Buiding a company culture

I’ve been thinking about company culture a lot since I started working full time on the Startup Magazine and started building up our team.

When you hear the term “company culture” you might think of major companies with huge budgets who can afford to have well designed and attractive office space, which include relaxation areas with games, comfy sofas, and limitless free beer for all their staff. We’ve all seen pictures of places like Google, Innocent and Playfish. Is that what “company culture” is really about?

In truth, it shouldn’t be the superficial things like the facilities in the office space which define your company culture, it should be the other way round: your company culture should define the sort of business you are, the way you relate to your team and your customers, and that’s what determines what things you have in your office!

Listen to this excellent discussion in Lexoo’s podcast on how to shape company culture when you’re a startup with the Head of Talent at Forward Partners, Matt Buckland:

Episode 2 – How to Shape Startup Culture Using Archetypes – Matt Buckland, Forward Partners

After you’ve listened to the podcast, take a look at how another startup, MustWin, went about discovering both its brand and its company culture and see how the founders believe that brand and culture are inextricably linked.

For me, company culture is something I’ve decided we need to work on collaboratively as a team. We need to be clear on what we want to achieve, and how our relationships with our customers, partners, sponsors, and with each other are vital components of the positive culture we want to achieve at the Startup Magazine. I’ll keep you updated as we move forward.