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Let's Get Back to Our Why
Does Startup Success Validate Us Personally?
How We Secretly Lose Control of Our Startups
Should Kids Follow in Our Founder Footsteps?
The Evolution of Entry Level Workers
Assume Everyone Will Leave in Year One
Stop Listening to Investors
Was Mortgaging My Life Worth it?
What's My Startup Worth in an Acquisition?
When Our Ambition is Our Enemy
Are Startups in a "Silent Recession"?
The 5 Types of Startup Funding
What Is Startup Funding?
Do Founders Deserve Their Profit?
Michelle Glauser on Diversity and Inclusion
The Utter STUPIDITY of "Risking it All"
Committees Are Where Progress Goes to Die
More Money (Really Means) More Problems
Why Most Founders Don't Get Rich
Investors will be Obsolete
Why is a Founder so Hard to Replace?
We Can't Grow by Saying "No"
Do People Really Want Me to Succeed?
Is the Problem the Player or the Coach?
Will Investors Bail Me Out?
The Value of Actually Getting Paid
Why do Founders Suck at Asking for Help?
Wait a Minute before Giving Away Equity
You Only Think You Work Hard
SMALL is the New Big — Embracing Efficiency in the Age of AI
The 9 Best Growth Agencies for Startups
This is BOOTSTRAPPED — 3 Strategies to Build Your Startup Without Funding
Never Share Your Net Worth
A Steady Hand in the Middle of the Storm
Risk it All vs Steady Paycheck
How About a Startup that Just Makes Money?
How to Recruit a Rockstar Advisor
Why Having Zero Experience is a Huge Asset
My Competitor Got Funded — Am I Screwed?
The Hidden Treasure of Failed Startups
If It Makes Money, It Makes Sense
Why do VCs Keep Giving Failed Founders Money?
$10K Per Month isn't Just Revenue — It's Life Support
The Ridiculous Spectrum of Investor Feedback
Startup CEOs Aren't Really CEOs
Series A, B, C, D, and E Funding: How It Works
Best Pitch Decks Ever: The Most Successful Fundraising Pitches You Need to Know
When to Raise Funds
Why Aren't Investors Responding to Me?
Should I Regret Not Raising Capital?
Unemployment Cases — Why I LOOOOOVE To Win Them So Much.
How Much to Pay Yourself
Heat-Seeking Missile: WePay’s Journey to Product-Market Fit — Interview with Rich Aberman, Co-Founder of Wepay
The R&D technique for startups: Rip off & Duplicate
Why Some Startups Win.
Chapter #1: First Steps To Validate Your Business Idea
Product Users, Not Ideas, Will Determine Your Startup’s Fate
Drop Your Free Tier
Your Advisors Are Probably Wrong
Growth Isn't Always Good
How to Shut Down Gracefully
How Does My Startup Get Acquired?
Can Entrepreneurship Be Taught?
How to Pick the Wrong Co-Founder
Staying Small While Going Big
Investors are NOT on Our Side of the Table
Who am I Really Competing Against?
Why Can't Founders Replace Themselves?
Actually, We Have Plenty of Time
Quitting vs Letting Go
How Startups Actually Get Bought
What if I'm Building the Wrong Product?
Are Founders Driven by Fear or Greed?
Why I'm Either Working or Feeling Guilty
Startup Financial Assumptions
Why Every Kid Should be a Startup Founder
We Only Have to be Right Once
If a Startup Sinks, Founders Go Down With it
Founder Success: We Need a Strict Definition of Personal Success
Is Quiet Quitting a Problem at Startup Companies?
Founder Exits are Hard Work and Good Fortune, Not "Good Luck"
Finalizing Startup Projections
All Founders are Beloved In Good Times
Our Startup Culture of Entitlement
The Bullshit Case for Raising Capital
How do We Manage Our Founder Flaws?
What If my plan for retirement is "never retire"?
Startup Failure is just One Chapter in Founder Life
6 Similarities between Startup Founders and Pro Athletes
All Founders Make Bad Decisions — and That's OK
Startup Board Negotiations: How do I tell the board I need a new deal?
Founder Sacrifice — At What Point Have I Gone Too Far?
Youth Entrepreneurship: Can Middle Schoolers be Founders?
Living the Founder Legend Isn't so Fun
Why Do VC Funded Startups Love "Fake Growth?"
How Should I Share My Wealth with Family?
How Many Deaths Can a Startup Survive?
This is Probably Your Last Success
Why Do We Still Have Full-Time Employees?
The Case Against Full Transparency

What do We "Owe" Our Employees?

Wil Schroter

What do We "Owe" Our Employees?

There's a more implicit social contract at a startup, which says that if our teams are going to kill themselves and take on risk to build something amazing with us, they rightfully expect some rewards for that risk. Let's take money off the table — because anyone can pay money and we all understand that.

What payback do our employees want that wasn't in their offer letter?

We Owe Them Our Attention

Nothing sucks worse than not being heard. We can almost map every major problem back to someone genuinely feeling like what they have to say just never really had an ear. The biggest casualty to startup growth is internal communication, but we're not really just talking about meetings and Slack messages. We're talking about folks no longer having the ear of the founding team — the folks they really committed to, and those that can shape real change.

We owe it to our team to never close them off, especially when it's something we don't want to hear. We owe them a seat at the table, even if that seat doesn't come with a big fancy title. It doesn't mean they have to "tell us what to do" but they've earned the right to share their opinion. Side note: If you're an employee reading this, the Founding team or management has also earned the right to be treated respectfully with how that opinion is shared.

We Owe Them Transparency

No person would ever say, "Hey, I'd love to work on a relationship where every year that goes by I know less and less about how the relationship is going." While communication is important, so is a certain level of transparency. Transparency isn't just about letting folks in on big decisions or sensitive company information. It's about being transparent about the thought process of how decisions were made to begin with.

We're entering a new era where it's OK to open up and discuss what's actually going on inside our heads. Even when we make bad decisions, it's not just about saying, "We fucked up." It's about saying, "Here's where my head was going into this, and here's why I tried to do the right thing with the information I had, but here's where it all went wrong." The answer may still be awful, but folks deserve to know how we even got to that answer.

We Owe Them Humility

Success is the superfood of the ego. As we slowly transform from struggling startup to industry titan, our self-confidence both personally and across the company grows. We feel that we have become something bigger than ourselves, as often our identity is intertwined in the success of the company.

But that success cannot come at the price of our humility. We owe it to our team to remind them constantly that "we" got here — not just "me." Our success is a result of every single input from our team, not just a single heroic act of the Founder. We cannot find ourselves on a pedestal above everyone else, because it's at that moment we have our greatest separation. We owe it to our staff to stand with them, not above them.

This list goes on and on. If there's something you'd like to add to this list, tweet me @wilschroter and let me update this article and our Startup Therapy podcast!

In Case You Missed It

Treat Departing Employees like Future Employees While saying goodbye to departing employees isn’t easy, how we handle it is totally in our control and can impact our future professional relationships.

What If The Founder's Personality Is A Startup's Liability? What do we do if we suspect our own personalities might be a problem in our startup? How do we know if it's even something to dig into? And if we do find out we're the problem, what do we do about it?

Founder Reputation (podcast) Reputation: we all have an understanding of the long term & lasting impacts it has on your standing as a Founder, but how do we cultivate our reputation? Remember, your reputation is very hard to build & very easy to destroy — so listen up!

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Michelle Good

Interested in reading the full content of this article but it stops at "We're talking about folks no longer having..."

Reply4 years ago

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