3 Keys To Growing Your Company And Maintaining A Thriving Culture At The Same Time

In the early days of my superfood company, Four Sigmatic, my entire team was made up of just six guys from my home country, Finland, all working remotely.

And that original team worked well — we got along great, had similar experiences, and were all extremely passionate about our mission. But we grew much more quickly than we could have anticipated. We started selling our mushroom coffee overseas, which involved frequent trips to and from the States, and we eventually relocated there completely.

Before long, we realized that our culture would need to change if we wanted to keep growing and cultivating new mushroom lovers. After all, six Finnish dudes does not a diverse company make.

And that’s what we did. Now, just a few years later, our company is roughly 90% American and about half women. But we’re all still fun-guys.

Scaling from six employees to over 40 in a short period of time will undoubtedly change the way your company operates — and that includes the culture you’ve worked hard to establish. But it’s crucial to keep company culture a top priority, no matter how quickly you grow.

Here are a few tips to help you nail the scale, and keep everyone on board in the process:

1. Keep your mission front and center, but be flexible when you need to be.

When your company is growing, you have to keep reinventing it as you go.

Aside from completely changing the gender and nationality composition of our team, we’ve gone from having no office to having three — one in Venice Beach, one in Manhattan, and one in Helsinki.

But we began as a remote company, and that’s still a major component of our company’s DNA.

One of our core values is results with freedom — we encourage our ‘Shroommates to work however makes the most sense for them, as long as their work gets done. That’s still true, but now, we’re adapting to meet the needs of a growing team. We don’t want our employees to be chained to their desks, so we’re testing a “soft” office culture. When your team’s in the office at least some of the time, communication happens more quickly, it’s easier to manage key projects, and everyone’s on the same page. You also get some quality face time with folks you’d only ever see on a video call.

Part of being a company leader is being open to rethinking the way you do things.

For people accustomed to working remotely for years, it’s strange to have them come into an office. (And vice versa for those who are used to working 9–5 in a cubicle.) We’re not sure yet what the magic number is — whether it’s one day a week in the office, two days, or three — but we’re keeping an open mind.

These are the kinds of things you need to be flexible about if you have a young company. And even once you settle on something, you’ll likely rethink it again in a few years.

That’s just the nature of having a startup.

2. Ditch the meetings, document instead.

We all know what it’s like to be ripped from a deep flow state for a meeting that feels pointless. In most offices today, there are simply too many of them. And they take employees’ focus off more important, high-value work.

I’ve never met a meeting I liked, so at my company, we avoid them at all costs.

Instead of endless meetings, I focus on documentation — guidelines, manuals, and the like. A lot of companies hate documentation because they associate it with bureaucracy, but I find that it keeps employees focused and productive instead.

Here’s what that looks like:

At the end of every month, every Four Sigmatic employee writes a one-page document called a “30–30 report.” It includes key points that happened in the last 30 days and a plan of action for the next 30 days. It also includes their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) so they can easily summarize how they got there.

Our team members also create a playbook for their role where they list out their main objectives, key contacts, and daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly tasks. The idea here is to troubleshoot pitfalls and keep everyone on track with clearly defined goals — no whiteboard required.

Management with clearly laid out objectives is always preferable to micromanaging every little thing your employees do.

And in my opinion, if you start documenting early on, you can scale much faster than you expected because everyone is crystal clear on what needs to get done.

3. Get it together.

In the early days of your company, management is easier for the simple reason that there are fewer people to manage.

But as your company grows, you might find yourself having to lead multiple departments. As you can imagine, this makes it increasingly tough to get everyone on the same page — even more so if you have a remote team.

That said, there are a lot of great tools that can help you keep things organized. First, it’s a good idea to use some sort of cloud-based service so that everyone has access to the same documents. Google Drive is a no-brainer when it comes to collaboration, but lesser-known cloud services Air Table, Monday.com, and Base Camp are great for project management. And, of course, communication tools like Slack and Skype are worth investing in as well.

When you’re growing, it’s harder to get (and keep) everybody on the same page. It takes a little extra work to keep the lines of communication open, but it’s essential. And there are plenty of tools to lighten the load.

Scaling your business is exciting — it means your company is thriving — but it’s also a lot of work. And it inevitably means things will have to change. But if you’re smart about it, stay true to your initial vision, remain flexible, and take advantage of the tools available, your company will become something far greater than you ever expected.