Your Company Culture: More Important Than Your Product?

These entrepreneurs are challenging the traditional notions of building a company. For them, it starts with nurturing company culture and acknowledging that’s just as important as developing your product.

“When you think of creating a company, all the focus is usually on what you want to make: How the app will work on someone’s phone or how attractive your product will look like on store shelves,” writes Tim Donnelly in this post for Inc. “There’s a new wave of entrepreneurs who believe the real key to long-term success comes from focusing on designing the company — not the product.”

Donnelly shares insights from a panel that gathered to discuss the topic at the Northside Entrepreneurship Festival in Brooklyn including Anthony Casalena, CEO of Squarespace, Chris Shiflett, co-founder of the Web conference Brooklyn Beta, and Whitney Hess, the principal consultant at user-experience consultancy Vicarious Partners. According to the panel, there are four things founders should consider in order to develop a solid company culture: 1) Have a crystal-clear mission statement; 2) Be flexible/Ditch the rules; 3) Build the right team; and 4) Forget about titles — at a startup, roles are constantly shifting.