Thread by @avlesh

Are you too homely an environment for your team?

I have seen most first time entrepreneurs unknowingly making this mistake. Depending on what kind of business you are in, this may make or break your future. Sharing my learning and evolution on this rather touchy topic 👇 (1/12)

WebEngage is 7 years old. My journey with startups is now at 12+ years. I learnt what I saw.

I saw very small teams (2-10 in size). Very closely knit. In most cases, folks had no life outside of work. This made it a perfect environment to put ideas to life very quickly (2/12)

None of the startups I worked with prior, were commercial successes. Did we earn love? Yes, tons of it! Moolah? Nope

I was 28 when we laid the foundation of WE. I am 35 now. These 7 years have been magical - especially, w.r.t my understanding of people & their aspirations (3/12)

I'd always believe that teams are supposed to be small, be very close knit and be like a family.

I was wrong.

This mindset is a huge hurdle and roadblock to growth. If you have this feeling about your workplace, please read further. You may find these learnings useful (4/12)

I started feeling a sense of uneasiness when we were about 20 in size.

When you are family, it is important that new members "blend in". Imagine the tension a newbie has to go through. There's so much pressure of unsaid rules and philosophies to comply with. (5/12)

I have been a very accessible resource from day zero. Everyone has unrestricted access to me.

In a family setup, people misuse this access in many ways. There's no better cushion than a CEO, to fallback on for every problem. It's a privilege no one wants to let go of (6/12)

When I started to sense it more and more,I knew we had to change the way we think about out our workplace. It needs to cease being a family anymore.

We were about 45 in size then.I started by showing the door to some folks. The experience was very unpleasant in some cases (7/12)

For some stupid reasons @twitter has eaten up rest of the tweets in this thread 😡 .. I posted them in one shot.

I am posting them again now. To the best of my recollection abilities.

These were very difficult times for the company.We were undergoing a pivot & all of a sudden,we were short on people too.

It gave me the time to rebuild.I focused on building an enviable management layer: webengage.com/blog/managemen…

The folks were trained to not think family (8/12)

The change started paying off.

I started noticing a lot more positive energy in the workplace over "family gatherings". I continued on the mission & let more people go.

Fast forward to today, I am happy to tell you that we have changed into a very fast paced workplace (9/12)

We are about to get to 100 in size. We now have full-scale operations in Bengaluru, alongside Mumbai.

If not for this change initiated 2 years ago, we'd have still been struggling with our growth pangs. (10/12)

This change was in now way meant to compromise on the culture code. It was about aligning intent with company goals & not individuals.

We are a people first company. This change enables everyone in the team to succeed. It also provides a platform for the best to outshine (11/12)

If you are a founder struggling with this problem, please don't delay acting on it. It becomes too big of a problem to solve later.

I am happy to help/advice, if you need.

Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend (end of thread, 12/12)