The Ride of Your Life …
If you thrive in a rollercoaster environment, with many highs but also many profound and challenging lows, then you could be well-suited to life as a founder in a B2B tech startup. This vocation is not for everyone, but with the right preparation, mindset and support, it’s possible to manage the inevitable stress and anxiety to create a sustainable business. It will help if you seek advice from other founders along the way and ask them how they dealt with some of the specific challenges you may face. Use your network of contacts to speak with others in the industry and potential investors who may offer guidance and support. Bringing employees into this environment requires a strong company culture they can fit into, as this helps you get the best results from your people and available resources. Your primary job as a founder is to create and nurture a genuine and intentionally authentic culture for your business.
It’s Your People That Matter
The best tech founders are the ones who quickly realise they cannot do everything themselves, and so success cannot happen without a team around them. No matter how innovative, disruptive or transformative your tech solution is, it cannot be placed above the importance of the people in your startup. It’s your people who create value and will continue to develop the solution, inspired by innovation. They are the ones who will bring your company vision to life through their daily endeavours, hard work, creativity and problem solving.
People Over Tech
Almost any tech product can be copied, and most will be, but your people and culture are the one truly unique thing about your startup. The collective skills and collaboration of individuals are required to manifest your product, vision and future success. A strong company culture and motivated employees lead to higher productivity and better overall performance. Your tech solution alone cannot succeed without the people who envision, develop and support it. This is the irreplaceable value of human capital in any startup’s journey. Don’t think you can shortcut this fact with novel technology alone.
Find the Right Team and Bind Them Together
Assembling a talented and cohesive team is critical. However, attracting top talent to a new venture with an uncertain future can be challenging, especially when competing with established employers offering higher salaries, broader benefits and more job security. Startups are often a collection of acquaintances, ex-colleagues, believers and people from a known connected network. The common factors are that they all believe in the same vision and want to be part of an exciting startup journey. Everyone accepts there will be challenges and hardships ahead, although the brunt of these will rightly be felt by the founders, as they carry the biggest risk/reward ratio.
Get Onboard
Being presented with the opportunity to get involved early on in a new venture and be instrumental in shaping its success is a tantalising prospect for many. Early startup culture often galvanises everyone with a strong connection to the vision, and a sense that they are all in it together. This can make up for many shortcomings. However, there must always be a real sense of urgency to transform that special X-factor into meaningful progression and achievement of growth milestones. Having a strong company culture is meaningless if it doesn’t help you find paying customers to help sustain the business. The leadership must constantly communicate the vision and direction, making sure everyone is fully focused across the team. Everyone must always be aligned and pulling in the same direction and that must be a primary priority of the leadership team.
People and Culture are Your Biggest Assets
Founders must be mindful of the importance of culture and spend real time and effort nurturing the essence of what makes the team special. This must not be left to chance, and the importance of this is often completely overlooked. Culture is not about giving employees company-branded coffee mugs, and it’s not an employer’s job to dress their employees in ill-fitting, cheap apparel. What you must do is create the conditions for success, giving everyone a supported framework within which they are empowered to act and operate with full accountability. They need your consistent inspiration and motivation to help achieve a vision that everyone can believe in and get behind. There is no substitute for developing a cohesive company culture where everyone stands shoulder to shoulder, pushing in the same direction and continually helping each other, even when times get tough. Developing and maintaining your company culture will be one of your most important challenges as the business grows.
Mind Your Manners
Founders must nurture, protect and value their startup’s culture. The quickest way for a founder to destroy a business is to make knee-jerk emotional decisions or behave in ways that are unfair, unpredictable and detrimental to team members. We’ve all worked for founders who behave like dicks, and they are either clueless or simply do not care about the damage they are doing, until it’s too late. According to research by Harvard, narcissistic traits are roughly three times more prevalent among founders and executives.
Don’t Play the Blame Game
Turning on employees and blaming them when things inevitably get sticky must be avoided at all costs. That is precisely the time to close ranks and get in a huddle to work out solutions to overcome challenges, not point fingers. Any founder pointing the finger must first point it at themselves, because if there is a problem in the business, they are ultimately responsible and accountable for both creating and solving it. Leaders must always maintain a consistent and calm exterior, no matter what pressure they are personally experiencing. You must be mindful that your positive actions can inspire and motivate, but the reverse will do the most harm to the one true asset your startup has, company culture. Protect and respect it at all costs.
How to Protect Your Culture as You Grow
Protecting your culture from dilution can be done by clearly defining your core values and integrating them into relevant aspects of the business, from hiring practices to daily operations and communications. With consistent communication, you can ensure all team members understand and embody the core values. Regular team-building activities and open channels for feedback can help maintain a sense of community and alignment. The leadership team must model the desired culture in an environment of trust, transparency and mutual respect. By actively nurturing and reinforcing the company culture, your startup can preserve its unique identity and drive collective success as the business grows.
You may want to read: “Top 4 Ways Leaders Invest in Culture.”
