Have you guys seen the videos of all those twenty something year olds huddled around a kitchen table in the house they just rented for the purpose of living, working, and breathing their new startup idea. Objectively, there may be nothing wrong with this. But there seems to be this belief that the most important thing in the world is convincing everyone else of how ‘chill’ and ‘trendy’ your team is. There’s a lot more to a startup than beer and ping-pong tables.

You can band together a group of people through the foundation of a startup all you want. But if a uniting culture is missing, what is really holding them together?

Values: Setting the Baseline for Culture

So how do you set the culture? Well, as a founder, you can make your values clear right off the bat. Figure out what’s important to you– what brings out the best version of you, and hire a team that feels the same. Bring them up in every interview. Send your team a copy of them throughout the month. And when someone forgets one, remind them. This can’t be just a symbolic gesture. You need to live them everyday through your work. Everyone being committed to the same united culture is what helps get you through when things get rocky.

Because if you don’t have those values, what do you have? Hustle culture maybe. But hustle culture ends. Your metaphorical candle burns out. And quickly. What keeps you going at that point is your values. Rules to live by, hire by, and if necessary, fire by.

Survival is a Team Sport

Startups culture thrives on open communication, idealism, and hope; these values that have gotten lost in the past few years. And we need to bring them back. As a startup, you’re in survival mode… constantly. You can survive by being the one and only leader – get behind me and I’ll protect you. Or you can survive by sharing your knowledge. Teach a man to fish and all that. In the real world, survival mode can be all about playing it safe. In the startup world, it’s just the opposite. Take risks to show your team they’re worth it. Breed chaos so you can control it. If you wanted to play it safe, this just simply might not be the career for you.

As a founder, teach your team to fish… metaphorically, unless you’re into that I guess. If your goal is to scale, which it should be, you’re going to reach a point where you have to delegate, where you can no longer make the decisions all on your own or you’ll crumble and your company along with it. The only way to do that is to set that up from the beginning. Whittle out potential new employees based on who’s going to be ok with taking those risks, and possibly failing at them. Because those are the people who are going to keep at it every time. Eventually something’s going to hit, but you’ll only find out if you’re willing to try again.

Extending Culture to the Boardroom

Culture isn’t contained to just the founder and employees either. It extends all the way to the top. The board is a critical part of this conversation. They’re responsible for holding the CEO accountable, and when the board’s unhappy, the CEO’s unhappy, and when the CEO’s unhappy, it affects everyone. So it’s important that, as a founder, you fill your board seats with people who have the same values. Even one rogue board member can throw the entire operation off balance.

Realistically, you’re a startup, you’re not going to make the board happy the entire time from beginning to end. You’re not looking for board members who are going to be yes men (because you’re not going to find that), but you are looking for board members who you can handle disagreements with. Some people are just simply difficult to deal with. In fact, maybe you are one of those people. Then look for a board member that can handle it and someone you’re actually willing to listen to. And this is why it’s so important to set your values at the beginning. Because it gives you something to look for – something to ground you, a culture fit to check against as you start giving out those board seats.

The culture you create can be inspired by a different company or it can be something completely different. At the end of the day, the most important thing is that you’re able to uphold them yourself and then surround yourself with people who do the same. You want to be able to jump headfirst into the challenges you’ll face with the confidence that your team is right behind you.