A lot of people would like to run a startup but think they don’t have what it takes to succeed. They think they don’t have enough experience or enough knowledge to build a startup. Though how do we get the needed experience? By building a startup, of course :). So, instead of looking for reasons why we cann0t build something from scratch, we should look for reasons why we should start right now. It’s like starting to learn a new language. You take it one word at a time, one experience at a time, and each day is a new lesson.

There might be a lot of people telling us a million reasons that we’ll fail. But who are these people? They’re the ones that never had the guts to try to do something from scratch. Actually it’s their fear speaking, not their experience. When you talk to someone who did a startup and succeeded, they’ll never tell you not to try. They’ll tell you the problems that they faced, the solutions that they found, they’ll tell you it’s hard, but also rewarding. There’s few better feelings than the one you have when you realize you’ve build something from scratch, something that’s working and growing under your eyes.

What are the key ingredients for success? There’s not a clear list of all these, though there’s one important point here. If you start doing something that you don’t really like, you might succeed. Though the odds are not very good. Nevertheless, if you start doing something that you really love, you’ll find a lot of resources in it, and if you don’t give up as problems appear, eventually you’ll succeed.

What’s this post about? It’s about deciding on something you’ll like doing for the rest of your life, focusing on it, and building something from scratch around it.

For any company, finding a way to align company values with the employee’s personal values might be the key to become a great place to work for. This is something that some managers know and others don’t or completely ignore. In the article, when I refer to the company I actually mean the managers in that company, because they are the decision makers.

Company values

Why do big companies define values like “customer focus” or “ethics”, “collaboration” or “ownership”? How much do these values worth to the employees?
Most companies assume that the employees have to take for granted the defined values. They think that when an employee signs the contract, he or she also accepts the company values without question. Actually these values have to be presented to the employees, in a way that they understand; not just simple words, but real values.

Personal values

Each employee has personal, very important values. Some want to be great technical persons, some want to be good advertisers, others want to be good managers, others just want to be left alone while they work, and so on. We all have personal values which we use day by day and which are very important to us. These personal values almost always differ from the companies values. A good manager know that these values have to be aligned somehow to the companies values. And not to all of the companies values, but to a part of them. Even to one company value is a good accomplishment.

How do we align the company values with the employee’s personal values?

Most managers try to make the employees believe in all the companies values. Instead, they should try to align one or two of the company values with the personal values of each employee. The manager’s purpose is to create a great environment to work in, so if the employee feels helped and encouraged to grow in something he or she thinks it’s important, than that’s the way to go. This might be the key to having a good and motivated team.