Team, Co-founders & Legal

How do I build company culture intentionally from day one?

A starting point

Culture is what you do repeatedly and reward, not a poster of values, so your own behaviour and your first hires set it whether you're deliberate or not. Decide what you actually stand for (pace, honesty, calm, ownership) and hire and fire against it. Write it down early, then live it, because retrofitting culture after twenty mismatched hires is nearly impossible.

Go deeper

Listen

🎧 Podcast
India Free Intermediate

The Neon Show, Indian Founders on Pricing, Sales & Building

On neon.fund by Siddhartha Ahluwalia podcast series (200+ episodes)

Why we picked it

The Neon Show (formerly 100x Entrepreneur) is one of India's deepest founder-and-investor interview podcasts, covering pricing, SaaS, and go-to-market from operators who've built for both India and global markets. Real, unfiltered lessons for Indian founders.

  • Indian SaaS founders often price for global markets to capture higher willingness to pay
  • Localized entry tiers and annual plans work better for price-sensitive Indian buyers
  • Learn pricing and GTM from Indian founders who've actually done it, not theory
Open neon.fund →

Read

📖 Book
Paid Beginner

Rework

From 37signals by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson ~288 pages

Why we picked it

A punchy, contrarian classic on building a lean, sane, profitable company from the founders of Basecamp. It's the antidote to hustle-culture folklore about how startups must operate.

  • Small teams, less process, and shipping beat planning theatre
  • Say no to most things and protect focus
  • You can build a great company without following the standard playbook
Open amazon.com →
📖 Book
Paid Intermediate

It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work

From 37signals by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson ~232 pages

Why we picked it

The definitive manifesto for building a 'calm company', remote-friendly, sustainable, and free of chronic overwork, from a team that's lived it for two decades. Essential for founders designing culture and operations.

  • Sustained output comes from calm and focus, not permanent crunch
  • Default to async, protect deep work, and kill the always-on expectation
  • Reasonable hours and a livable pace are a competitive advantage, not a weakness
Open amazon.com →

People also ask

Should my startup be remote, hybrid, or in-office? Remote works and widens your talent pool massively, 37signals has run a calm, remote-first company for two decades, but it demands strong async wri... Intermediate 2 resources → How do I run a remote team without endless meetings and burnout? Default to async: write things down, replace status meetings with written updates, and protect long stretches of uninterrupted focus, real work hap... Intermediate 3 resources → What operating cadence and rituals should an early team have? Keep it lean: a short weekly written update, clear owners for every project, and one focused planning rhythm (weekly or bi-weekly) is enough at fir... Beginner 3 resources → How do I avoid burning out my small team while still moving fast? Reject the 'crazy at work' hustle myth, sustained output comes from calm, focus, and reasonable hours, not heroics and permanent crunch. Protect pe... Intermediate 3 resources → How do we preserve culture and values as we grow past the first team? Codify your values into concrete hiring, feedback, and promotion decisions, culture scales through who you reward and who you let go, not through s... Advanced 3 resources → How should I price for the Indian market versus global customers? Don't just convert dollars to rupees, India is price-sensitive, so localize with lower entry tiers, annual plans, and UPI-friendly billing, then ch... Intermediate 3 resources →