Culture is inevitable.

As soon as two people start a company, something starts to form: a vibe, a rhythm, a set of unwritten rules. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in a shared workspace or your spare bedroom. The culture is already happening.

So the real question for founders isn’t whether you should build a culture. It’s how much of it you want to leave to chance.

A founder’s personality always leaks into the culture. That’s natural. But intentionality? That’s where the magic (or chaos) lies. Culture doesn’t need to be flashy. In fact, the best ones often aren’t. They just need to be consistent, authentic, and aligned with what you’re trying to build.

Amazon and Patagonia. Two Contrasting Icons.

Amazon is customer-obsessed. And if you’ve ever bought batteries at 11pm and had them show up the next morning, you know that obsession pays off. Their leadership principles include: Customer Obsession, Deliver Results, Insist on the Highest Standards, Dive Deep, and Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit.

There are 16 of them in total, and they paint a very clear picture. This is not a place for the faint-hearted. It’s fast, exacting, relentless. But for people who thrive on pace and precision? It’s heaven.

Then there’s Patagonia, whose values include: Build the Best Product, Cause No Unnecessary Harm, Use Business to Protect Nature, and Not Bound by Convention.

When I sent in a 10-year-old down jacket, they repaired it for free. Why? Because their business is about longevity, not just profit. That ethos comes from the top. Yvon Chouinard, Patagonia’s founder, literally wrote the book on this: Let My People Go Surfing. It’s part environmental manifesto, part leadership manual.

These aren’t just marketing slogans. They’re systems of belief that filter into hiring, product decisions, and boardroom debates. And they result in two wildly different, but equally strong, brands: both on the inside and out.

Codifying culture

At Mina, we made a choice early on to codify our culture. Chris, now my co-founder at Trove, was Managing Director and one of Mina’s original founders. As a team, we all worked on bringing them to life and making sure they weren’t just words on a wall.

These weren’t just on posters. They showed up in how we ran performance reviews, how we made hires, and how we gave feedback. In team meetings, we’d discuss how we had fallen fast or been pioneering. We meant it. And it mattered.

Some people joined and quickly realised it wasn’t for them. We took that as a success, not a failure. Culture is a filter as much as a magnet after all.

And the result? Low attrition, high trust, a team that was all in not just for the product, but for the customer and each other.

In the next edition, we’ll dive deeper and look at how we made that culture real. Not just as an idea, but as a living, breathing system.

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You might also like our podcast of the same name. Recently we caught up with Ashley Tate, investor and serial entrepreneur about his journey and what motivates him to keep going. Its full of fascinating insights into the brain of someone who never stops!