Does your startup culture need saving? 5 questions to ask yourself.

Want passionate users? Build a great product. Want a passionate team to make that product? Build a great culture.

It’s hard to say what makes a great startup culture. But for the sake of discussion, let’s consider a healthy and strong startup culture to be one where the team is reliable, able to improve itself, and get along with one another with only minimal, well-placed interventions from senior members.

Take a look at the questions below and see if your startup has a culture you can be proud of.

Are you designing your culture the right way?

Culture is partly a product of the natural interactions of your team but that is not to say it cannot be influenced by the founders and leaders of the company. A handful of policies carefully chosen, simple in design, and easy to implement policies can send an unmistakable message that will lead to behavioral change across the company.

A well-crafted policy can have multiple effects, one of which is “[ensuring] that critical operating values persist such as delighting customers or making beautiful products,” writes Ben Horowitz, co-founder of venture capital firm Andreesen/Horowitz, in a blog post Programming Your Culture.

At his firm, employees are fined US$10 for every minute they were late to a meeting with an entrepreneur. “If you don’t think entrepreneurs are more important than venture capitalists, we can’t use you at Andreessen Horowitz,” he says.

Are you babysitting your team?

If strict managerial oversight and contrived incentives are what is needed for your workplace to hum along and be productive, then your startup still has a culture. It’s just one that is best recognized from television’s The Office.

Brian Chesky, founder and CEO of Airbnb, warns entrepreneurs to not fuck up the culture. It is advice borrowed from the inimitable Peter Thiel as Airbnb began the transition from earnest startup to global force.

“The culture is what creates the foundation for all future innovation. If you break the culture, you break the machine that creates your products,” describes Chesky. He hammers this point home with the smart observation that a strong culture means employees are naturally working hard and taking the right risks in order to grow the company. Anything else? You’ve probably fucked up.

Did you just hire an asshole into your team?

It is very easy to get star struck by a killer resume but startups must pay proper attention to personal dynamics if they want to maximize the ability of future and current team members. Being on a rocket ship is fun but it’s definitely a confined space.

Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, definitely knows a lot about rockets and has no desire to let the wrong person on board. He has a simple approach to growing his team. “Don’t hire assholes,” he says.

Musk puts proper emphasis on general ability but he is especially concerned about how the hiring will affect the team as a whole. “It’s very important to like the people you work with, otherwise life [and] your job is gonna be quite miserable,” he notes.

Are you learning from mistakes as a company?

Is office politics choking your culture?