Building corporate culture is certainly not a simple task, particularly for startups. The CEOs specially play an important role in designing the company culture. They must put priority on the urgent tasks and deadline-driven targets, which may immediately affect daily operation in the company. However, building a solid culture within the company is not less important, as it influences the overall atmosphere at workplace.

Many CEOs successfully design their corporate culture despite startups. A survey conducted by CultureIQ, a survey platform for employee, concludes that ‘culture’ in a company refers to how things get done in an organization. Of course, culture here includes how you build teamwork and boost innovation, how you decor and manage the workplace, and how you take care of the employees.

Corporate Culture: Lessons Learned from Startups

Based on the survey, CultureIQ release the list of Next-Billion-Dollar Startups and the way they designed the company culture. The following are some lessons you can learn from how the CEOs of these Next Billion-Dollar Startups build the corporate culture.

Postmates

The company is present in more than 250 cities. The delivery site company is now on the process for going public. Founding Postmates in 2011, the Founder – Bastian Lehmann – faced many obstacles in growing the company. It had to deal with tight competitors, like Grubhub and Seamless in its infancy.

So, how did Lehmann build the corporate culture from the scratch? The key lies on daily meeting they conducted to deal with the problems. He called it ‘bad delivery meetings.’ The team discussed the worst deliveries on the day before, categorized the problems, and tried to find the solutions.

Lehmann wanted to be the first person to know if something goes awry during the delivery process. By reviewing each type of problems during the delivery, they could learn and adjust the services on the next days. The meetings were sometimes held spontaneously, but knowing what was wrong with the services was essential to figure out the solutions.

SeatGeek

Another name in the list of Next-Billion-Dollar Startups is SeatGeek. The founders – Jake Groetzinger and Russ D’Souza emphasize transparency and workplace atmosphere in building the corporate culture. They called it a happy headquarter. Before moving to the headquarter, the team worked in three separate offices in New York City. The founders felt the team disjointed.

Moving the team to the new Headquarter in Manhattan was proved to improve the working environment. The collaboration between the members improved, thanks to the open office environment. Communication became easier with both the team members and the other teams. Approaching people became more effortless and they could create a more natural communication.

A new office is an upgrade for the workplace atmosphere. However, open communication is the true key in building a strong team and culture. The cofounders concluded that in-person communication would never be beatable by modern tools like emails and chartrooms.

Of course, many other startups shared their strategies in building the corporate culture from the beginning. Of course, it is not an easy tasks since the conditions and challenges vary with the company. With commitment, everything can be achieved, right?