The importance of culture for a growth entrepreneur

The advice of Louis Jonckheere, Co-Founder of tech scale-up Showpad

Michiel Crommelinck

By Michiel Crommelinck

Entrepreneur in Residence

26 March 2023

As well as being one of the co-founders of technology firm Showpad, Louis Jonckheere is also vice-president of Vlerick Business School, as well as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Vlerick Entrepreneurship Academy. Having learned from Showpad's steep growth - going from four founders to more than 500 employees - he is well placed to discuss the importance of having a strong company culture. In this interview, he provides us with some highly practical tips, interspersed with a few anecdotes, on how best to develop and maintain your own company culture.

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Why is culture so important and what role does the founder/CEO have to play in its creation?

Louis Jonckheere: “Culture has a massive impact on employee behaviour. For example, one of Showpad’s central values is to ‘be humble’. By witnessing such behaviour in other employees, as well as in the leadership team, you are almost automatically guaranteed to align yourself more with that value. In other words, your culture helps to instil certain behaviours in others. Being consistent in your approach as leader is crucial in this regard.”

“Behaviour stemming from your culture not only manifests itself to other employees, but also to prospective clients and others outside your organisation. For example, a few years ago, we hosted a big client event in London. Afterwards, the external moderator of this event came to me and said ‘I have been doing this for 15 years and this is the first time I have been treated with such respect and positivity by the staff. You would be surprised how rare that actually is’. This shows how a strong culture can become something highly positive and contagious – in a good way!”

“Fostering a collaborative spirit between our teams is also absolutely central to our culture. When it comes to communicating such values, it all starts at the executive level. Following a bad hire to our executive team a few years back, our internal relations experienced a slight setback. Unfortunately, at times, this also became quite plain to our employees. As an example, there was one instance which saw one executive publicly criticise another. In the end, we decided to part ways with our bad hire, before doing a great deal of reflection on how we work together as an executive team. Now, things are running fantastically, and we are seeing our new way of working together filtering down to all teams within Showpad. For example, members of the sales team will now often attend sprint reviews for the development team. For us, this is a sign of true collaboration.”

About Showpad

  • Founded in 2011
  • 500+ employees
  • 1200+ clients in 50+ countries
  • Headquarters in Ghent and Chicago; with offices in London, Munich, San Francisco and Wroclaw

How do you develop a culture?

Louis Jonckheere: “Building a culture is something you are constantly working on. As your business grows, you are continuously coming up against new challenges, all of which will also challenge your culture. A great book on culture comes in the form of Ben Horowitz's ‘What you do is who you are’. In it, he describes how culture is ultimately a consequence of your character and behaviour as founder. Pieterjan and I have always tried to remain as approachable as possible to our employees, showing our true selves in the process. For example, at parties, I am often the one stage diving or last to leave the bar. During these moments, I am truly one of the team. Pre-pandemic, I also used to do my twice daily office ‘tour’, where I would walk around the office and chat with anyone I happened to be passing. Topics would include new sales deals, new features, etc. This level of approachability is typical for Pieterjan and myself, and has become a true part of our culture.”

At what moment did you start to describe the culture at Showpad more explicitly?

Louis Jonckheere: “For us, this happened pretty fast, especially with our expansion to the United States after only a year and a half. Americans tend to challenge you much more on such issues, expecting a certain level of maturity around questions of culture and leadership.”

Many people know you as a good storyteller. For you, what are some good ways of conveying your culture to your employees?

Louis Jonckheere: “Your culture only becomes credible when your people are able to tell you about it themselves. As such, in my view, cultures are not truly ‘sold’ by their founders, but by their people. Some time ago, we attended a big recruitment event in Ghent. There, three of our employees were able to share their thoughts on what they liked about working at Showpad. In that moment, they were really selling every aspect of our culture, from our collaborative approach to our coaching and development opportunities. A video of myself stage diving at one of our Showpad parties also helped. Such videos, it turns out, are actually rather useful. They are a great tool for employees when it comes to striking up conversations about your culture and imparting it to others.”

“Ultimately, you can end up providing a lot of tools and opportunities for employees to talk about your culture. For example, you may wish to give them a platform at recruitment events, or perhaps get them involved during hiring interviews. Also, try and ensure a level of transparency in your office environment. After all, as founder, you are also a tool when it comes to selling your company and its culture to the world. This can range from stage diving to organising team outings, all things that employees are sure to talk about with great pride.”

“Also, try to keep things simple. At one point at Showpad, we had between six and seven values, or ‘showings’ as we call them. That simply became too much. It was rare for any employee to be able to list them all. As such, we encapsulated these values into the one phrase ‘genuine, good-natured ass-kickers’. From this, it became much easier to express our different values, with employees taking great pleasure in telling others exactly what makes a ‘good-natured ass-kicker’."

How do you effectively monitor the culture at Showpad, while ensuring that behaviours keep in line with expectations?

Louis Jonckheere: “Showpad now has more than 500 employees, so it has become super convenient to be able to use digital tools in this regard. Here at Showpad, we use the CultureAmp tool, introduced at the time by our VP People Peter Geiregat. Every quarter, we conduct an ‘engagement & culture survey’ amongst all our employees. In CultureAmp - and there are other tools that also do this - we can then zoom in on particular departments and managers from a more global perspective to see where things are going very well, or perhaps to identify areas where we may need to provide additional support. The tool provides us with a heatmap, so to speak, allowing us to monitor culture in real time. From this, we are then able to take concrete action, which we then subsequently communicate to our employees.”

“For example, four years ago, we went through a period where a fair few employees suddenly left Showpad. It was around this time that we decided to implement CultureAmp to get a better handle on our employee retention. One of the areas we identified for improvement was that managers were often not receiving enough support. Based on this finding, we spoke with executives and eventually developed our leadership bootcamp, a one-year training programme for every new executive. We always take such signals incredibly seriously. For us, employee engagement is as important a business KPI as any other, with employers needing to become more people-centric in their approach.”

 Key takeaways

  1. Building a culture is something you need to work on constantly.
  2. Ultimately, your company culture is a product of your own character and behaviour as founder/leader.
  3. Get your employees engaged in talking about your culture for themselves (e.g. by sharing videos or giving them a platform). Only then will your culture start to gain credibility.
  4. Keep it simple. Make sure that your values can be easily retained by your employees.
  5. Utilise employee engagement as a core KPI within your organisation.

Want to learn more? Inside Vlerick Entrepreneurship Academy's Culture’ Playbook, you will find a clear and practical step-by-step guide on how to build and maintain your own company culture.

Get in touch!

Sylien Kesteleyn

Sylien Kesteleyn

Portfolio Manager