Max Mullen and two friends grew Instacart to a $10B company over the last 12 years. He credits their success to hiring the right people and building a world-class culture.

We invited Max to share his framework on how he designed, measured, and scaled the culture at Instacart.

Max’s distills how he sees Culture in four key phases:

1. Define Culture
2. Design Culture
3. Measure Culture
4. Scaling Culture

While the things that worked for Instacart may not be applicable for everyone, we’re confident there will be at least one key lesson that you can implement for your company.

Let’s dive in.

#1 – Define Culture

When you ask people to define the word “culture,” you’ll hear dozens of different interpretations. To get on the same page, Max defines Culture as the consciousness of your company.

Below is a framework that Max created to define Instacart’s culture. 

Base – Artifacts

The artifacts are the company’s core values, mission statement, and brand.

It’s crucial for the founding team to develop this foundation first before designing how your culture functions. Once you have this base, it’s time to make them come to life in four key areas.

Area #1 – People

People are who you are & what you stand for.

• Leadership: do you ‘walk the walk’? Your leadership team must live out your company’s artifacts as positive role models so their team can follow suit.
  
  
• Organization: how is the company structured? How you design your organizational structure strongly affects your culture. Everything from answering who reports directly to the CEO, what teams are organized under which teams, or how big is the average team size at the company.
  
  
• Relationships: do people care about one another? Your team does better work when there’s cohesion. Relationships become extremely important when your company goes through adversity.

Area #2 – Ambitions

Ambitions are defined as what you do and why it matters.

• Vision: do you have a clear future vision? To do their best work, your team should not have any doubts about what the company’s direction is.
  
  
• Strategy: how does your strategy connect to your mission? Your team needs to see how your vision connects to the mission statement.

• Priorities: how aligned are your actual goals with your values? Where you place your resources shows your team what things are actually important for your company.

Area #3 – Rewards

Rewards are behaviors you encourage & reinforce.

• Traditions: what stories and traditions do you pass on to every employee? Sharing this knowledge helps team members understand what’s expected in the organization.
  
  
• Recognition: what does it look like to do a good job at your company and how do people give thanks? Clearly define what excellence looks like and praise team members for their good deeds.
  
  
• Rewards: who gets promoted, how are people compensated, and what expectations do you set? How you answer these questions sets up the entire incentive system at your company.

Area #4 – Environment

Environment is defined as the content & tools you provide.

• Workplace: what’s your physical (or virtual) environment like? Communicate how you work to potential employees so they know what to expect.
  
  
• Policies: are there a lot of rules? Do you default to trusting employees to do the right things? Make these policies clear.
  
  
• Systems & tools: what’s in your starter kit for employees? Set your employees for success by giving them tools they need to do their job well on day one.

#2 – Design Culture

Now that you’ve defined your culture, it’s time to design your culture. But this really depends on the stage of your company.

Designing culture in the early days (~10 people)

You have a small team. So your culture simply boils down to the people + core values. And your core values are defined as the founding team’s personal values.

Questions to ask yourselves:

1. What do we collectively value?
2. How do we work best?
3. What does this business need to be successful?

When Instacart first started, they discovered the founding team shared the value of being resourceful.

They didn’t have fancy offices. They cut unnecessary costs. They did things as affordably as they could because that’s what the business needed to be successful.

Designing culture across teams (~100 people)

At the medium stage, culture is more about your people and core values. Your company’s history matters.

History can include company traditions, stories, and even memes.

Ask yourselves:

1. What marks our most successful employees special?
2. What rituals exist today and how can we incorporate them into our culture?

You can look back at your company’s history to see data on what worked within your team. Pull out the biggest things that moved the needle and incorporate those items into your company’s traditions.

Designing culture in a larger org (1,000+)

Beyond people, core values, and history, your purpose becomes a stronger pull more than ever at large companies.

Once you have over 1,000 employees, people don’t just show up to work because they feel like it. They need to be drawn to your purpose or why you exist in the world.

Ask yourselves:

1. Who are our culture carriers?
2. What’s our unique view on work?
3. What gets us out of bed in the morning?
4. What’s your Ikigai?

Prospective employees care about these things when considering joining your company. The more you can define your purpose, the more success you’ll have in attracting the right people at scale.

#3 – Measure Culture

Some people on your team might not be convinced how important it is to invest $ in building company culture. That’s why it’s crucial to measure how culture is impacting the company’s goals.

Measuring culture can be tricky–there aren’t clear metrics like a sales team. However Max was able to measure culture in three distinct ways.

1. Employee Engagement: The most standard way to measure employee engagement is through surveys. This is both a qualitative and quantitative approach on seeing how your team is doing.
   
   
2. Employee Experience: Ask employees “what is it like to work here every day?” or “how do you describe the culture to other people?” You may uncover many unique insights that you normally wouldn’t find through surveys.
   
   
3. Employer Brand: This is less about who you actually are and more about how you market yourself. What does your “careers” page look like? What are your GlassDoor ratings? These external-facing pages give different perspective about who you are and how you portray yourself to others.

#4 – Scale Culture

A big mistake founders make after doing all this amazing work is not keeping the culture alive.

Culture isn’t something you set up once and forget it. You need to regularly live the culture, review your design choices, and be open to evolve the culture as the company changes.

Max curated three stories of company traditions that he found inspiring.

#1 – Front

On every new employee’s first day, the CEO of Front invites them to pick and build a LEGO set.

Once they finish building their set, they can showcase it in their office for visitors to see. As the company grew, the office went from a handful of sets to see hundreds across the rooms.

Part of their culture is around being builders and making work a fun place to be. So building LEGOs made a ton of sense. And making it visible reminds the team every day why it’s great to work at Front.

#2 – Gusto

Gusto’s office may not be something you’ve ever seen before.

When you walk in, everyone takes off their shoes. Yes, at work. When you walk in, the office is designed to be like one big room which the founders call the living room.

People are working in one big room in a relaxed, casual environment. It feels cozy and comfortable. So when guests or job candidates visit the office, they can immediately see a snapshot of what the culture is at Gusto.

#3 – Twilio

Twilio has this game called Draw the Owl and it goes like this.

Step 1: Draw two circles.

Step 2: Draw the owl.

The idea for Twilio is that we figure things out. We draw the owl.

Summary

Max’s framework for developing Instacart’s culture has four distinct parts.

1. Define Culture through establishing your company’s artifacts. Making it come alive through your people, ambitions, rewards, and environment
2. Design Culture through your people, core values, history, and purpose.
3. Measure Culture through your employee engagement, employee experience, and employer brand
4. Scale Culture through reevaluating your culture every year and fully living out your traditions

Find where your company is according to this framework and go through the questions we’ve laid out.

You’ll be on your way to building a world-class culture in no time.