Startup, Scaleup, Screwup.

7The Lunatic Cafe

Meet every day with your team for a Daily Cafe and Work Out Loud by sending each other Daily Updates.

 

It was 17:00 (5 p.m.) Central European Time. I logged onto Zoom, our video-conferencing tool, and, one by one, my other team members came online. For about five minutes, we chatted about the FIFA World Cup finals and the heat wave that was smothering Northern Europe. I also told my team that my publisher asked me, for the third time, to write another book. As if my life as a startup founder wasn’t busy enough already! Then it was time for us to spontaneously generate our meeting agenda. Three topics were typed into the chat window: some latest insights about our Value Proposition Wheel, our ongoing Equity Crowdfunding, and an idea to start reworking our Culture Code.

This time, it took 25 minutes to address the topics, which was above average for us. The team needed some time to discuss their concerns about the crowdfunding. I understood that. After all, it was unsure if we were going to make it, and if they all would still have a job two months later. At the end of the session, we did our usual Fist of Five to rate how valuable the meeting was. We were unanimous this time: a four out of five score from everyone.

The next morning, I wrote a Slack message to the team on our #work-out-loud channel so they would know what my plans were for the day:

“Today: Pay ...