Core values are part of a company’s DNA. It is very important for a start up to set the right values early on in its life. They define what an organization stands for, and expected set of behaviors and skills. In the intense pressure and hustle of early stage startup it’s easy to push softer-skills down the list of priorities in favor of product development and marketing, but at the end of the day your team is what holds your startup together.
At BuyNUse, an Aarya Technovation venture, we have five core values that define our culture and how we want to be as a team. Many of these values have been formed collectively by how we acted early on and how we want to act as a team going forward. Family, employees, customers – all play an important role in creating them. Core values cannot be formed by researching on Google but I believe are rather built on its founder’s values. I had to discover and define my core values. I asked myself questions such as when did I felt most alive? What behaviors stir up intensely positive or negative reactions? At the end of the day, the values need to be in sync with the founder as he/she would be the first brand ambassador of the company.
I started my entrepreneurial journey with a simple vision that I wanted to create something new which would add value and people can use in their daily lives. Social commerce provided an ideal platform to create new bold products in a lean and time effective manner, test the business case and adapt them to suit the needs of the customers thereafter. So, we have efficiency and boldness as our core values.
One of our core values is transparency. It is just one of the principles I live my life by. I believe transparency breeds trust, and trust is the foundation of great teamwork. This trust further extends to customers. If anything about your company isn’t genuine and transparent— from your business partnerships to your marketing campaigns — your customers will be able to tell. Being transparent has also helped us getting the right candidates onboard and associating with right business partners. For example, we very often get candidates from top companies looking for a plush office in a business district. We have realized that such candidates never work for us. In line with our values, we now always look for individuals who can accomplish great things for less, are honest and transparent, respect working in a team, and has the fire in the belly to do and achieve great things. Similarly, we never entertain potential business partners who want to associate with us for the wrong reasons. There have been instances when we get approached by so-called-experts expecting commissions for introducing to the right contacts in the industry. We have shown many of such the door!
Another core value of our company is environmental care. I believe we should take care of our planet. It is very much possible to not only focus on the company's growth in terms of its assets but also think about the welfare of our environment at the same time. We, as a company, recycle, reduce and reuse as much as possible. For example, as one of our marketing efforts, we distributed recycled shopping bags with our logo and it was quite successful. One of my quirks is that my requirement for office isn’t a flashy place but a simple office with a tree outside my window. When I moved and set up the office in Hyderabad, it was a difficult to find such an office. After much looking around, I finally got what I was looking for, and that too at a great price. I have a big, mature tree outside the window and when I see it, I feel its aliveness. This tree for sure has survived few generations, its roots reaching deep into soil. Rain and wind have pushed and pulled at its branches, but it is wise enough to bend just enough to let the elements be what they need to be, so the tree can continue to carry out its role. It inspires me in its confident calm outside my window.
All in all, I think there are no universally right set of core values. Most important is to determine those which would hold your organization steadfast. Select startup values that enable team members to flourish and the company to win in the marketplace. Refer to your values in times of turmoil. It’s easy to stand true to your values when everything’s sunny, but they matter most when times are tough.BuyNUse
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