A plague on startups are teammates who think they're working a job vs. playing on a team. Job = tasks nominally done, tit for tat Team = performance matters, win together, lose together Many people know what their job is. But just as many don't know the game they're playing, what business they are building, how that salary gets funded, where the equity value materializes. Or more generously, they can't put their hands on the tether between what they do and the ultimate outcomes of the company. (Side note: have a lot of these people? Perhaps you over-hired or over-specialized) A disconnect between individuals and the team mission breaks teams, because it breaks incentive alignment. And comp is too blunt of instrument to address: salary, benefits, bonuses, equity: these typically fall into "I get it anyway" short term rewards and "was it really me and will I really get it?" long term rewards. You have to rely on the softer tools of culture, but culture is complicated and slow to adapt. It relies on a motivated and visible few. It's defined by the loudest (good and bad.) It has to be baked into literally everything. FWIW - shared mission does not have to be around financial performance, though it's good to be on a team that wants to win. It can be about craft or speed or good vibes or even shameless ambition (in service of customers!), but 9/10 people in the company have to be aligned to it in a sincere way for it to work out. And its FINE to want to work a job. Queue of tasks in, set of deliverables out. But it's not a great fit for the high risk / high reward (and often, high comp) game of a startup. So beware hiring people for jobs. Instead, build a team 🫶

We’re just humans working with other humans to try to use a magical computer box to make things other humans will use in exchange for money. The pursuit of an ideal is silly; build stuff people love with smart people you enjoy thinking with.

One of the most broken parts of the PM industrial complex is that it often treats bending over backwards for customers as heretical to the practice of good product management. How many times have I read about PMs looking for advice on how to - say no to sales - say no to customers - avoid one off requests - block interrupts - etc etc But in B2B - customers demands are the map to the promised land. Because these demanding customers? They care enough about the problem to make demands! What a gift. And almost all small hungry startups are good at responding to them, out of necessity. Every pitch includes the sentence “we don’t solve that today, but would be happy to spend more time with you to see if we could.” And the best mean it, and the elite actually build it. But as the team grows and predictability reigns supreme and layers…layer…all sorts of micro friction starts to creep in. Interrupts are incompatible with sprints. “Scale” becomes a gatekeeper, and new ideas are put through committee and killing them taken as a badge of honor. The team loses the ability to do small things by saying they’re prioritizing big things, but the reality is the big things are slow too. Sales people start asking “permission” to talk about features. PMs roll their eyes at “over promising.” Folks settle into the little box of their roles and the product starts to fit in little boxes too. But what a loss! The lifeblood that got you to where you are (those demanding customers) start to look elsewhere, at new little startups who are willing to say: “we don’t solve that today, but would be happy to spend more time with you to see if we could.” You start to lose, and you might even call it refining ICP. But it doesn’t have to be this way. I know first hand that with the right culture and leadership even big teams with steady products and surefire operations can stay attuned to demanding customers. That “might we?” can still turn into a launch 10 business days later. And that, with the right technical leadership and product vision, those “one offs” layer neatly into a platform strategy that supports them. But you have to care to cultivate this, with the right team and the right expectations and the right “might we?”s. And ofc ofc this isn’t a “say yes to everything” manifesto; the secret to a great strategy is what you say no to, and all that. No one wants a chaos factory or a custom software services co (in saas), but I see companies turn into No factories more often than they turn into Yes tornados. I’ll write another day on Yes tornados. And while I’m speaking mostly to builder teams, I think this concept of responsiveness to customers is important across *all* teams. You want the vibe in and outside your co to be “Done.” - I need help w my account! “Done.” - Let’s get an offer to this candidate. “Done.” - Does anyone have a report? “Done.” Not “not my job” or “I’ll see who can” or “it’s not aligned to an OKR” but—“Done.” Done will become a bellwether for your culture. Say it often. Say it quickly. Embrace demands. They’re a gift.