{"id":39745,"date":"2023-10-20T15:04:13","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/scaling-a-startup-why-culture-needs-to-be-part-of-your-plan-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:04:13","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:04:13","slug":"scaling-a-startup-why-culture-needs-to-be-part-of-your-plan-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/scaling-a-startup-why-culture-needs-to-be-part-of-your-plan-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Scaling a startup? Why culture needs to be part of your plan – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"People<\/div>\n

Culture is less about glow-in-the-dark ping pong tables and free pizza than it is about \u201cenduring values\u201d, and despite what many founders believe, it won\u2019t just happen naturally, says\u00a0Digithos founder Dinesh Tantri.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0assumption that culture will develop on its own\u00a0is a costly one for scaling startups, Tantri says in Tech in Asia<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cYou have a product to build, markets to get into, and numerous operational issues to take care of that you have no time to think proactively about culture,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Recently, Canva co-founder Melanie Perkins told\u00a0StartupSmart\u00a0<\/em>that culture has played a critical role in the startup’s success<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“We had the same culture when we were in my mum\u2019s living room with my first company with no budget at all,\u201d she\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCulture is about how you treat people, which doesn\u2019t cost a thing.”<\/p>\n

But without conscious effort, negative behaviour can go unchecked, anxiety around hitting targets may rise, and engagement between team members and the startup’s overarching mission will unravel.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time you compromise on your values, you allow culture debt to accrue,\u201d says Tantri.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time you are silent with jerks and dysfunctional [behaviour] in your startup, you are sending implicit messages on what is [okay] and what is not.<\/p>\n

\u201cWriggling out of this when you are a 100-person company will be a nightmare.\u201d<\/p>\n

To prevent this from happening, Tantri says founders should understand the a difference between perks and values, and put actions in place to ensure things like \u201cmission statements\u201d aren\u2019t left on a worn-out poster somewhere but are actually brought to life with day-to-day practices.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe founding team needs to keep telling stories over and over again to reinforce the mission and values,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cGitHub, for example, used to have a three-point agenda for their weekly all-hands meetings. First, new hires get introduced, then they celebrate the releases that happened the previous week and the people responsible for that, and the final agenda is about\u00a0their values and the philosophy behind\u00a0them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0and iTunes<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Culture is less about glow-in-the-dark ping pong tables and free pizza than it is about \u201cenduring values\u201d, and despite what<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39745"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}