Startup Design: Culture-Market Fit

“We didn’t do anything wrong. We were ahead of our time with our Lumia smartphone, but we couldn’t capture the market.” Joima Ollila, former CEO of Nokia

When I heard the Nokia former CEO say they did nothing, I knew immediately where the problem was: It was right before him but he was blind to it. Nokia, Kodak, Blackberry, and even Microsoft had the same problem: their culture wasn’t aligned with the needs of the market they serve.

A few years I had reason to make buy a Macbook Pro from Konga. I was hoping the transaction was going to be seamless but it wasn’t. I had to keep calling their support staff. One staff made a promise and then denied making it later. It was really terrible. I kept wondering if they cared about my perception of the company.

It was later on that I realized that the support staff I talked to were not the problem, they were also being treated the same way by the leadership. Since no one cared for them, they were only at work for the money. They never cared about the customers.

Konga's culture was centered around a fast-paced, aggressive, and competitive environment, with a focus on rapid growth and expansion. However, this culture clashed with the more conservative and risk-averse values of the Nigerian market, where customers prioritize trust, reliability, and personalized service.

I believe that, when we analyze their culture, we will discover exactly what I experienced with their people. It is said that hurting people hurts others. Clearly, they were not getting the best employee experience so they pass on that experience to the customer. This is why I love what Lynn Hunsaker of ClearAction Continuum is doing in the customer experience space. The employee experience which is the outcome of the culture gets translated into the customer experience.

Despite its initial success and popularity, Konga struggled with culture-market fit. This resulted in dissatisfied customers like myself, employees leaving because they are not happy, and failure to adapt to changing market conditions.

My experience with Amazon was completely different. The people who work with Amazon are simply amazing. When you talk to them about your orders, you get to understand that they care for you and want to serve you. That I believe is because the Amazon culture makes them feel cared for and served.

As a result of the gap that continually widened between the culture of Konga and the market they serve, the market share significantly declined resulting in final struggles and layoffs. Eventually, they got bought by Zinox Group in 2018.

Konga's story serves as a cautionary tale about the importance of achieving a culture-market fit, where a company's culture aligns with the values and expectations of its target market. Most Nigerian companies hardly care about their culture or the value they continually create for their employees; they care about making a profit not knowing that their culture determines in the long run if they will remain in business.

It takes a great leader to build a market-driven culture which will also power the culture-driven business model. This means a culture that satisfies and continually creates value for the market and a market that equally creates value that meets the needs of the employees.

This is what happens when the value the company creates for the employees aligns with the value the customer wants. Leaders who are driven by market needs will create a culture that is driven by the market needs and the culture will satisfies the market needs. What leaders want their customers to experience, they will have to first make sure their employees experience it. Humans transfer what they experience to others.

Customer Don’t Care About Your Company or Product

Culture-Market simply means leaders who are focused on creating value for their market and deciding to create value for their employees who will then continually create significant value for the market. More like creating a flywheel and then handing it over to someone to take care of.

You have to make sure that the person you handover to is well taken care of and happy to continue work the flywheel. If they person is not treated well, they will certainly not care about whether the flywheel works or not. This is human nature

It's important to understand that customers don’t care about your company, product, or even brand. They care about two things:

1. Their problems

2. How you make them feel

They are buying your product because of how it helps them do the things they want to do or achieve (job) and that it solves their problems. And most importantly, they care about how you make them feel. Even if your product solves their problems, if you don’t make them feel happy and satisfied, they will leave your business for your competitor.

Don’t take it that your customers love your product, service, or company. They don’t. Leaders who make that mistake end up without a job. Nokia CEO thought their customers loved their brand. However, when their customers started leaving them for Apple, they had the eureka moment. Like a man who got divorced by his wife for neglect, they wondered what they did wrong.

Designing your culture to deliver what the customer cares about is the kind of mindset every company needs to have. The right culture will deliver the most understanding customer experience that keeps customers happy and make them return back to you company.

Build A Culture That Prioritizes Employee Satisfaction

The customer is the reason the business exists not the employees. Your culture should have the purpose of satisfying your market. No culture should be a standalone. The purpose of a culture is to serve a market: culture should be driven by the needs of the market.

Happy employees are key to delivering a culture-driven customer experience. If your culture is not designed to trigger the kind of behavior that will produce the experience your customers want, then you have designed the wrong culture.

Blackberry had this kind of culture that was a desert on its own. Their employees were pampered and treated well. They had games and meals. It was more or less like a five-star experience. But then it was just culture for the sake of having a culture. It wasn’t focused and aligned with market needs.

Yes, their employees were happy but that wasn’t getting transferred to the customers. The employees knew nothing about the needs of the customers. They became so proud and felt they were kings of the market. If the culture were focused on meeting market needs they would have anticipated the market needs and how to serve the customer.

At this point, leaders have to make sure they don’t treat their people as tools to achieve their success. If they do, the employees will certainly make the customer feel the same way. The end goal of every culture is customer satisfaction. If your culture is not making your customers happy, then you need to rejig the culture.

Never take your eyes off your market. Stay in touch with your market. Your employees are not your asset, your ability to know and meet the needs of your market is your asset. You brought in your employees to asset you know and meet the needs of your market at scale. So, your culture should be a means to an end.

As a leader, once you have achieved product-market fit, your focus should be on your employees who will drive the customer experience and business model. Don’t make them focus on themselves; give them the best experience so they can pass it on to the customer.

Culture Impacts Employee Engagement

Your customers and employees are humans. As humans, we all value having meaningful connections and building relationships that matter. We respond to people who we feel care for us. If we are in an environment where we feel cared for, we can mirror this feel to others. Those who feel love easily love others. People who feel cared for and valued easily care for and value others.

It costs the company a lot when its people are not engaged. Employee engagement is the outcome of the kind of culture leaders build. I believe strongly that employees who are engaged in a company can influence the customers to be engaged with the company.

When designing culture, leaders need to understand that the way they treat their people will determine how the people treat others. When employees are engaged, the benefit to the company is manifold, it's worth much more than is spent in it. Building a culture is an investment with great returns.

When employees feel valued, appreciated, and cared for, they increase their investment in the company. They are inspired and motivated to be productive. They are satisfied and then in turn transfer that satisfaction to the customer as customer service and experience. When employees are totally engaged, it means they are physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually invested in the success of the company and their market.

Engaged employees have a sense of ownership and will likely go the extra mile for the company’s customers. They will be helpful, useful, and enthusiastic about serving the market. This results in a win-win for everyone.