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The text explains the essential concepts of mission, vision, values, and strategy for startups, highlighting their distinct roles and importance in guiding a company. The vision defines the long-term aspirations and where the company wants to be in the future, serving as a stable foundation based on core beliefs that rarely change. It provides meaning to short- and medium-term objectives and directs both managers and employees. Examples include Google’s vision to provide quick access to global information and Ikea’s aim to improve daily lives.
The mission articulates the company’s current purpose and actionable goals, translating the vision into practical steps that stakeholders can understand and contribute to. Unlike the vision, the mission is more flexible and may evolve while remaining aligned with the company’s core values. Values represent the ethical principles guiding behaviors and commitments, such as transparency and innovation, ensuring consistency in decision-making and interactions.
Strategy outlines how a company plans to achieve its mission and vision through specific short- and long-term goals and actions. It is dynamic and adapts to changing economic and business conditions. Together, clearly defined vision, mission, values, and strategy empower a startup to align its team and navigate growth effectively.
Every startup should put them in writing. The goal is to make everyone in the company clear about the path to follow, where they want to go and how to travel it
Mission, vision and strategy for startups. First, you have to understand the concepts. It is a reality that for some years now, and more and more, companies have been clear that they must strive to offer the best of themselves. In this journey that has brought us here, terms and concepts have been incorporated into business language that have gained importance. Some of them are productive, others are simply fashionable or confusing. This confusion is multiplied when multiple words are used to convey related but separate topics. A clear example, in which both employees and managers are often victims of misunderstandings, can be found with four words:
Business vision: we want to be that in the future
When we refer to the vision of a company, we are indicating where the company is headed. In a simple way: the vision informs us of what the purpose of the company is, a long-term goal, in which the aspirations are set about the achievements and what is desired in the future. Therefore, vision is what gives meaning to short- and medium-term objectives, both strategically and operationally, and therefore serves as a path forward for managers and employees.
Because of this vocation to be part of the essence of the company, the vision statement should not, in principle, be revised frequently; It is the foundation of the company and is based on the company’s core beliefs. These beliefs are the ones that remain constant, regardless of the business climate, the level of profits, or the sales cycle.
Asking a few questions can help: “What do we want to achieve?” “Where do we want to be in the future?” “What could we do to reach more potential audiences?” “Who will we do it for?” “What other products and services could we offer?” “What must we achieve to expand our scope of action?
Some inspiring examples can be found in both companies with a long history and innovative startups:
Google: “Provide access to the world’s information in one click”:
Ikea: “Improving the daily lives of many people”.
Netflix: “Becoming the best global entertainment distribution service”:
invision: “To offer the best digital product experience through our platform.”
Mission: What we’re going to do
Like the vision, the mission also informs all stakeholders about what the organization’s purposes are. In a way, it answers the question “What does the organization exist for?” “What are the goals we want to achieve?” Therefore, it is a matter of clearly and precisely defining the company’s objectives and what steps will be taken to achieve what is defined in the vision.
Therefore, the mission statement is the way in which the vision is expressed in practical terms. It should be concrete and include language that is not only goal-oriented, but also goal-like. This should make it easier for each part of the organization to evaluate whether their own activities will help the company achieve its mission.
As it is a document that combines the vision of the future with the current objectives, it is susceptible to modification to a greater extent. However, you should never lose sight of the necessary loyalty to the company’s vision and values.
Continuing with the previous examples:
Google: “Organize the world’s information and make it useful and accessible to everyone.”
Netflix: “We promise our customers stellar service, our suppliers a valued partner, our investors the prospects for sustained profitable growth, and our employees the lure of a big impact.”
Ikea: “To offer a wide range of home furnishings, well-designed and functional at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.”
invision: “Questioning the hypothesis. Think deeply. Repetition as a lifestyle. Details and more details. Design everywhere. Integrity.”
Values: the guide of our behavior
Finally, values refer to the ethical principles on which the company’s commitments and behavioural guidelines with respect to the so-called stakeholders are based. Examples that can serve as part of this guide are: transparency, sustainability, quality, innovation, social commitment, etc.
The company that manages to clarify to its team members why it exists (mission), how it should be in the future (vision) and what its values are, can make them better understand the strategy and guide their behavior and the development of their activities towards it.
Strategy: how we are going to do it
Last but not least, we cannot forget the strategy. Defining the vision, mission, and values is critical before starting with the strategic elements. At the end of the day , with the strategy, what we intend is nothing more than to define the path by which we are going to try to fulfill the previous ones.
The document where the strategy is defined should not lack short and long-term goals, as well as an explanation of how they will achieve them. Thus, the strategy takes as its central element the current actions and the results necessary to get closer to achieving the mission. Company strategies evolve and are updated over time to adapt to current factors, such as local economic conditions and business needs.
