Quick Answer:
Improving your company’s culture starts with defining your core values and then consistently living them through your actions, not just your words. It’s about making deliberate choices in who you hire, how you communicate, and what you reward, building it from the ground up just like you would any other critical business function.
A founder asked me recently why their team felt disconnected and unmotivated, even though the business was growing. They had a ping-pong table and free snacks, but something was missing. This is a story I hear often. The problem wasn’t perks; it was a lack of a coherent, lived culture. Culture isn’t something you get to after you’ve figured out funding and marketing. It is the foundation that determines whether your team will help you solve those problems or become another one.
In the early scramble to launch, culture can feel like a luxury. You’re focused on the product, the first customer, and keeping the lights on. But that’s exactly when culture is being formed, for better or worse. The habits, communication styles, and unspoken rules you establish in those first months become the concrete your company is built on. Trying to change it later is like trying to move a foundation after the house is built.
Culture is Your First Product
One thing I wrote about in Entrepreneurship Secrets for Beginners that keeps proving true is that your first product isn’t what you sell; it’s the environment in which you build. The chapter on Business Planning isn’t just about financial projections; it’s about planning the kind of company you want to be. Before you write a line of code or design a logo, you must answer: What do we stand for? How do we treat each other? What does success truly look like here? If you don’t plan this intentionally, a culture will still form—it will just be based on crisis, stress, and default behaviors, which is a terrible product to offer your team.
Hire for Values, Train for Skills
The Team Building section of the book stresses this heavily. Funding might get you bodies, but values get you a team. Early on, the temptation is to hire the first person who can do the job technically, especially when you’re stretched thin. This is a shortcut that always costs more later. A brilliant coder who undermines others will poison your culture faster than you can fix it. You must interview for alignment with your core values as rigorously as you test for technical skill. Skills can be taught. A fundamental mismatch in values is a cancer to your culture.
Lead with Transparency, Not Just Vision
Marketing on a Budget teaches you to communicate value clearly to customers. The same principle applies internally. A strong culture thrives on transparent communication. You can’t expect buy-in if people are in the dark. Share the wins, but also the challenges. Explain the “why” behind tough decisions. This builds trust, and trust is the currency of a healthy culture. When people feel informed and respected, they engage at a completely different level. They stop being order-takers and start being problem-solvers.
I learned this lesson the hard way with my first venture. We were a small, tight-knit group, and I prided myself on our “family” culture. As we grew, I hired a sales director who was a phenomenal performer on paper. He hit his numbers, but he did it by steamrolling colleagues and hoarding information. I ignored the complaints because the revenue graph looked good. The chapter on Team Building came from this painful mistake. Within a year, two of my best early employees quit. The “family” feeling was gone, replaced by competition and silos. I had to let the sales star go and spend two years rebuilding trust. I realized I had built a culture by accident at first, and then I broke it by not protecting it. That experience taught me that culture is fragile and the leader’s primary job is to be its guardian.
Step 1: Codify Your Core Values
Gather your early team and have a raw, honest conversation. Ask: What behaviors do we admire here? What makes us proud? What drives us crazy? From this, distill 3-5 core values. Make them specific and actionable. Not “integrity,” but “We speak up when we see a problem.” Not “innovation,” but “We reward smart risks, even when they fail.” Write them down. This is your cultural blueprint.
Step 2: Weave Values Into Every Process
Your values must be operational. Revise your hiring questions to probe for them. Start team meetings by recognizing someone who exemplified a value. Make values a key part of performance reviews. When you have to make a tough call, explain how it connects back to what you stand for. If a value is “Customer Obsession,” share customer feedback in every all-hands meeting. Make the abstract concrete.
Step 3: Model the Behavior You Want
This is the most critical step. Culture is caught, not taught. If you value work-life balance but email your team at midnight, you’ve just defined your real culture. If you value transparency but hide bad news, you’ve broken trust. Your team will mirror your actions, not your posters on the wall. Admit your own mistakes publicly. Give credit generously. Show up for people. Your behavior is the most powerful culture-shaping tool you have.
“A business plan that doesn’t plan for the heart of the business—its people and their shared beliefs—is just a spreadsheet waiting for a soul. Build the culture first, and the business will have something truly valuable to stand on.”
— From “Entrepreneurship Secrets for Beginners” by Abdul Vasi
- Culture is not about perks; it’s the set of shared behaviors, beliefs, and values that dictate how work gets done.
- You must be as intentional about building culture as you are about building your product or service. It will form with or without you.
- Hiring for cultural fit (alignment with values) is more important than hiring for skill alone in the early stages.
- Transparent communication from leadership is the fastest way to build trust, which is the bedrock of positive culture.
- As the founder, your daily actions are the ultimate definition of your company’s culture. You cannot delegate this.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I fix a toxic culture that’s already formed?
Start with radical honesty. Acknowledge the problems directly with your team. Revisit and redefine your core values together, then make one or two immediate, symbolic changes that prove you’re serious. Often, this means making a tough decision about a high-performing but culturally toxic person. It’s a long road, but it begins with a clear, decisive first step from leadership.
Can a small startup of 5 people really have a “culture”?
Absolutely. In fact, it’s the most important time to define it. At 5 people, your culture is simply the habits you’re creating every day. The way you run meetings, give feedback, and celebrate wins sets the pattern for when you’re 50 people. A strong, intentional culture at 5 makes scaling far smoother.
How do I measure the health of our culture?
Don’t rely solely on annual surveys. Use simple, frequent pulses: eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score), stay interviews, and anonymous feedback tools. But the best metrics are observational: Is there voluntary collaboration? Do people speak up in meetings? Is turnover low in key roles? Track these qualitative signs as closely as you track revenue.
What if my co-founder and I disagree on cultural priorities?
This is a critical business issue, not a soft one. Sit down and discuss the long-term vision for the company. What kind of workplace do you want to build? Often, disagreements stem from unspoken assumptions. Get them out in the open. If you can’t align on core values, it will create friction in every decision. Resolving this is a prerequisite for a healthy culture.
Are core values just corporate slogans? Do they really matter?
They only matter if you make them matter. If they’re just words on a website, they’re worse than useless—they breed cynicism. Their power comes from being used daily: to hire, to fire, to promote, and to make decisions. When a team sees a leader make a harder, more expensive choice because it aligns with a value, that’s when they become real.
Improving your company’s culture isn’t a weekend retreat or a new mission statement. It’s the slow, steady work of aligning your daily actions with your stated beliefs. It’s choosing the harder right over the easier wrong, especially when no one is looking. It’s understanding that the environment you create is the single biggest factor in whether your business thrives or merely survives.
The most successful entrepreneurs I’ve met didn’t just build companies; they built communities with a shared purpose. They knew that a great culture attracts great people, and great people build great businesses. It starts with you, today, in the next interaction you have with your team. Make it count.
