Startup Culture – Be Clear

Clarity exposes inefficiencies and improves a startup’s execution. For this purpose, we include “Be Clear” on the AccelerEyes’ culture list.

Being clear often boils down to simplifying things. I love this quote from a recent Salesloft tweet, “Simplicity – the art of maximizing the amount of work not done.”

There are several ways that we seek to embed clarity into our culture. Here are some ideas:

Engineering

Aggressive combating of code bloat. Code verbosity is culturally demonized. It’s one of the primary things we look for when evaluating a job candidate’s code: Is their code simple?
Clarity in resource scheduling and project progress, through JIRA issue tracking
Ongoing emphasis on concise, complete documentation
Ongoing emphasis on product user-friendliness, especially the Getting Started components (e.g. download, installation, licensing, and examples).

Sales

Clarity in deal pipeline, through salesforce.com opportunity funnels
Clarity in customer communication, through emphasis on crisp emails and phone calls

Marketing

Clarity in website (e.g. sensible navigation, clear pricing, big download button, product benchmarks, customer examples and testimonials)
30-point fonts or greater on slide decks
Strong social engagement (e.g. blog, twitter)
Brevity in website and collateral type

Customer Support

Vibrant product forums (e.g. every post receives a response from an AccelerEyes engineer)
Rapid response times on incoming support emails

Internal Communication and Reporting

Emphasis on meeting scarcity and brevity
Demonizing of “beating around the bush” and “excuses”; rather, stare facts in the face and adjust plans accordingly
Internal company dashboards projected on a wall so that everyone has real-time sales and product development information

As a startup grows, it can be a challenge to keep things simple and avoid bureaucracy creep.

What things do you do to maintain clarity and simplicity in your startup? Do you emphasize these in your culture?