In Revenue Weekly Insight

Urgency: The Start-up Culture Cheat Code

Urgency: The Start-up Culture Cheat Code

If you are a B2B SaaS founder, like those we invest in at In Revenue Capital, you must get comfortable with urgency.

The best founders we work with are constantly pushing the boundaries of what their team and their business can accomplish. There are plenty of negative connotations associated with urgency. For example, salespeople creating a sense of urgency during the buying cycle often comes to mind. As a former enterprise seller, I can tell you the attempted creation of false urgency to close a deal is not what I am talking about.

Urgency is a mindset. Simply put, it outwardly demonstrates that this sh%t matters! It’s a great tool for creating a culture of accountability and winning in a start-up environment.

Generally speaking, time is not on your side in the start-up world. If you’ve taken money, there is an expectation that comes with it. Moreover, if you’ve taken money from a traditional venture firm, there are standard timelines associated with when you should hit certain milestones and when you should take the next step.

We can argue all day about the pitfalls in the traditional venture model, but if you are on the treadmill, be ready to run! Urgency – when harnessed the right way – creates three major culture benefits in a business.

Culture of Accountability
Culture of Execution
Culture of Winning

Here’s a more detailed breakdown:

Culture of Accountability

People wear many hats in a start-up, which can lead to a lot of thrash throughout the organization. Urgency focused on what matters most helps to create a culture of accountability. Chasing a north star metric and linking it to everyday departmental goals – keeping it front and center in conversations and part of the company’s DNA – helps teams stay focused and hold each other accountable.

Culture of Execution

Ideas, strategy and planning are all great and needed. Execution matters. Product, sales, marketing, operations, every function is driven by execution. Execution is output and urgency drives output. We’ve all heard perfection is the enemy of good. When I’ve seen urgency and execution collide in the very best way it creates a culture experimentation – one that moves fast, rolls with the good and cuts bait with the bad.

Culture of Winning

Winning matters and wins must be celebrated. The deep burning desire for a sales team to win could be the difference between hitting a quarter, raising a round or hitting profitability. Winning isn’t just for sales. The best businesses in our portfolio celebrate every implementation, renewal and product release… in real time!

Get comfortable with urgency. It has a tangible impact on your business… your investors will love it too;)

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