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name: company-values description: Help define company values and culture for a minimalist business. Use when setting up company culture, preparing to hire, or wanting to codify what the company stands for. Based on The Minimalist Entrepreneur by Sahil Lavingia.

Company Values

Help define company values — the foundation of culture.

Core Principle

Focus on culture before hiring. Before hiring anyone, define what kind of company people want to work for. Values aren't generic two-word commandments — they state the non-obvious, in non-obvious ways.

Why Values Matter

• Tell employees how to behave every day AND in extreme situations
• More efficient than 1,000-page manuals — good values stick
• Attract the right people and repel the wrong ones (both are valuable)
• Let you hold yourself and your team accountable
• Values supersede you. They allow the company to scale beyond your involvement.

Gumroad's Values (Examples)

1. Judged by the Work

• What matters is the experience creators and customers have
• "It should be considered a failure to receive feedback on something that could have made a creator's life better AFTER you shipped"

2. Seek Superlinearities

• A function that eventually grows faster than any linear one
• Every day producing superlinear returns on time investment

3. Everyone is a CEO

• You are the CEO of your function
• Think like a CEO asking approval from their board, not an employee asking a manager for direction

4. Dare to Be Open

• Aim for complete information symmetry
• Share financials, disclose salaries. No meetings, no secrets, no FOMO.

How to Create Your Own Values

1. What do you believe that most people don't? Values should be non-obvious, sometimes polarizing.
2. How should people behave when no one is watching? Values are for moments without a manager present.
3. What would you fire someone for, even if they're performing well? That reveals true values.
4. What would you celebrate, even if it didn't help the bottom line? Also a value.
5. Write them as stories, not slogans. "Focus on the user" is a slogan. Nordstrom accepting tire returns at a clothing store is a value told through story.

Operationalizing Values

• Communicate publicly — job posts, website, onboarding
• Use in feedback: "This aligns with our value of X" / "This doesn't reflect Y"
• Revisit regularly — values evolve as the company grows

Output

Help draft:

1. 3-5 company values with descriptions and example stories
2. How each value shows up in hiring decisions
3. How each value shows up in day-to-day work
4. Anti-patterns for each value (what it does NOT mean)