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Culture Club #3
All that work and this is what we have to show for it
Carl Stanton
June 10, 2025
“Because your culture is how your company makes decisions when you’re not there. It’s the set of assumptions your employees use to resolve the problems they face every day. It’s how they behave when no one is looking. If you don’t methodically set your culture, then two-thirds of it will end up being accidental, and the rest will be a mistake.”
Ben Horowitz, What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture
If you’ve read the first two editions of this newsletter, then this is the outcome of both.
What did all that planning and intention actually do?
How did people show up?
What behaviours did it shape?
Let’s start with this:
The MD posting in Slack to say he was overwhelmed and taking time out.
That one post gave everyone else permission. Permission to be honest. Permission to rest. Permission to lead in a way that wasn’t based on presenteeism or bravado.
No 5am club. No humblebragging about inbox zero. Just a grown adult saying “I need a break.”
And in doing so, showing the younger team members what leadership can look like.
Our North Star metric (in our case, the number of users on the platform) needed to be made it unavoidable - in a good way.
We hooked up a Smiirl counter in the office to show live how many drivers were on the platform.
We pushed the same number into a Slack channel so it stayed visible to remote workers.
Then there was the door code.
It was our sales target. Literally. Type it in every day and you’re reminded what we’re aiming for. No dashboards, no cryptic strategies, just clarity. Culture made practical.
It changed on a regular basis as we smashed the next target, but it kept everyone on their toes and even if you were the CEO or the latest employee, you knew what we were aiming for.
Or on day one, our newest business development manager asked what time she should arrive the next morning
I said: “I don’t know. What time do you need to be here?”
It took her a few weeks to adjust to that kind of trust. But she did, and quickly became the SME growth expert in the business. Because ownership and trust aren’t just nice words. They’re rocket fuel.
We celebrated properly, too.
Prosecco and beers when we hit key milestones.
Early finishes for Christmas.
No one asked whether they “deserved” it, we just made space for joy.
Every year we picked a charity to support, not as a branding exercise, but as a genuine way to give time and fundraising effort back into the local community. And everyone had space in the calendar to do personal charity work too.
And we did 360-degree feedback. Properly. Not as a box-ticking exercise, but as a way to raise the bar on how we worked together, and make sure people felt valued and stretched.
Culture isn’t the away day.
It’s what happens when no one’s watching.
And at Mina, what we built showed up in small, human, and powerful ways.
Culture in action? That’s the hard part. And the worthwhile part.
Cheers
Carl
Want to dive a bit deeper? Check out the video below 👇
What does it take to be a tech founder? We sat down with Andrew Gunn, technical co-founder of Mina Digital Ltd, technologist and all round lovely guy to chat all things tech, leadership and how he has rode the startup journey.
Episode #4 of the Unicorns and Workhorses podcast released this Friday, so check out the full length episode it when it lands. In the meantime, here’s a snippet of what we talked about.