Fostering autonomy in decision-making is crucial to avoid micro-management and promote creativity and ownership.
Embracing a fully remote and asynchronous work culture enables employees to have control over their schedules and promotes productivity.
Goal setting and collaboration are facilitated through coherence, written communication, and iterative processes, allowing for focus, continuous improvement, and collective decision-making.
Deep dives
Autonomy and Bug-Fixing in Decision Making
One of the main insights discussed in the podcast episode is the importance of fostering autonomy in decision-making. The speaker emphasizes that micro-management is like a bug in the system that needs to be fixed. Instead of telling people what to do, it is better to focus on fixing the system to avoid wrong decisions. They believe that everyone should have the freedom to make their own decisions and take ownership of their work. The speaker argues that there is little benefit in micro-managing, as it restricts creativity and ownership. They suggest that even if a decision seems wrong, it is better to let individuals try and learn from their own experiences, as long as the decision is reversible or the cost is bearable.
Building a Unique Culture: Remote and Asynchronous
The podcast episode further discusses the unique culture of the company described in the interview. The company is fully globally remote and embraces asynchronous work, allowing employees to work at their most productive times. They have eliminated internal meetings, only having team activities for fun. The speaker shares how this approach enables individual employees to have more control over their schedules and promotes productivity. Additionally, the company places a strong emphasis on transparency and documentation, ensuring that all decisions and discussions are well-documented and accessible to the entire team. The culture is described as a collective brain, where everyone is encouraged to contribute and make decisions in alignment with the company's goals.
Goal Setting and Collaboration
The podcast episode also explores the company's approach to goal setting and collaboration. The speaker explains that they aim to achieve alignment on goals and everyone's role in achieving them. They emphasize the importance of having coherence in the company's philosophy and hiring people who can make autonomous decisions. The company relies heavily on written communication and documentation to ensure clarity and enable collaboration. They use goal-setting techniques to keep everyone focused on the direction of the company, while also giving individuals the freedom to decide how they will contribute to achieving those goals. The speaker highlights the iterative nature of the goal-setting process, allowing for continuous improvement and collective brainpower to drive decision-making.
Autonomy and Focus in Goal Setting
The podcast discusses the importance of autonomy and focus in goal setting at the company. The speaker emphasizes the need to set simple and clear objectives with a limited number of key results (KRs) to ensure focus. Each week, the team receives a video providing context, goals, progress updates on the KRs, and ideas to overcome any obstacles. Reflections from the previous week are also shared during the video. This approach helps maintain alignment and engagement within the team.
Documentation and Feedback Culture
The podcast highlights the importance of documentation and feedback in fostering a strong company culture. The company's documentation is organized into various sections, including goals, discussions, design, and engineering. The journal of product-market fit captures the evolution of the company's thinking over time. The feedback culture involves regular feedback exchanges every four weeks, allowing individuals to improve their decision-making and reflect on their work. This structured feedback process ensures continuous learning and reduces the need for meetings.
Today’s episode is with Sidharth Kakkar, founder and CEO of Subscript, a subscription intelligence platform that empowers B2B SaaS leaders to better understand their revenue. (Read more about the company in this Techcrunch article.)
Previously, he was the founder, CEO of Freckle, an education platform that grew to serve 10 million students and was acquired by Renaissance Learning in 2019. As a repeat founder, Sidharth picked up a ton of valuable lessons, particularly when it comes to company culture and management.
Right from the start, he knew he wanted to build Subscript to be global, distributed, and asynchronous. That’s why there are no internal company meetings. Everyone also operates autonomously, deciding what to work on for themselves.
We dive into both the philosophy behind this unique approach and the nitty gritty details of how exactly it works in practice. Here’s a preview:
How to share company updates asynchronously every week.
Advice on how to approach goal-setting and performance feedback, while minimizing micromanagement.
Tips for improving transparency and documentation, plus details on Subscript’s running product/market fit journal.
Thoughts on how to assess asynchronous communication skills when hiring.
How this culture impacts a founder’s role and schedule.
There’s tons of food for thought in here, whether you’re a founder thinking about shaping your company culture, or a manager looking for some fresh ideas.
You can follow Sidharth on Twitter at @sikakkar. You can email us questions directly at review@firstround.com or follow us on Twitter @firstround and @brettberson.
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