Culture is not a ping pong table

There are hundreds of articles talking about the power of Culture. Essentially all the articles come down to this: When it sucks, everything sucks. When it works, you do your best work and you wear your company’s T-shirt. True.

The thing I am most proud of in my career was the Culture we built in my last 2 companies. It was amazing. Ask anyone who worked with me. It was magic.

First – let me describe what culture is to me. As one of the company leaders, Culture is you (so yes, I am amazing and magical...). It’s your morality, it’s your experiences, it’s your risk tolerance, it's your speed and urgency, it's how you treat your spouse and friends, it’s your sense of humor, it’s your priority system. It's organic.

Operating Disciplines and Levers for Growing Consumer Brands.

When an Operator is building a new growth consumer products business or making radical changes to an existing stagnant business, there is a proven path a company must travel.

The path starts with a handful of Operating Disciplines that every great company has mastered.

Operators master these disciplines through a clear understanding of their strategic importance and how they interact with each other. These Operating Disciplines are the Language of the company. It’s the language the leadership speaks daily and flows throughout every employee. These Operating Disciplines are the areas a company measures, sets clear targets and builds clear action registers. They are cadence of the business. It is the value of the business.

Simon Greathead; Mark Kosiba; Jonathan Richards

In spring 2018, the chief supply chain officer of Traeger Pellet Grills, LLC, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, was visiting a supplier in in Changzhou, China. He was meeting with the supplier the next day but had not fully decided how to manage the meeting. The supplier was responsible for a large portion of the company’s supply of grills but was also positioning itself as a competitor by tooling, designing, and producing knock-off products that were then directly marketed to consumers in the company’s strongest market—the United States. Although the supplier denied any involvement in the knock-off grills, the chief supply chain officer knew the tooling and styling were impossibly similar to his company’s products and there was no other facility in that supplier's area with the capability to make look-alike grills at that level. The chief supply chain officer had to decide how to deal with the rebellious supplier.

Does your start-up suck?

OK, I agree you have passion. Good for you. Huge first step.

But first you need great answers to these 7 questions if you want people to invest their Money and Time in your idea.

If you do, I’m in. We are in. Everyone is in. We will all make money.

If not, find something better. Your time is extremely valuable.

Not all companies will have great answers for all 7. If they don’t have great answers, it doesn’t mean that they won’t succeed, it just means that it will be harder. Also, I am consumer product focused so if you have a complicated medical device, this article may not be for you.

When an Operator is building a new growth consumer products business or making radical changes to an existing stagnant business, there is a proven path a company must travel.

The path starts with a handful of Operating Disciplines that every great company has mastered.

The most obvious Discipline is Revenue. Young Entrepreneurs think the more revenue, the better. You can view Revenue as some sort of popularity contest. People like my product so my revenue is growing and I’m cool.