Scaling your Startup Culture without Ruining it

scaling a startup culture

Scaling from Team of 5 to 10, to 20+

When you’re first starting out, your entire team is close to the founders and everyone has a role that’s obvious and crucial to success.

The organization is ‘flat’. You’ve avoided hiring the wrong talent. Then what happens?

You grow, and “Unique Jobs are lost, Conformity is pushed“.

In “Why Growing Past 20 Employees is so Damn Hard”, Eric Jorgenson looks at the issues and offers ways to become a better leader and not ruin your culture in the process.

In Keeping your job: The painful transition from startup to scaleup, the Reforge blog gives a great summary of Steve Blank’s painful lessons on what it means for your job when your company scales. It includes these 2 decisions to make when you’re heading a team that’s scaling:

  • Think twice before assigning or revoking titles.
  • Maintain community with “cultural co-founders.” – these are the team members with you ‘from the start’ that were pivotal to building and nurturing your culture. Keep them as ambassadors.

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