Don’t Think of Your Startup as a ‘Family’
There’s a much better term you can use
In the early years of my company, we did not extend an employee’s one-year-long contract because their performance was okay, but not outstanding. Also, we were in the middle of a financing round and had to save on cash. It was a perfectly rational decision. However, since it was the first instance that we had let go of somebody under such circumstances, the rest of the team was confused. I had been calling our companies’ culture “family-like” many times before. That didn’t help at all in the situation.
“How could those monsters in management cold-heartedly fire a family member?” was the question written over the faces of the staff. The mood of the team was down for weeks, and we probably lost more cash on unproductive time than we saved on the employee’s salary.
The family dilemma
Startup founders often praise their “family-like” work culture with good intentions. A “family” sounds like a warm contrast to a bigger corporation’s mechanical, reserved, and often highly political environment. In my startup, employees would often go out, play sports, or vacation together. On a Friday at 10 p.m., you could usually find people in the office drinking beer and having fun. People bonded. You could feel that warm, cordial…
