Setting Annual Company Goals
At a startup, every employee has the ability to grow the company exponentially. Some people have the innate knowledge of what needs to be done to grow the business. Most don't, as you scale.
As we get ready to ring in the new year, its a good time to reflect and set goals — both personally and for our companies. Personally, this experience is typically one best explored during solitude, with time to yourself thinking about the past year and where you want to go next year.
But when running a company, I’ve found the best goal setting excerises to be split into two parts:
Setting Goals - Activity where a small group of people get together to set the top 3-5 goals of the company for the next year (founding team, founder + board members, executive team, etc.).
Creating Alignment - Once the 3-5 goals are set, the rest of the team aligns their top 3-5 goals that align to the topline company goals.
Founders and Board Members tend to have a birds-eye view. They follow the fundraising market closely. They know what competitive milestones need to be hit to reach the next step in company growth. They know the cashflow situation of the business and how much runway is left. They’re in the perfect position to create realistic, yet stretch goals. But goals coming from the top doesn’t lead to employee buy-in, which is why alignment is important. It’s important for employees to feel like they are creating their goals and that their goals have a higher purpose in the company’s growth story.
Setting the Direction
Start with an Excel sheet or a Google Sheet titled “Company Goals - 2023 [Master]”.
List out your top 3-5 areas of focus (ex. product, sales, customer success, etc.).
For each area of focus, list the name of someone on your team that’s responsible for hitting/not hitting the goal.
Give the goal a title that everyone in the company can easily say to refer to the goal.
Write a metric-driven description of the goal.
Write the actual metric of the goal (how will you measure if you succeeded or failed)?
Write the date you must complete the goal by. (Hint: I always made sure I had one big success goal to talk about each quarter with investors, mentors, etc.).
Lock the excel tab so its uneditable by anyone but the executive team.
Use the excel throughout the year to track the status of the goal, review on a frequent cadence (weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.).
Creating Alignment
Create tabs for each area of focus in the Master Excel.
Send the excel to each of the Goal Owners from the first tab.
Ask them to come up with the top 3-5 goals that will help them achieve the goal in tab 1.
Have them fill out the same excel sheet format with goal descriptions, goal metrics, dates of completion for their goals. (Hint: if they complete all their goals, they should reach the macro goal on tab 1).
After the sheet is filled out, schedule a meeting or company retreat to discuss the goals. Align to make sure there are no overlapping goals. Everyone should have a distinct purpose and not be doing duplicative work. Make sure everyone on your team has all the tools they need for the year to be successful - if not, make sure you’ve budgeted for those or have a plan to help them acquire those tools early in the new year.
As you leave the goal setting exercise and shift into execution, remember to revisit these goals at least monthly to track your team’s progress.