Start with WHY.

“When you start with WHY, those who believe what you believe are drawn to you for very personal reasons. It is those who share your values and beliefs that will cause the system to tip.” –  Simon Sinek

The CoEfficient Labs team was huddled in a circle around our tiny office in the WeWork building off the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica.

Just big enough for six of us, the space is surrounded on all sides by glass. Notes and graphs from our morning client meetings are scattered about the desks and random data is scribbled across the walls.

It feels like a startup in here.

On this particular Friday, I sat opposite Mattimore, our Director of Operations, and T.J., our Data Scientist. Our new website was scheduled to launch in exactly ten days, and we were brainstorming blog posts to roll out with the launch.

“Maybe we should make a series of posts that build off each other, like a trilogy,” I said.

And BOOM, that’s when it hit me.

In a TED talk a few years ago, Simon Sinek describes a business concept he developed called The Golden Circle. Simply put, when selling your expertise, The Golden Circle suggests not emphasizing what you do, or how you do it, but rather WHY you do it.

Soon I was channeling my inner Simon Sinek.

“We should write a 3-Part series, where we discuss the WHY, HOW, and WHAT of CoEfficient Labs!”

Then T.J., sort of looked up at me with a blank stare and says…

“Well, why do we do what we do?”

“Why does CoEfficient Labs exist?”

I settled back in my chair while Mattimore and T.J. continued staring at me.

“Well….” I said.

“I started CoEfficient Labs because I noticed all these inefficiencies working with advertising agencies at my last job… I thought we could do it better… You know, like the slide that we always talk about at the beginning of our pitches…”  I pointed haplessly to my laptop hoping for their approval.

“That’s not really the takeaway I got from the Simon Sinek talk,” T.J. said.

“I think those slides are more of the HOW we’re different, and not exactly the WHY.”

It was then that I realized we needed a much clearer foundation on why CoEfficient Labs exists and more importantly, why our team should want to work here.

I went home, poured a glass of scotch, and reviewed our Team’s Core Values.

All of a sudden, the WHY was clear as day.

We are a team relentlessly in search of the climb.

The Climb to be better humans.

The Climb to be better friends.

The Climb to be better teammates and Growth Hackers.

We are NOT the team that settles on our laurels.

We are NOT the team that sits back and waits for success.

We are the team that goes after it.

WE DO IT FOR THE CLIMB.