The 6 core values at Snapcommerce and their impact on culture
Over the past ~18 months we have added ~100 full time employees to Snapcommerce and expect to add another 100+ over the next 12 months. One of the most common questions we get in the interview process is about the company culture and values. We decided to put this in writing and share openly our 6 core values and how it has impacted our culture.
In the early days of the company, I never fully appreciated the importance of writing down and reinforcing these values. However, as the company scales, it becomes critical that everyone hires for these values, uses them during performance reviews, references them when making decisions and truly embodies them across everything that they do. This is amplified by the fact that we are now a fully remote company with employees across the USA, Canada, and Europe.
These values help to keep us aligned as a high-performance team and are the core building blocks of the culture that we have been able to create.
Our 6 core company values are: Think Big, Move Fast, Same Goal / One Team, Data Driven, Open & Transparent & Be an owner.
Let’s go deeper into each one of these values and see how they help to drive a positive impact on our culture.
1. Think Big — Pushing ourselves to reach higher is in our DNA. We relentlessly take risks, dream big and challenge the status quo.
We are not here for second place. This is not a lifestyle business. We think big and make bold bets. Given the speed at which innovation moves, you simply cannot break out of the noise and build something that creates meaningful impact over multiple generations unless you take risks, and challenge the status quo.
This core value means that as a company, we are constantly thinking about taking big steps forward as opposed to incremental changes. When projects or ideas are proposed, we discuss and measure impact as a multiple of our current impact. This drives innovation and frankly keeps everyone excited about what we are working on.
2. Move Fast — We get things done by being incredibly resourceful. We’re always building, testing, and iterating.
Moving fast is a competitive advantage and one of the key ways in which startups can outmaneuver the incumbents. This doesn’t just mean working harder. This means using solutions that already exist instead of re-inventing the wheel, building minimum viable products to quickly test and iterate, and putting processes in place that allow us get things done fast and efficiently without having to redo work.
What this results in is a culture of ruthless prioritization and an extreme level of resourcefulness. This means that even with limited human, capital, and mind space resources — we are able to move the needle in very short order. A product launch that most companies would measure in years or quarters, we measure in months. Features that would typically take months, we aim to deliver in weeks or in days.
3. Same Goal, One Team — We are all working towards the same goal. We put our personal ambitions and egos aside to maximize the success of the team.
We are all in this together. Every employee at Snapcommerce has equity in the company. We have a big vision to provide access for everyone to experience more of what life has to offer — regardless of their income or circumstance. With such a big challenge ahead of us, we need to make sure that everyone is aligned and working towards the same goal of helping our customers and in the process creating equity value for the company and for themselves.
What has materialized is a culture where everyone is wanting to help each other regardless of how busy they are and the projects on their plate. Usually the first piece of feedback new employees give me is how pleasantly surprised they are at how much time everyone is willing to spend with them in answering questions and guiding them to success. Our leaders worry less about their own title or growing their teams, but rather are aligned in helping the organization grow in the most effective way. Everyone is focussed on the bigger picture, the mission, the vision, and the success of the team as a whole.
4. Data Driven — Smart ideas come from anyone and everyone on the team, and we let customers and data decide what sticks.
As companies scale up they often start making decisions based on the HiPPO (highest paid person’s opinion). We make decisions based on data. As we look to build new products or improve on existing ones, we ask our customers what they want. When there are strong competing opinions (which is great) on how a feature should be built, the default is to A/B test and let the data decide what sticks. Measurement is built across every level of the organization. This doesn’t just apply to product. We encourage everyone to use data when presenting or discussing any idea, proposal, or strategy. ‘We should do x’ doesn’t work nearly as well as ‘We should do x based on this data’.
The success of a company is the summation of all the decisions it makes. Being data driven has created a culture of making good decisions. If a wrong decision is made, the data will quickly force us to course correct.
5. Open & Transparent — We share knowledge and strategy openly, present information with evidence, seek truths and give honest feedback.
This starts from the top. We share data, strategy and financials openly. Every single employee has access to our complete strategy, our product roadmap, and our detailed financials. They can see our complete P&L and balance sheet and are encouraged to ask questions and discuss financial performance. Every employee can search through google drive and see decks, documents, and spreadsheets across the entire organization and since the early founding days of the company. Teams openly share what they are working on, their goals, and the data that they are using to track success.
This level of openness and transparency builds a culture of trust. There is no information asymmetry and everyone can operate with full context and can move fast. Most importantly, this enables open conversations across teams, with leadership, up and down the organization. We can have open conversations, are honest about what we know and don’t know, and have a strong cycle of open and transparent feedback. We share not just our wins, but also when there are failures and we can learn. Everyone understands what we are doing, why we are doing it, and where we are going.
6. Be An Owner — We take pride in our work and pursue our goals with focus, hustle and determination. We are the owners of outcomes.
The single most important attribute that I have seen that determines the success of an individual in their career (whether at Snapcommerce or elsewhere) is being an owner. In fact, I believe this is one of the most important attributes in an individuals personal life (financial, relationships, health, happiness…) as well. Owning your own outcomes allows you to go further, do better, learn, lead and become the best version of yourself. The people who consistently exceed expectations at work are those who take ownership of whatever it is they are working on.
As an organization grows, it becomes easy for people to complete a defined task and hand it off. However, this core value pushes everyone to really own whatever they are working on end to end — whether it is a board deck, a process overhaul, or even a line of code. There is less that falls through the cracks as employees want to follow their work from planning to building to impact. This ownership creates a sense of pride and accomplishment and ultimately creates happiness and fulfillment at work no matter how big or small the project is.
How do we reinforce these values?
A quick note on the ways in which we at Snapcommerce reinforce these core values. Hoping this can be helpful to other entrepreneurs.
Hiring process — Include evaluation of core values in the interview scorecard
Onboarding — Reiterate core values in onboarding documentation and meetings with specific examples on thinking, strategy, projects that exhibit our core values
OKR Planning — Keep core values front and center during quarterly OKR planning
Decisions — Encourage referring to core values when faced with a difficult decision.
Company wide meetings — Leave time at the end of every meeting for employees to call out anyone else for exhibiting a core value (we usually have 3–5 shout outs a week)
Performance Reviews — Include sections for ‘top values exhibited’ and ‘top areas for growth’ as it relates to our values as a part of the self, peer, and manager formal performance reviews.
Job Leveling — Our core values are a key criteria when it comes to employee career progression and promotions.
