Ten Characteristics of Great Companies

We’ve been talk­ing about the prin­ci­ples of the book good to great in our com­pany the past few months. There cer­tainly are rea­sons why some com­pa­nies are great (or world class), and why some com­pa­nies stay in the dol­drums. It will cer­tainly have some­thing to do with the company’s tri­pod: peo­ple, work envi­ron­ment and processes. It will have some­thing to do with the com­pany cul­ture and the pur­suit of excel­lence of its lead­ers and its people.

So what makes a com­pany great? Here is a list made by Fred Wil­son:

10 Char­ac­ter­is­tics of Great Companies

So with that caveat, here is my list of ten traits I see in great com­pa­nies. This is aimed at web/tech com­pa­nies but I believe it can and should be applic­a­ble to all companies.

1) Great com­pa­nies are con­stantly inno­vat­ing and delight­ing their customers/users with new prod­ucts and services.

2) Great com­pa­nies are built to last and be inde­pen­dent and sus­tain­able. Great com­pa­nies don’t sell out.

3) Great com­pa­nies make lots of money but leave even more money on the table for their users and partners.

4) Great com­pa­nies don’t look else­where for ideas. They develop their ideas inter­nally and are copied by others.

5) Great com­pa­nies infect their users/customers with their brand. They turn their users and cus­tomers into marketing/salesforces.

6) Great com­pa­nies are led by entre­pre­neurs who own a mean­ing­ful piece of the busi­ness. As such, they make deci­sions based on long term busi­ness needs and objec­tives not short term goals.

7) Great com­pa­nies have a global mind­set. They treat every per­son in the world as a poten­tial customer/user.

8) Great com­pa­nies are attempt­ing to change the world in addi­tion to mak­ing money.

9) Great com­pa­nies are not reliant on any one per­son to deliver their value proposition.

10) Great com­pa­nies put the customer/user first above any other priority.