Instigator Blog

The best startups succeed in large part because of a strong company culture. A strong, meaningful company culture is the foundation off which startups can do great things.

It’s critical when you first start a business to think about company culture and decide with your partners what type of culture you’d like to build. But it’s also important to realize that the founders of the company can’t really create the culture or dictate it; the founders need to instigate and incubate.

If you think you can create and dictate company culture for your employees then you’re already in trouble. That’s a very top-down approach, and generally with small teams in startup mode, it doesn’t work. As founders you need ideas on what you want, and you’ll need to put forth those ideas and encourage their adoption, but it’s the entirety of the team that will really create the company culture.

Marc Andreessen comments on the issues of company culture brilliantly in his post, The Pmarca Guide to Startups, part 1: Why not to do a startup:

It takes time for the culture of any company to become “set” — for the team of people who have come together for the first time to decide collectively what they’re all about, what they value — and how they look at challenge and adversity.

In the best case, you get an amazing dynamic of people really pulling together, supporting one another, and working their collective tails off in pursuit of a dream.

In the worst case, you end up with widespread, self-reinforcing bitterness, disillusionment, cynicism, bad morale, contempt for management, and depression.

And you as the founder have much less influence over this than you’ll think you do.

Instigating and incubating your company’s culture means setting forth what you hope will become reality, and fostering that as much as possible. Sometimes it’s big picture things - overarching beliefs you want the company to espouse. But more often it’s doing little things to demonstrate through action how you’d like the company culture to work.

They’re professional.

There are plenty of social networks designed for personal use, but they all have professional implications and opportunities. And to ignore those issues is a mistake.

Your “Stuff” Is Exposed

Most social networks have some level of privacy to keep prying eyes away from your profile and content, but don’t assume it’s full proof. It’s safer to assume that anything you put on the Internet is public and always will be.

You can’t completely control who sees what you put online. Employers and potential employers can do a quick Google search and find out all kinds of things. The same holds true for a host of other people: law enforcement, creditors, business partners, etc.

But There’s Gold In Them Thar Social Networks

On the positive side, business opportunities abound on social networks, even if they weren’t designed for business. It’s simple. You put people together bound by common interests and get them hooked on participating with one another, and presto, business opportunities emerge.

Since starting on Facebook a month ago I’ve connected with numerous people from a business perspective, which may lead to future opportunities for Standout Jobs. I could have connected with those people via email, but social networks like Facebook (or tools like Twitter) captivate people’s attention; so it’s easier to reach them. When it comes to email, people are overwhelmed and generally hate it. So they’re slower to respond. But send someone a “friend request” on Facebook and they’ll answer almost immediately.

Regardless of whether you’re connecting with people online over your shared love of dogs, photos or cartoon dolls, you’ll build real relationships that can lead beyond the original purpose of the social network.

Whether business or personal, no relationship succeeds without trust.

Trust is the cornerstone of any great relationship. There are plenty of other important ingredients, but trust rules them all.

Trust is especially important when first starting a business. You’ll rely heavily on your business partners to do their share and more. You’ll trust them to do what they need to do in order for the business to get rolling. At such an early stage, if there’s no trust, you might as well pack up and go home.

And where does this trust come from?

It’s tough to say. Trust is something you feel intrinsically, but it’s also earned. When first starting a business, there may not be any prior working relationship between the partners, so there may not have been any opportunity to earn trust. You might have been friends, but the trust gained through friendship isn’t always the same as the trust you need in business.

You can get to know your partner before going into business, but until everyone’s feet are in the fire, you can’t be certain if they’re trustworthy.

So you go with your gut. It’s scary, and risky, but ultimately very few businesses succeed without partners. You need them to bring complimentary skills, leverage their network, and share your dream. And you trust they’ll do all those things.

Standout Jobs has some interesting jobs listed - each one with a fun, interesting video for your viewing pleasure. Video is just a tool, but a powerful one at showing you a company’s culture, vision and what they’re really looking for in new hires.

I’ve added some of the latest job openings to the Instigator Blog sidebar on the right.

Plank Multimedia is a great web design shop in Montreal. I’ve known them for years. I consider the team and their work top-notch. They’re looking for a project manager, which should be a very cool job. You might even get a chance to work with Michael Moore.

TSOT is a Toronto-based company that runs three social networks: fraternity live, sorority live and faculty live. TSOT is hiring a Ruby Rockstar, and what you’ll see immediately from their video is that they care and believe strongly in Ruby on Rails.

EmptyTray is looking for bookkeepers and virtual assistants. Although based in Toronto, EmptyTray will bring people on from all over. They help small business owners run their businesses more efficiently.

Band of Coders is a group of programmers in Guelph and Toronto looking to hire Senior .NET Architects. Band of Coders works with people across North and South America. You can see their personality coming through very strongly from their website (which is rare for corporate sites.)

Many of our current job postings are for companies based in Toronto and Montreal. And there will be plenty more from those cities in the near future, including job openings at some of the hottest startups. But stay tuned as we broaden our horizons into other cities as well. Standout Jobs isn’t focused exclusively on the Canadian market…far from it.

Yesterday’s Montreal Tech Entrepreneur Breakfast was a lot of fun. There were plenty of new faces, which is great to see. Hopefully that trend continues and previous attendees keep returning so the meeting grows.

I’m still thinking of a change in the location. I’m looking for suggestions.

It still feels like people get stuck to a chair once the food arrives. Wouldn’t a cafe environment, where the focus is less on food (just grab a coffee + muffin) and more on socializing and moving around. A cafe or lounge would make sense, I think…but I need suggestions and ideas!

Meanwhile, Heri has a great writeup on the meeting, which I appreciate. You know Heri will always be on top of things.

And next month’s Tech Entrepreneur Breakfast will be on July 10th (location TBD). I hope to see more people there! And I echo Heri’s interest in bringing more students into the mix…