Thirsty Games: Maintaining Company Culture During Growth Spurt

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THIRSTY GAMES MAINTAINING COMPANY CULTURE DURING
A GROWTH SPURT
BY MICHAELA LASSIG
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I always think of startups in major growth phases
as going through 'startup puberty' - there are
growth spurts seemingly overnight, voices deepen,
chemistry changes, boundaries are tested,
sometimes you don't even recognize yourself in
the mirror AND you're a terrible driver. (I'm
hoping this wasn't just my experience...) It's
extremely difficult to maintain a growing
company's 'soul' when there are already over 100
employees and almost as many reqs out, job
responsibilities are narrowing down from 'jack of
all trade' to very defined roles, departments are
actually becoming departments, and you don't even
recognize the person who just came out of the
bathroom. During this hectic and often chaotic
time every single employee needs to be bought-in
as we push ourselves to achieve the ambitious
goals we have in front of us. Earlier this year
at Instart Logic, we found ourselves entering a
major growth spurt. Our CEO, Manav, his
cofounders (Raghu and Hari), and the executive
team, realized that if we didn't continue to
re-instill our founding beliefs and train all
new/existing employees, we would be doing
ourselves a major disservice.
WHERE WE WERE

• Outgrowing our huge warehouse office in Palo Alto
  (which we moved into less than a year ago)
• New employees coming in faster than San Francisco
  housing prices are rising (Humble brag were the
  1 startup to work for in the U.S. according to
  GlassDoor)
• New internal processes (yaywe have HR now!)
• New heads of departments
• Evolving messaging, internal terminology, and
  roadmap

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WHAT WE NEEDED TO ACCOMPLISH

• New employees needed to get up to speed...and
  fast
• Existing employees needed to be filled in on all
  changes
• Increase collaboration and communication between
  groups/departments
• Reinforce the importance of every departments
  piece of the puzzle for our very ambitious 2015
  goals
• Create outlets for creativity
• Build community
• Not lose our spark
• Because we needed to reinforce our sense of
  community and our company is, by nature, very
  competitive, and every teenager - male AND female
  - loves a good trilogy, we decided to build our
  program in tribute (hint, hint) to a group
  favorite and the result was THE THIRSTY GAMES.

THE DISTRICTS

• Sales
• Marketing
• Product
• Engineering
• Tech Ops
• GA
• Technical Services

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THE BATTLE
Once a week each district had a tribute (the head
of the group) present to The Capitol (the entire
company) about what their group is responsible
for, who each of the team members are and what
each person is working on. Then...the next
day...they had to put on THE BEST HAPPY HOUR EVER
(its a fight to the death).
THE SPOILS
The winning district got enough spoils () to
generously donate to the charity of their choice.
The losing districts... well, we hate losing but
in the process we all learned more about each
team, what they do all day, and now because of
that Bollywood Bhangra dance that the Product
Team made us choreograph, I now recognize every
single person that comes out of the bathroom. We
did it! We are all aligned, bought in, and pumped
about the steep climb we have in front of us we
are now 1 DISTRICT (awww... thats how the movies
end, right?). MAY THE ODDS BE EVER IN YOUR FAVOR!
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