking employees for ideas and ways to innovate. Funny enough, I’m never short on ideas so I submitted what I thought to be an obvious idea: enhance printer drivers to prompt users to not include the last page of the print out if it came from the web and had less than 5% ink coverage. The annoyance that I had encountered many times was printing a web page and having the last page be the copyright date or footer links — something of no value that wasted a piece of paper.

I typed up several pages of examples and rationale around the idea. After submitting the idea I didn’t think anything of it until a month letter I received a letter thanking me for the idea and letting me know it was rejected due to not being useful. Oh well, I tried. The consolation prize was a lanyard to hold my serial number badge. My days of innovating at IBM were over.

Interestingly, I read about a company in Portland last year that was generating millions of dollars a year in revenue by saving companies money on paper by doing the very thing I’d proposed at IBM. This is a small example that shows many ideas are too small for big companies, but big enough to be a small company.