Best and worst decisions when starting a company

Some entrepreneurs share the best and worst decisions they made when they started their businesses.

No surprise that just about everyone talks about getting good people on board and the right sort of people for your culture. But of course to attract and retain the best people you have to be a great place to work in the first place.

I think the best decision I made when I started up Nixon McInnes was reading these two books and then working hard to actually bring the lessons in them to bear on the culture as the compay grew. We definitely haven't cracked the perfect formula for an amazing company culture (who has?) but I think we're a better place to work than most companies and I enjoy being different.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.
The bible of being-a-nice-person.

Maverick by Ricardo Semler.
The ultimate example of democracy, freedom, trust and respect at work.

The other good decision was teaming up with my biz partner Will. As a pair of young upstarts/oiks who were pretty green when it came to running a business, having someone else to share the problems, good times and bad times with was a big help.

I could probably write a book on the mistakes and bad decisions but the biggest was probably not being aware of my own personal strengths and weaknesses. I was never an especially good programmer, and I was an even worse project manager. Things got so much better when I had people who were better than me doing these things and I could have avoided so much pain and 7-day working weeks if I had got this sorted out earlier. But I suppose that the experience of trying (and often failing) is what helped me to get to know myself better. And there's nothing like living through some really shit times to put day-to-day worries and problems in perspective.