How to Write a Company Manifesto

Last week, I spoke at Yale Ventures’ Innovators in Practice series about the importance of clarity and “Why You Need a Company Manifesto.” You can read the entire presentation here.

As it often does with me, the presentation comes down to Clarity, Focus, and Urgency.

When my CEOs tell me that “the team is struggling” or that “new hires aren’t ramping fast enough” or “everyone treats this like it’s just a job, not a mission,” I always ask them if their teams have total clarity — crisp, undeniable understanding of what they need to do.

The gap is rarely a people problem. It’s most often a communication problem. The founder knows, eats, sleeps, breathes the mission in their bones. They just rarely write it down in a way the team could run on.

And if they haven’t created one yet, I encourage them to write a Manifesto.

Jerry Maguire stayed up until one in the morning and wrote “The Things We Think and Do Not Say.” He printed110 copies and put one in every mailbox¹. Reed Hastings wrote 127 slides in 2009. Sheryl Sandberg called it the most important document ever to come out of the Valley. Writing down what you actually believe has consequences. Good ones.

The last company I built was Castiron, it was kind of like Etsy for homemade food. I wrote the manifesto before I had a single employee. There are no rules for what needs to be in here, but I included the following sections:

1. Welcome Letter — personal, written from me, to everyone on the team.

2. Our “Why” — in this case, in service of our artisans²

3. Company Values — don’t skip these.

4. “Wouldn’t it Be Great If?” — my take on optimism and thinking big

5. How We Work — Our operating principles, decision making frameworks, and norms.

You can see the entire version here.

Take as much as you want.³ But you should 100% create a manifesto and get your team aligned.

Feel free to take what you like. Share back what you create; I’d love to see it.