Lucy Tan’s Post

Building a Culture Deck is Easy. Executing the Deck is hard. Many scaling startups make this mistake: They build a beautiful deck describing their mission, values, and culture. But never act on it. High-performing teams know that the real work starts AFTER you create the deck: - Building your daily habits - Creating feedback loops - Leading by example Building a high-performance culture takes time and effort. That’s why every company has a Culture Deck. But only a few companies can say they practice what they preach. --- P.S. If you want a proven system for building a high-performance culture, join my free training on 23.04.24. I will share my best strategies and answer frequently asked questions. Register via the link in the comments. --- P.P.S. Does your company have a Culture Deck?

The pace of a startup isn't for everyone. We dive into key ways a company can establish culture to balance the changes and high demands of a newly developed company. Read more about it in our most recent blog: https://lnkd.in/gcabE9aH

🎯"... Trust, safety and respect at work aren’t nice-to-have. They are fundamental. This is a belief shared by Airtree’s partners, our team and many others in our community, including founders, who are building generational companies and positive workplace cultures. If this isn't a given for a founder, they should be called out and held to account. And rightly so." Love all of this post from Craig Blair at Airtree - such a timely discussion for many reasons, and also for our first "In-Practice" session yesterday for the 5th cohort of the LUNA Startup Board Course. Our first of three modules is about how we can build the foundations to set ourselves up for success, and where everything starts with a founder's approach and mindset. How we do anything tends to be how we do everything, and culture comes from the top. And, culture is where 'this' behaviour can live or die. Our very brilliant cohort tussled with a lot of this yesterday, and the nuanced commercial realities of how a mix of 'challenging' founder behaviour and holding a unicornic vision can play out and potentially test us, or not. And of course, and importantly, this is not just a symptom/experience of the startup ecosystem, but of business as usual in general, and society at large. Thank you for a brilliant session yesterday all, absolutely love working with you on this. And for founders yet to join us, if you're interested to join a future cohort, or even just to chat about this, please get in touch.

What I've seen over the years is, early stage companies rarely grow beyond their founders’ capabilities; or at least, companies model after their founders really closely. If the founder is unfocused, chances are the whole company is unfocused. If the founder is incapable of making decisions, the company is likely to have meetings after meetings without clear conclusions. If the founder doesn’t put in 110% of herself in the company, it’s hard to expect anyone else at the company would. 1/ Having cofounders is advantageous in this regard, because no one is perfect and different cofounders can bring different skill sets and strengths 2/ Founders need to have good mentors 3/ Founders must set aside some time to constantly upgrade themselves and “sharpen the tooth”. 

Anytime someone says, "We'll focus on culture once we've scaled," or "There's no time or budget to focus on culture right now," I cringe. At this point, I've worked with impact-focused startups across a variety of industries and have seen firsthand how this mindset leads to toxic environments, staff fleeing, and stunted growth. I've also experienced this firsthand, which is why I co-founded Next Big Thing in the first place 🫠 VCs, push your founders to prioritize culture early and make sure your platform teams support them in this work. Founders, no VC support? Don't fear! There are simple and cost-effective ways to build competitive cultures from day one. Get in touch!

🚀 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐩 𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬! 🚀 Are you on the journey to finding the perfect organizationalculture to support your company growth? We share the same passion. And we are back in action. 💪 Our mission is going even further: we want to empower all of you to effectively develop the best culture to support your growth and bring your crazy ideas to life. To succeed, we try to get more insights about the state of the art about culture in our startup ecosystem. 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐞? 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐮𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐩 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦: Your input will help create the best growth culture tool for startup founders worldwide, fostering a stronger, more informed community. 🎁 Get an overview of your culture map: We are launching a tool for culture type mapping of your business, as a thank you note, free for all of you that are contributing. The survey is in the first comment (it takes just 5 minutes to complete). It would mean the world for us to be able to learn from you. 🙏 Yes, we are back in action. And we are energized. Yes you can comment, like and share the post if you'd like to contribute more and give us some reach. Thank you all 🙏 Let's make this happen.

Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, famously said, "If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late." This concept embraces Lean methodology, emphasizing: 🏎️ Focus on Speed 🔄 Iterative Improvement 💥 Embracing Failure 👥 Customer-Centric Approach Reid's quote and the Lean Startup principles teach that perfection shouldn't be the goal from the outset; rather, it's about getting a product out there quickly, gathering feedback, and continuously improving based on that feedback.

Every successful founder knows the importance of mentorship and collaboration. No one can—or should—do it alone. That’s why we launched our Entrepreneur-in-Residence program, to help early-stage founders get access to mentorship and the support they need! From building pitch decks to value props, networking to messaging, consultants in the Entrepreneur-in-Residence program help early stage founders get across the finish line. To learn more about the program, check out this blog post from Purpose Jobs, which shares the insight from Jack P., Spencer Chamberlain MBA, and Brenda Jones, who are all a part of the program👇

In the fast-paced world of startups, staying aligned and connected is key to success. Almost a year ago, we introduced daily team meetings where we share progress, set goals, and align schedules to keep the momentum going. Since then, we've seen noticeable improvements in team collaboration, communication, and accountability. It’s become a simple yet powerful tool to help us stay focused and productive. And on Mondays, we like to mix it up by sharing something interesting from the weekend, building personal connections and reinforcing our team culture. Startups thrive on adaptability, and that begins with a strong, cohesive team. How does your team stay productive and track their performance? Share in the comments below 👇 Navera | Wajiha | Zohaib | Muhammad Umar Nazir | Hamza | Hamza | Ahmad | Aimen | Amna

Some good tips outlined around defining startup culture at the early stage, rather than having to right the ship later... 💡