Why 99% of Startups Get Culture Wrong Until It's Too Late | Culture Is Actions Not Words | Founder Mode Is Not Micromanagement | Why Culture Problems Always Surface Too Late |Abhi Sharma, CEO & Co-Founder of Relyance AI
Most startup founders discover they have a culture problem when things are already breaking
Today, we discuss how to build the right culture before the wrong one costs you millions.
Every founder thinks about culture, but almost none do it right.
Abhi Sharma, a second-time founder / now the founder and CEO of Relyance AI, learned this the hard way after reaching several million in ARR.
Things were breaking and he couldn’t pinpoint exactly why.
Now he shares the exact framework he uses to build culture that actually scales - from defining your company's "invariant" to implementing tactical excellence across every department.
Abhi Sharma is the co-founder and CEO of Relyance AI, a company building super intelligence for data security. To date, Relyance has raised over $60 million from top-tier investors including Menlo Ventures, Unusual Ventures, and Microsoft's M12 Venture Fund.
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
00:01:41 - Why culture always feels like an afterthought until systems break and you can't explain why
00:03:35 - The exponential dissipation problem: how founder control over culture disappears faster than you think
00:05:09 - Three catastrophic ways poor culture manifested at Relyance: hiring mistakes, product strategy disconnects, and enablement failures
00:09:59 - Why shouting culture values from the rooftops fails: the unreasonable hospitality pivot that actually worked
00:12:14 - The $X million ARR wake-up call: when Abhi realized he was getting hires wrong and had to define operating principles
00:15:25 - From weekend reflection to company DNA: the exact process of distilling culture down to actionable principles
00:17:11 - The one piece most founders iterate on after writing culture docs (and why examples matter more than principles)
00:20:21 - Your company's invariant: why every startup is ultimately about one core idea that never changes
00:23:56 - Stripe's GDP example: how the best companies anchor to fundamental human behaviors, not features
00:25:14 - The Hedgehog Concept decoded: three components that create your competitive moat (straight from Jim Collins)
00:28:06 - Data journeys as superpower: why Relyance's unique differentiator became their core product feature
00:30:08 - Economic driver vs. pricing: why most founders confuse the two and how it kills scalability
00:32:54 - Dominance friction: how misalignment between business model and customer value creates disruption vulnerability
00:33:28 - Costco's profit-per-square-foot model: the counterintuitive pricing strategy that drives more volume
00:37:30 - Why it took three years to figure out Relyance's economic driver (and why that's perfectly okay)
00:38:50 - Culture is actions, not words: why cultural values without operating blueprints are worthless
00:40:57 - The trust operating principle: Stockdale Paradox, job vs. responsibility, and good news fast vs. bad news faster
00:45:20 - How job versus responsibility transforms employees into owners (and why most companies fail at this)
00:47:23 - Why "you don't get credit for 80% to the moon" is the ultimate accountability framework
00:49:16 - Making escalation a good word: rewiring team psychology around bad news and urgency
00:51:41 - The belief system cherry on top: three statements that tie everything together and fit on a sticker
00:55:19 - Tactical excellence: why Control-C, Control-V matters more than inspiration (and how to operationalize culture daily)
00:58:20 - The monthly new hire ritual Abhi still does himself: why culture onboarding can never be delegated
00:59:49 - Founder mode vs. micromanagement: Brian Chesky was right, but where's the line?
01:01:22 - The X vs. X+Y million ARR question: why every growth gap traces back to cultural problems
01:03:26 - Popular bad advice: why "hire executives and step away" is wrong and when founder instinct trumps expertise
01:05:06 - The brutal honesty test: if you're not all-in, don't start a company (and why vanity startups fail 100% of the time)
01:06:16 - Reflection time as competitive advantage: how America's polymaths and founding fathers made progress through going inward
01:06:48 - The first five deals rule: why Abhi banned VC introductions for Relyance's initial customers (and why it was magical advice)
01:09:36 - Product-market fit vs. AI hype: are you hacking your way to ARR or truly iterating toward customer pain?
Today, we discuss how to build the right culture before the wrong one costs you millions.
Every founder thinks about culture, but almost none do it right.
Abhi Sharma, a second-time founder / now the founder and CEO of Relyance AI, learned this the hard way after reaching several million in ARR.
Things were breaking and he couldn’t pinpoint exactly why.
Now he shares the exact framework he uses to build culture that actually scales - from defining your company's "invariant" to implementing tactical excellence across every department.
Abhi Sharma is the co-founder and CEO of Relyance AI, a company building super intelligence for data security. To date, Relyance has raised over $60 million from top-tier investors including Menlo Ventures, Unusual Ventures, and Microsoft's M12 Venture Fund.
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
00:01:41 - Why culture always feels like an afterthought until systems break and you can't explain why
00:03:35 - The exponential dissipation problem: how founder control over culture disappears faster than you think
00:05:09 - Three catastrophic ways poor culture manifested at Relyance: hiring mistakes, product strategy disconnects, and enablement failures
00:09:59 - Why shouting culture values from the rooftops fails: the unreasonable hospitality pivot that actually worked
00:12:14 - The $X million ARR wake-up call: when Abhi realized he was getting hires wrong and had to define operating principles
00:15:25 - From weekend reflection to company DNA: the exact process of distilling culture down to actionable principles
00:17:11 - The one piece most founders iterate on after writing culture docs (and why examples matter more than principles)
00:20:21 - Your company's invariant: why every startup is ultimately about one core idea that never changes
00:23:56 - Stripe's GDP example: how the best companies anchor to fundamental human behaviors, not features
00:25:14 - The Hedgehog Concept decoded: three components that create your competitive moat (straight from Jim Collins)
00:28:06 - Data journeys as superpower: why Relyance's unique differentiator became their core product feature
00:30:08 - Economic driver vs. pricing: why most founders confuse the two and how it kills scalability
00:32:54 - Dominance friction: how misalignment between business model and customer value creates disruption vulnerability
00:33:28 - Costco's profit-per-square-foot model: the counterintuitive pricing strategy that drives more volume
00:37:30 - Why it took three years to figure out Relyance's economic driver (and why that's perfectly okay)
00:38:50 - Culture is actions, not words: why cultural values without operating blueprints are worthless
00:40:57 - The trust operating principle: Stockdale Paradox, job vs. responsibility, and good news fast vs. bad news faster
00:45:20 - How job versus responsibility transforms employees into owners (and why most companies fail at this)
00:47:23 - Why "you don't get credit for 80% to the moon" is the ultimate accountability framework
00:49:16 - Making escalation a good word: rewiring team psychology around bad news and urgency
00:51:41 - The belief system cherry on top: three statements that tie everything together and fit on a sticker
00:55:19 - Tactical excellence: why Control-C, Control-V matters more than inspiration (and how to operationalize culture daily)
00:58:20 - The monthly new hire ritual Abhi still does himself: why culture onboarding can never be delegated
00:59:49 - Founder mode vs. micromanagement: Brian Chesky was right, but where's the line?
01:01:22 - The X vs. X+Y million ARR question: why every growth gap traces back to cultural problems
01:03:26 - Popular bad advice: why "hire executives and step away" is wrong and when founder instinct trumps expertise
01:05:06 - The brutal honesty test: if you're not all-in, don't start a company (and why vanity startups fail 100% of the time)
01:06:16 - Reflection time as competitive advantage: how America's polymaths and founding fathers made progress through going inward
01:06:48 - The first five deals rule: why Abhi banned VC introductions for Relyance's initial customers (and why it was magical advice)
01:09:36 - Product-market fit vs. AI hype: are you hacking your way to ARR or truly iterating toward customer pain?
Creators and Guests
Host
Pascal Unger
Co-founder / Managing Partner at focal.vc We lead pre-seeds in North America with up to $1M: We exclusively back AI native software startups at the very start. Thereafter, we help them get off the ground better and faster, supported by a network > 200 GTM executives. That's our singular, unwavering focus.