Growing your business brings new opportunities, but it also brings more challenges: more people, more processes, and more pressure. If you’re not careful, the very values that made your business successful and unique can become lost or diluted.
At Must Have Ideas, we’ve grown from a small start-up to a 200-person team with very little employee turnover. That didn’t happen by accident. It happened because we treated culture as a way to grow the business and attract the right people. Here’s what we’ve learned about scaling sustainably without compromising on our core values.
Why company culture is your growth engine
Company culture isn’t just about employee perks or slogans, it’s what drives performance, retention, and customer experience. When your culture slows, your growth slows.
Research backs this up: companies with strong cultures outperform competitors in both revenue growth and employee engagement – protecting and nurturing culture is essential for success. When culture is neglected, employees become disengaged, and that creates a ripple effect – resulting in poor decisions, high turnover of staff, and ultimately, unhappy customers.
The founder’s dilemma
When you start a business, you have to do everything. You know every detail and you make every decision. Letting go of that control is difficult, especially if, like me, you’re a self-confessed control freak!
As we scaled, I had to learn to trust my team and empower them to make decisions. It wasn’t easy. Delegation feels risky, but it’s essential for growth. If you don’t let go, your culture suffers because people feel micromanaged instead of trusted.
Managing company culture
As your team grows, company culture becomes more difficult to manage. We saw this first hand at Must Have Ideas. As the business grew, we quickly realised we were running out of space. This resulted in us having to move our entire customer service team into a separate building. It was only across the yard, but it created an obvious physical divide – and risked creating an “us vs. them” mentality.
We fought that by doubling down on connection: more social events, regular team treats where everyone could come together and interact (ice cream vans, pizza), and consistent, open communication across all teams. Soon, we’ll move into a new building that brings everyone back together. The lesson is: physical space matters more than you think.
Practical strategies for culture-first scaling
Here’s what worked for us, and what I recommend to any founder scaling fast:
• Hire for attitude, train for skill. Skills can be taught but values and attitude can’t. We always hire people who fit our culture first.
• Define your values. For us, it’s customer obsession, integrity, entrepreneurial spirit, passion, and speed. They’re not buzz words; they genuinely guide every decision.
• Establish regular team rituals and perks. From team events to a great perks package, these reinforce what you stand for, and you’re willing to back it up.
• Empower managers as culture carriers. Middle management is where your company culture lives or dies.
The payoff
Today, we have a 200-person team with high retention, especially in office-based roles. Most of our people are the first in their role, and they’ve stayed because they feel part of something bigger. That’s the power of culture.
Scaling doesn’t have to mean sacrificing what makes you great. Protect your culture like your bottom line because it’s your ultimate growth engine. If you’re scaling, start with your values. They’ll take you further than any growth hack.
