What defines a start-up culture?

Start-up culture is a lot different from corporate culture, and it all starts with new ways of working, flat hierarchies, wearing multiple hats, and being innovative and creative to break down the barriers to growth. What is the PriceHubble start-up culture like and who is responsible for setting it?

The ideal start-up culture is based on four key factors:

1. Personality: unique, be yourself, exactly as you are
2. Passion: motivation and eagerness to work for something that you find important, sense of belonging
3. Authenticity: being productive and engaged, homely feeling at work
4. Agility: flexibility in working hours and freely choosing a space at the office that suits your needs

Start-ups should also follow these attributes:

1. Can-do attitude
2. Work smarter not harder
3. Focus on collaboration and teamwork to accomplish common goals
4. Making a difference with your contributions

PriceHubble is an organisation working in an international hybrid work environment, which is a business model combining remote work with office work, offering more flexibility for our employees. Currently, we are operating in nine countries, of which eight are located in Europe and one in Asia, and we are planning our expansion into other markets in the very near future. Our CEO, Julien Schillewaert, and COO / Founder, Markus Stadler, together with all the Managing Directors and Line Managers and the HR Operations department are leading effectively to be able to create the desired start-up culture. We are making sure that our employees have guidelines and resources, receive encouragement and are able to take on learning and development programmes for their growth.

How does PriceHubble build a successful start-up culture?

1. We hire the right people who we believe will be the best fit for the position and who match the team and our culture.
2. We have established our three core values: be bold, own it and team up, which are very important for our organisation.
3. We lead by example with empathy, patience and kindness in mind, and we learn from our own mistakes.
4. We offer a remote work set-up, which brings more flexibility and adaptability from the very beginning, and we thrive as a company no matter where we are working from.
5. We maintain a positive working environment by providing the right kind of space for our employees, encouraging creativity and team-building events.
6. We take time to make connections, get to know each other and build relationships by checking in with each other and being there for each other when someone might be going through a difficult time.
7. Our internal communications are a very important aspect of our culture. Slack is our chosen messenger tool with different channels and specific topics, and Confluence is our wiki and intranet, where all our employees can find the main information about our company, teams, departments, events and more.
8. Development of our employees is a huge part of our culture, and we have established progression levels and career paths.

How do we maintain our start-up mindset as a rapidly growing company?

1. Focus on entrepreneurship and an innovation-oriented culture and spread it within the team in order to share the importance of competition and results.
2. Align all team members to understand the mission and the vision of the organisation and each department: What do you stand for and what does it promise to deliver?
3. Maintain core values, working relationships and bonds, which are created through online games and icebreaker sessions, team-building activities, happy hours, summer and winter parties as well as company annual retreats.
4. Strive to do what is best for the people and the business by having a flexible attitude and remaining open to feedback, which is valuable advice coming from employees, especially from new hires because they bring fresh ideas and make great suggestions on how to improve your current processes.
5. Reassessing our culture regularly as the company is evolving by making improvements on what is no longer working, for example, through employee engagement surveys or eNPS to check the pulse of what is important for employees and how they see our cultural evolution.

PriceHubble’s leadership team makes sure that we monitor our culture as the company changes during the period of rapid growth and that we build and maintain meaningful relationships within the organisation, which, in the end, results in satisfied, focused and enthusiastic employees in an innovative work environment.

Related article: Our core company values