Entrepreneurship is a fascinating journey with tough choices at every step. Many startups focus on only one goal – survival. Yet this early phase is when you establish the values that will guide your company through growth to success.
It’s all too easy to compromise your principles to get that first deal, obtain financing, hire the people you want or delay a promised payment, but in the end those decisions can destroy your business.
“Startups depend heavily on good first impressions when entrepreneurs hire employees, court investors and line up customers. In a hyper-competitive economy, any whiff of dishonesty can deep-six a new enterprise,” says Ken Gaebler, CEO of Gaebler Ventures, a business incubator, holding company and venture capital fund based in Chicago, Ill.
“As a venture capital firm, the biggest factor in determining whether we want to fund a startup is its management team,” Gaebler says. “Do they have the integrity and ethics to do right by their investors, employees and customers? Business ethics is important to us. Startups must adopt a code of conduct from the beginning.”
You’re the Model
Legendary entrepreneur Warren Buffet put it this way: “Trust is like the air we breathe. When it's present, nobody really notices. But when it's absent, everybody notices."
You can run your business from startup to retirement on ethical principles. Now is when you must put the right things in place to build an ethical corporate culture.
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