Hey Krish! Great question. Your hesitation is valid. I think it’s important to build the team up a bit before naming your values. As a founder, your DNA is a big part of the company’s DNA, but if you do it right, the employees will make up a significant part of it as well – and you want your values to represent what makes the company great.
We created our core values when the company was 10-15 people. It wasn’t a founder that catalyzed the process, actually – it was Becca, our Head of People Ops. She conducted interviews with every single person on the team about what makes the company special, and what they want the company to stand for. Then she put together a summary of what she learned and handed it to the three founders. Together we synthesized all the information and came up with our three core values.
This is what we came up with:
As for a few lessons I’d share with my younger self, these come to mind:
- The journey is immensely rewarding, but never gets easier. Don’t fool yourself into thinking at any point it will become easier.
- Search far and wide for the best people – people better than you, who represent the values you want the company to be about. It will not be quick or easy, but with hiring it pays to be a pessimist.
- Developing self-awareness is the key to growth as a CEO. Surround yourself with coaches, mentors, and advisors that will keep you accountable, help you identify weaknesses, and challenge you to do better.