In the past, at the Gyeonggi Creative Economy Innovation Center, I had many opportunities to closely observe successful startups, growing organizations, and their members and cultures. For B2B startups, the primary goal is to secure initial paying customers with products and services that have validated Product Market Fit. Based on these small successes, venture capital firms (VCs) assess the company’s value in stages and proceed with equity investments.

Of course, simply having a product validated in the market and securing investment doesn’t mean the company is on a stable trajectory. Like any business, startups face numerous crises in the rapidly changing, hyper-competitive market: funding pressures, deteriorating profitability, and frequent employee turnover. The statement, “The most crucial role of a startup CEO is to continuously secure investment to prevent the cash flow from drying up,” vividly conveys the inherent tension. Even as investment amounts grow, companies vanish without a trace, meaning a constant sense of crisis among employees working within them is inevitable.

Among startups on a growth trajectory, many execute a “flip” strategy: relocating headquarters to the US while keeping development teams in Korea. This allows US investors to execute investments without complex regulations and benefits global branding. Employees gain opportunities to build global networks, work at overseas offices, and enjoy a horizontal, flexible atmosphere free from the vertical culture of large corporations. Recently, with remote work becoming commonplace, employees might commute ‘from room to room’ or adopt the workation system, currently being tested by several tech companies, depending on their role. Seeing examples like 100% remote work reducing office rental costs or working within the metaverse, it’s fascinating to observe how organizations are adapting in their own ways in the post-COVID era.

Having worked across global corporations, startups, and government support agencies, I’ve observed that the nature of stress varies depending on the organization’s character. In large corporations, the fear was missing out on promotions due to underperformance. In startups, the looming crisis was the company potentially disappearing. In government support agencies, while the tension was lower, there was an anxiety of seemingly stagnating alone in a rapidly changing market. Ultimately, stress exists in any organization. Therefore, I believe a key condition for a good startup is transforming that energy into productive, friendly competition and a driving force for self-development to achieve a shared vision.

The core of this lies in ‘evaluation and reward’. When teams like sales, marketing, and development achieve their target metrics, appropriate rewards must follow. Long-term, the structure should allow significant rewards like stock options through an IPO or M&A. The OKR (Objectives and Key Results) approach, recently adopted by many startups, is highly meaningful because it involves team members and leaders setting goals together and sharing results. Sharing goals with superiors helps employees understand how their work contributes to the organization and greatly aids in grasping the company’s overall direction.

Furthermore, I envisioned a model integrating blockchain-based smart contracts with OKR. It’s a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) form where employees set their own work goals and automatically receive coin rewards upon achievement based on predetermined conditions. This would foster an ideal organizational culture where proactive motivation is possible without fixed paydays. If company equity were also tokenized, employees wouldn’t just pay lip service to ownership—they’d actually hold voting rights and incentives. I imagine this could even enable an innovative structure where skilled employees hold more equity than executives.

This reminds me of a story I heard long ago during a meal with a Google HQ HR manager. “As an organization grows, you must manage people first by people, then by rules, and ultimately by culture to preserve the original organizational culture.” Imagining a happy startup culture where everyone grows together through token economies and DAO-based reward systems, I start another vibrant day by writing this blog post at dawn.