Company culture: It’s your business and everyone else’s too 💥

One of the most popular and frequently recurring themes is, unsurprisingly, the question of how to maintain your original startup culture as you grow.

That was a quite painful realization for me personally. Now, I can see more and more startup folks going through the same process, figuring this out. This is what I wished I knew when I joined Productboard a few years ago with no previous startup experience.

One of the most eye-opening books in this regard is written by Mike Rognlien, ‘This is Now Your Company.’

1️⃣ You don’t want to forcefully unify any culture within an organization that is expanding globally. Instead, you should build the company on your core values, and that’s what you need to preserve.

2️⃣ Culture is something that constantly evolves as we grow.

3️⃣ Culture is something we all influence equally.

4️⃣ This is now my company, and I’ve become its culture co-founder. Complaining anonymously and doing nothing about it won’t change anything. At that point, I needed someone to ask me: “You are not happy with XY, so what have you done about it? What is your plan?”. I firmly believe that if we want our careers, and therefore our company, to be the best they can be, we need to start thinking of it that way: as ours.

5️⃣ In the early stages of a startup, EVERYONE plays a significant role, and everyone has a good and bad influence. Our behavior has an impact on all the people around us. We are all part of the culture. It’s our company now.

6️⃣ This is no longer our local Czech scrappy startup, nor should it be — especially after we asked global investors, VCs, angels for money. I joined this company and became its shareholder because I wanted to be a part of the big (global) success.

Not many people have this unique opportunity to see and experience a growing and globally expanding rocket ship 🚀. Like everything else, it will have ups and downs, pros and cons, and you have to make trade-offs — nothing is free, of course. YES, it will be hard, and yes, it is natural and human to be concerned about changes, new processes, new people. But when we join in, we all choose to see this company grow, become multipliers, and have some impact on this amazing product, company, and our users who can solve the hardest problems.