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Ask HN: Have you defined your vision and mission?

6 points by Roedou ↗ HN
My company is currently talking internally about defining our 'mission' and 'vision'.

Are there any startups or more established companies here that successfully went through this process?

Some specific questions: How did you get there? (Was the mission/vision pretty easy to define, or did it take time to 'discover' it?) What did you learn from the experience? Did you publish your mission publicly once done?

9 comments

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patio11
Having a mission/vision is wonderful, but I think defining a mission is likely wasted effort. It feels like make-work to me, like writing formal business plans.

Whose life gets better when a mission statement is published? What user is crying in the dark for want of your vision?

mindcrime
This may be the first time I've ever found myself disagreeing with you, patio11. I think you're taking an overly short-sighted view on this. Just the act of publishing the mission statement doesn't necessarily - in and of itself - make anyones life better. The question is, does the mission statement help your organization over the course of years or decades. Does the culture that you wind up with reflect the decisions that you made - and made concrete - very early on? Is it easier to make decisions that are in keeping with your principles if you've taken the time to articulate your principles and record them? I argue that the answer is "yes" to all of the above, which is why I believe a mission statement / values elicitation does have a purpose.

That said, it's not something I'd spend 3 weeks on, or something I'd pay $500,000 for a team of consultants to come in and assist with! It's - IMO - an exercise of a few hours of focused thinking and writing.

harryh
An excellent mission statement can definitely help with recruiting. A lot of people have read "Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful." and thought "Ya, I'd like to help with that."

A well crafted mission statement can also be a tremendous help internally in terms of getting everyone on the same page. "What are we all doing here?" is an important question to answer once you have more than a few people working together.

rmc
A lot of people have read "Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful." and thought "Ya, I'd like to help with that."

You're talking about Google. I'd presume things like good salary, geek-y friendly workplace, 20% project etc. helped much more with hiring than their motto. If Google didn't have a motto like that, but had all the other perks I mentioned, I think they would still be able to attract employees.

mindcrime
Yes, after reading Good to Great by Jim Collins (because it was recommended by another author I respect, which was, IIRC, Steve Blank), I decided to sit down and formalize some stuff about the vision / mission / values for Fogbeam Labs. The first draft that we came up with looks something like this (not to suggest that this couldn't use some more work,mind you)

-------

Our mission...

Build software and provide services that enable organizations to display greater “organizational intelligence;” sense, respond and react to their environment in a more agile manner, and support more adaptive and effective organizational structures.

Democratize access to advanced information processing software by participating in the development of F/OSS software which can be used freely by organizations of any size or nature.

Give back to the world by participating as an ethical member of the world-side free-software / open-source software community.

Create an organization where people dedicated to the advancement of technology will want to work, will be rewarded for doing well, and will receive nurturance, guidance, and encouragement.

Promote entrepreneurship as the best tool available for raising the standards of living for people worldwide, by sponsoring educational initiatives and supporting charitable organizations which promote: STEM ( “Science / Technology / Engineering / Math”) education and education on Economics, Business, and Entrepreneurship.

Core Values

We favor...

Transparency and openness... over secrecy and information hiding … in our relationships with each other, our partners, the F/OSS community, and our local communities.

Critical thinking, logic and reason … over … superstition, blind adherence to dogma, and groupthink.

Respect for the individual and their freedom of choice … over … herd mentality, conformance for the sake of conformance, and fear of what we consider different.

Courage and the willingness to commit to our principles … over … knee-jerk reactions, conformance to peer pressure, and compromise of our fundamental values.

The long view and building for the future, while not sacrificing the present … over … short-sighted compromise of our vision and values in order to achieve a tactical objective today.

Being Good … over … Being Evil.

###

As far as how long it took... when I sat down and started thinking about my values (which, because I was a solo founder at the time, meant they were the default company values) and the kind of company I am trying to build, it didn't take long to get the basics in place.

Did we publish it publicly? Yes, as part of a post to the company blog:

http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2011/06/blogging-fogbeam-custome...

We then revisited the "mission statement" stuff in our very next post:

http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2011/06/blogging-fogbeam-episode...

Honestly, I think this stuff matters. I can't prove it scientifically (and supposedly neither can Jim Collins, since some of his research has subsequently been "debunked") but I believe it very strongly.

cdvonstinkpot
I spent a little time on it, and am not really happy with how it turned out. I wait for one day when I'll be inspired by something and can revise it into something better, but it never happens.

In my case, I read some business plan books and paraphrased examples of other companies' statements. Again, I'm not happy with my first drafts, but don't feel it's important enough to spend real time on, so it waits to be improved.

eduardordm
You should define it every year. (specially if you working in tech). Best if before or after large projects.

You could define two visions, one for your company itself and one for whom your company is working for.

V1: "Make our company more desirable, fun and a nice place to be""

V2: "Make facebook a friendly place for children"

Missions have a tendency to be useless and cheesy. Try to keep it close to your reality. Example: "Deploy a basecamp killer"

Be careful not to sprinkle your vision/mission with strategy or values.

pecciv
Mission of the Mission Statement: Two words
trienthusiast
I think defining vision/mission it's very important if you do it seriously, as in seriously start thinking about what your company is, what it stands for, what it wants to achieve and how it wants to get there.

The value is not _strictly_ in the statement themselves, but in the process that came to define them and in how you implement the "how to get there".

I would reccomend everybody to read HBRs 10 Must Read on Business Strategy (http://amzn.to/wuvIoW), a small book that seriously makes you think why some companies fail and some make it.

There's a full chapter on mission/vision and I think it's your best answer on how to approach the whole process.