{"id":1351,"date":"2015-10-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-28T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www-staging.carta.com\/sg\/blog\/carta-101\/"},"modified":"2021-03-05T06:59:10","modified_gmt":"2021-03-05T06:59:10","slug":"carta-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www-staging.carta.com\/sg\/blog\/carta-101\/","title":{"rendered":"Carta 101"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Note: Since this was published in 2015, some of our ideas have evolved, our revenue and burn rate have both increased, and our orientation has changed. But, as you’ll read later in the post, we still hope that people stay at Carta for a decade or more.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

All Carta<\/a> employees (new and old) take a full-day course called Carta 101. It is an introduction to our company, our values, and our execution strategy. The class size is kept small (8\u201310 people) so everyone can participate in the group discussions. I give this class on Fridays once a month.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I\u2019ve also included excerpts from my lecture notes with a few slides pulled out from my deck in this post. I hope it is helpful to ceos and employees of growth stage companies working on scaling culture.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Prerequisites<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The prerequisite for this course is to read The Lean Startup<\/em><\/a> and How to Win Friends & Influence People<\/em>. Hopefully you have all read both books. You should have received copies on your first day, and we have many copies in the Carta library.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The term \u201cMVP\u201d (Minimum Viable Product) is used every day at Carta. It is the atomic unit of every idea, discussion, experiment, feature, and product. You will hear questions like, \u201cWhat is the MVP feature for this law firm?\u201d or, \u201cWhat is the MVP pricing for our enterprise customers?\u201d You will come to know and understand this concept well.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"\"<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

You will also apply Dale Carnegie\u2019s rules to your customers, coworkers, vendors, and team on a daily basis. It is our People Bible. If you are unsure how to handle a people situation, read Dale Carnegie\u2019s chapter on it. There is no better or more practical book on managing people. It is the oil that keeps our professional relationships running smoothly.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Carta is run like a Professional Sports Team<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Most companies find role models in other companies (e.g. Facebook, Google, GE). They aspire to be like \u201cCompany X\u201d. I propose an alternative model for Carta. We don\u2019t model ourselves after companies. We model ourselves after professional sports teams. My question for you is, \u201cWhat is the difference between a company and professional sports team?\u201d [Lead 20 minute discussion]<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Show up on time everyday<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

(Note: this aspect is no longer mandatory at Carta<\/strong>) There are many similarities between Carta and a professional sports team. For starters, our entire company meets everyday at 8:30am to begin the day together. Everyone\u200a\u2014\u200aengineering, sales, services, office management. Nobody is exempt. In sports, even the goalie, who may have a completely different practice schedule from the rest of the team, still meets at the same time to warm up.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Teams meet to solve problems, brainstorm ideas, share work, or just catch up. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the whole company meets for an hour-long Show & Tell. This is an opportunity for everyone to share, debate, and participate in the bleeding edge of Carta’s progress and decision making.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Most people think it\u2019s crazy that we make everyone be in the office at 8:30am every morning. We think it is crazy not to. The New England Patriots would never tell players, \u201cShow up for practice when it is convenient.\u201d If you want to be the best in the world at what you do, start every day together.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

We are Software People<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Now we will watch, what I consider, the most underrated presentation in tech\u200a\u2014\u200aJeff Lawson\u2019s We are Software People<\/em>. Jeff is the amazing CEO of Twilio and he captures in 20 minutes what it means to be the kind of person solving the problems that we are solving<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

At Carta, we are all Software People. Every day we deliver \u201can amazing customer experience at scale\u201d and \u201csuck more of the world into our software.\u201d You don\u2019t have to be an engineer to do this. You just have to believe that your job is to translate real-world problems into software problems.<\/p>\r\n