For any entrepreneur, building a successful and exciting company that can attract great talent is challenging to say the least. One of the issues that come up most often is keeping up the morale within your company along with attracting bright people outside the company to join. Not only is this a need at the early stages of the startup cycle but also as you expand your business into a much larger company. To help out fellow startup founders, here are some quick tips or suggestions to make sure you can keep your vibrant culture sustained and attract the best people as possible.
Step 1: Empower Everyone
Yes, that means everyone and anyone who is related or a part of your company. Make your employees, shareholders, investors and advisors feel important and valued as much as possible. Recognizing their efforts and time will not only help you build a stronger relationship with them, but also help create a natural word of mouth conversation that may even attract more top talent to your startup. Remember the golden rule, “treat others the way you want to be treated.” It’s not only true in first grade but also within your startup culture!
Step 2: Keep it Short
We don’t mean keeping your interaction short rather the tasks you give out to your employees. Remember back in school when you had tons of homework and felt overwhelmed with so much work? Well, overwhelming your employees is pretty much the same! Define short and achievable goals that everyone within your startup is comfortable with doing. Don’t say, “we need to make ‘x’ amount” or ” we need to launch our product in ‘x’ time” without actually providing a plan of action. Answer the question, “How are we going to get there?” Having a well-defined and step-by-step approach helps make everything seem more achievable as well (as opposed to a large and ambitious goal that seems unattainable).
Step 3: Loosen Up
Yes, loosen up your grip and let your employees take some risks. After all, didn’t you start your startup by taking a risk too? Innovation seldom comes from thinking conventionally or taking traditional methods towards achieving something. If they fail, give them a hand and encourage them to learn from their decisions and mistakes (you probably learned your lessons the same way). While they are learning, help the rest of your team also analyze what went wrong or went really well. In the process, be sure to share the lessons learned as a whole, which is incredibly easy in a small startup. Passionate and committed employees generate value for your company and create successful results in the long term. That helps create a stronger company culture as well!
Be fair and share!
About Christoph Auer-Welsbach: Christoph is the founder and CEO of INISMO.com, a startup focused on helping entrepreneurs become investment ready and find accredited investors. The entire process is facilitated in a virtual “Deal Room” to help both sides become more efficient with their deal flow process. Chris also blogs at, Auervonwelsbach.at, from his home country of Austria. He can be reached ontwitter (@chavw) and Linked In.
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