When Lindsay had the idea to start HerHaus, she referenced questions she frequently received from other entrepreneurs or business leaders regarding how she launched and grew TealHaus. As it turns out, starting a company is complicated and painfully tedious.
Lindsay probably has a running list of the most common ones she hears and those she had to learn when TealHaus was born.
Is it better to set your business up as an S-Corp or LLC? How much should you charge? When can you hire someone else? What software should you use to run projects?
As HerHaus continues to grow and blossom into the space for empowered women it is becoming, we thought it would be helpful to chronicle some of the “how” in our own story of growing TealHaus.
So, here comes a series of semi-regular posts Lindsay and I will be sharing on some of the sausage-being-made lessons we have learned over the past nearly four years of TealHaus.
Chapter 1: The Operating System: Wait, isn’t that what runs a computer?
We frequently talk about how funny the language of running a business is when you aren’t used to it. As storytellers, first, the actual nuts and bolts of operation did not come as naturally as we were trying to shape TealHaus into a collection of experts into an actual company.
As we strived to formulate our processes, I leaned into all the business books and resources I could find to help us uncover systems that would work for our model. During psychometric testing (surveys that help you identify your communication and leadership styles), we learned that Lindsay is the dreamer and I am the “get-it-done-er.”
But I didn’t know that those were roles with real names…
In mid-2023, I read Traction by Gino Wickman (I am now reading Rocket Fuel), and our relationship/ensuing business operations model came to life. The roles Lindsay and I had finally made sense. Wickman suggests two leadership roles are necessary to help a company gain traction: the Visionary and the Integrator. Here’s how the breakdown works:
Visionary: This person is a big-picture thinker, often focused on long-term goals, innovation, and the overall direction of the company. Visionaries are typically creative and passionate, generating new ideas and setting the vision for the organization.
Integrator: The Integrator is responsible for bringing the Visionary’s ideas to fruition. This person manages day-to-day operations, ensures the team is aligned with the company’s objectives, and focuses on execution and implementation.
Lindsay and I had no idea we were these people when we split our roles as Owner/CEO and President. Still, this serendipitous decision has been critical to helping our organization grow.
One of the things I first loved about Traction was the opportunity to “DIY” my way through an operating system for our company when funds were too limited to bring in a professional implementer. So, I read the book, had our whole team read it, and downloaded a free PDF version of the Vision/Traction Organizer (VTO) for what Wickman calls the Entrepreneurial Operating System, or EOS.
In two pages, we were forced to succinctly establish our core values, purpose/cause/mission, niche, 10-year targets, three unique value propositions, target market, proven process or guarantee, and three-year picture. (WHEW, it’s a lot).
The second page gets granular for the short term with a one-year plan, quarterly rocks (measurable goals that are assigned and achievable within 90 days), and a revolving list of issues.
For our clients, the work that takes up just a few short lines on the front page of the VTO is something we work through for weeks. It takes hours of interviews, pages of writing, and meetings to review/hone and drill down.
As a primarily long-form writer, the VTO’s brevity was particularly challenging. But the pain of pruning always yields a more beautiful result.
One of my favorite takeaways from the process was reducing our core values to three, a memorable acronym that any team member can recite immediately—ECH: Empathy, Curiosity, and Humility.
We pick a team member who “ECH-ed” the previous week in our weekly meetings. The person receiving the ECH award will pick the winner next week. Let me tell you, no one at TealHaus forgets a core value!
Every 90 days, we return to the goals set in the previous 90 to see what we accomplished, what we did not—and why or why not. The system creates a scaffold for charting and measuring progress and creating a united buy-in to where TealHaus hopes to go.
As robust as this may sound when I write it all out, we are just scratching the surface of what the EOS can do for an organization. But, it has served as the ideal foundation for us to set goals, measure success, maximize our values, and take the next best step forward.
