The Invisible Hand of Startup Culture

The following is excerpted and adapted from my private notes during my time at Predikto (2014-2018), exploring the qualitative aspects of building and maintaining healthy startup cultures.

This isn’t about technology stacks, architectural decisions, or how to build specific features. Instead, let’s explore something less tangible but equally critical: how individuals within a company interact with each other, with customers, and with problems. At a micro level, this shapes company strategy and composition. At a macro level, we call this culture.

Culture is a broad and uncontrollable force that impacts the first instincts of individuals on the ground. While it can’t be directly controlled (though many try), it can be influenced. The goal is to shape this influence to ensure:

  • Clear understanding and separation of roles
  • Respected flow of information through the company
  • Curated trust from the market
  • Maintained focus on what matters

The Four Pillars and Their Boundaries

The biggest risk to company culture is a lack of respect and understanding between the four major roles regarding each other’s boundaries and challenges. Trust and the perception of quality to the customer is built on the backs of all roles, and all are equally important:

Sales is the mouth of the company:

  • Responsible for first impressions
  • Leads conversations
  • Educates potential customers

Product is the brain of the company:

  • Listens to customers, research, and engineers
  • Ensures the right things are being built
  • Balances competing priorities

Engineering is the hands of the company:

  • Ensures things are built right
  • Maintains technical excellence
  • Manages technical debt and architecture

Management is the nervous system:

  • Ensures all other roles function harmoniously
  • Prevents inter-role conflicts
  • Validates customer fit with company direction

Where Things Go Wrong

The cracks in company culture often appear at the boundaries between these roles. Here’s where trouble typically brews:

  1. Sales Misalignment

    • Sees unmet customer demands in isolation
    • Misses technical feasibility constraints
    • Blames product/engineering for strategic decisions

  2. Product Overreach

    • Disrespects engineering’s scoping estimates
    • Underestimates costs of pivots and uncertainty
    • Pushes too many changes too quickly

  3. Technical Tunnel Vision

    • Product and Engineering disconnect from sales reality
    • Underestimates complexity of technical sales
    • Struggles to explain black-box solutions in nascent markets

  4. Management Missteps

    • Fails to maintain role boundaries
    • Aligns too closely with one role over others
    • Loses perspective on the bigger picture

The Reality of Competing Incentives

We can’t ignore the reality of differing financial and professional motivations. A commissioned salesperson and a salaried product owner will naturally have different priorities and perspectives. This misalignment of incentives can create friction in:

  • Priority setting
  • Resource allocation
  • Strategic direction
  • Definition of success

Building a Culture of Quality and Trust

To navigate these challenges, companies should influence culture to prioritize:

  1. Building quality products
  2. Curating trust
  3. Measuring the right things

The goals shouldn’t be “sell to customer X” or “hit revenue number Y”, but rather:

  • “Gain X customer references”
  • “Hit engagement metric Y”
  • “Achieve quality benchmark Z”

The Role of Leadership

Yes, financial realities exist. Companies exist to make money. But part of the conscious separation of roles is that management and team leads should:

  1. Buffer the broader company from pure financial pressures
  2. Focus teams on metrics that lead to adoption and trust
  3. Create space for long-term quality over short-term gains

Conclusion

Culture isn’t something you can control with an iron fist or a detailed playbook. It’s an organic, living thing that grows from the daily interactions and decisions of everyone in the company. The key is to understand its importance, respect the boundaries between roles, and consciously work to influence it in positive directions.

The best cultures don’t emerge from trying to control every interaction, but from creating an environment where:

  • Roles are clear but collaborative
  • Information flows freely but respectfully
  • Quality and trust are valued above all
  • Long-term thinking balances short-term pressures

Note (2024): Looking back at these notes now, I’m struck by how these observations about role separation and culture have only become more relevant in the age of AI blending roles, corporate restructurings and flattenings, the great resignation, and end of ZIRP. The tension between different roles and their perspectives remains a critical challenge in building successful technology companies.