How Do You Define Startup Culture In One Word?

Ravi Kikan
Ravi is a Mentor at MentorEdge ( A CIIE- IIM-A initiative), A Knowledge driven enterprise. He is a Growthhacker for Startups, Online Community Builder, Startup Connector and B2B Marketing Expert.

Finally, It Is All About The People, Isn’t it ?

Either of these two situations:

Whether you are running your own startup

OR

You are part of a startup

There are some traits that run through the backbone of all the employees and founders.

Do they feel great about working in that startup or leading it ?

Are they having fun ?

How often do founders treat their employees as assets and not just a pain point for month-end salaries ?

I think Wikipedia defines the origination of this “STARTUP CULTURE” in a very nice way.

In a 1960 study, Douglas McGregor stressed that punishments and rewards for uniformity in the workplace is not necessary, as some people are born with the motivation to work without incentives.This removal of stressors allows the workers and researchers to focus less on the work environment around them, and more at the task at hand, giving them the potential to achieve something great for their company.

This culture has evolved to include larger companies today aiming at acquiring the bright minds driving startups. Google, amongst other companies, has made strides to make purchased startups and their workers feel right at home in their offices, even letting them bring their dogs to work.The main goal behind all changes to the culture of the startup workplace, or a company hiring workers from a startup to do similar work, is to make the people feel as comfortable as possible so they can have the best performance in the office.

I asked this question in the Startup Specialist Group and got some pretty interesting one word answers to the question from some global startup experts.

How Do You Define Startup Culture In One Word ?

1. Passion
2. Courage
3. Fun
4. Integrity
5. Adventure
6. Risky

Ann Snider Founder at CyberCentric, mentioned in the same discussion :

If the start up and its people, product, support and service don’t perform as promised and do it well, the invitation to go home comes quickly.And the tone of that culture is something that is the responsibility of management to model, encourage, empower and defend.

Do, Deliver, Perform and Be There as promised or go home.
That’s what your customers are going to say.

All the entrepreneur need to is, listen. Carefully.

I think that is an awesome piece of advice.

From my experience of working with startups and handling a couple is that a startup culture is sum of some key energies. I think there are these energetic one words I can sum up the ” startup culture ” both from a founders point of view and an employee point of view in any or all of these “E” words:

1. Empowering
2. Encouraging
3. Energetic
4. Enticing
5. Ever Evolving AKA Permanent Beta (Courtesy: Reid Hoffman)
6. Ethical AKA Transparency:)

I think a lot of businesses once they move on from the startup phase “forget that once they were all startups” and they all loose these pivotal energetic words and become that same around the corner company however some companies still keep that awesome startup culture intact.

So what is your one word for a Startup Culture ? How Do You Define It ?

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