Companies invest a great deal of energy in presenting a particular idea of their culture. However, the real version is simpler and harder to fabricate; it’s whatever people actually do when something goes wrong and there is no immediate reward for doing the right thing.
Culture starts the moment two or three people decide to work on an idea together. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not something you “add” or “retrofit” later, it grows out of how you treat each other, how you make decisions, and what you reward.
Gradually then, over time, that becomes either your unfair advantage or the reason you register for insolvency.
Arguably, the real question isn’t whether culture eats strategy, rather it’s how do you build a culture strong enough that you don’t need to keep reminding people what it is?
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What follows is a structured playbook on “How to Build a Winning Startup Culture”, distilled from the lived experiences and unfiltered reflections of six MENA-based founders who’ve built, broken, and rebuilt culture the hard way.
We’ve broken this guide into six standalone pieces – each tackling a specific phase. You can dig into them sequentially or jump straight to what’s most relevant for where you are today.
Across these six parts, you’ll learn:
How your own values, habits, and quirks become your company’s culture from day zero
So whether you’re a first-time founder laying the foundation, or a scaling CEO trying to hold on to the spark that started it all, this playbook can hopefully function as something of an instructive field guide to building culture that lasts.
Table of contents
1. Culture starts with the founders
Why culture is a reflection of the founders
Leading by behaviour, not slogans
Building “founder mode” mentality
The dangers of inconsistency
Timing your value-setting: early vs. later
Authenticity over aspiration
Turning values into practical hiring tools
Avoiding “La La Land” culture statements
The power of founder behaviour under pressure
Balancing intensity with empathy
Why small habits matter (punctuality, follow-through, humility)
Making your actions the company handbook
Referrals, gut feel, and the “Americano test”
Avoiding mercenary hires during hypergrowth
Translating values into interview frameworks
Onboarding rituals that cement shared norms
Why open communication is cultural oxygen
Building psychological safety through trust
Radical transparency as a leadership philosophy
Navigating multicultural teams and feedback loops
Accepting that culture will evolve
Adding structure without killing soul
Diagnosing and fixing cultural “bugs” early
The reality of drift (and how to manage it)
Thank you once again to the wonderfully insighful: Mostafa Amin (Breadfast), Mark Chahwan (Sarwa), Julie Barbier-Leblan (Merit), Eslam Hussain (Invygo), Mohamed Al Fayed (Grubtech), Mohammad AlRazaz (OTO), for sharing their insights and experiences.
Now, let’s dig into it.
Step 1: Culture starts with the founders
Your startup’s culture begins on day zero with the founders’ own values, habits, and mindset. For all intents and purposes, in the very early days, the company culture is the founders’ culture.
As Mohammad Al-Razaz, CEO and co-founder of logistics startup OTO, observes:
“If you are someone who’s loud, your culture is going to be loud. If you are someone who’s late, your culture will be late… So we [founders] sat together [asking] who are we, because in the beginning the company culture is purely the founders’ culture”.
This means every strength or flaw you have as leaders will echo across the organisation. You can’t preach punctuality if you stroll into meetings 15 minutes late – your team will take lateness as the norm.
Culture emerges from the accumulation of small decisions; the way problems get raised, how feedback is handled, how people respond under pressure.
“As much as you want to put it down on a piece of paper… it doesn’t matter. It’s how the founders act… that’s the culture”
Not to go all CBT on you, but invariably the upshot is to start with yourself. Take time to identify the behaviours and attitudes you want your company to embody, and live them. In the early stage, team members will mimic the founders. If you’re preaching 9-9-6, you should be the first in and last out.
Mostafa Amin stresses that his team’s “founder mode” mentality was inspired directly by the founding team’s example. Breadfast’s founders loved tackling tough problems head-on, and they infused that into the culture:
“All of our colleagues, they are in love with the word ‘problem’… you need to love problems first to be able to solve them”.
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