Most companies have "core values" posted in Notion that nobody reads. We have a cult.
Not the creepy kind. The kind where people actually believe in something.
Why "cult" isn't an insult
When someone calls a company a cult, they usually mean it as criticism. "They're too devoted." "They drink the Kool-Aid." "They've lost objectivity."
We see it differently.
A cult is a group of people who share uncommon beliefs and act on them consistently. That's exactly what we're building.
The alternative is what? A company where nobody really believes in anything, where "values" are whatever sounds good in a recruiting email, where people show up for a paycheck and leave their conviction at the door?
Fuck that.
We'd rather be a cult of people who genuinely believe in Overeducate, Not Oversell than a "normal company" where everyone nods at the mission statement then goes back to spray-and-pray tactics.
Cults have rituals. Cults have shared language. Cults have standards for membership. So do we.
The difference between a healthy cult and a toxic one isn't the intensity of belief. It's whether that belief makes people better or worse.
The 9 principles that actually matter
Most culture decks list 47 values that contradict each other. We have 9. They're not aspirational - they're operational.
1. Overeducate, Not Oversell
Education beats persuasion. Always.
This isn't about being "nice" to buyers. It's about recognizing that the best sales conversations aren't sales conversations at all - they're teaching moments that happen to result in purchases.
2. Fail Fast
Run experiments, not committees.
We have 2 types of work: Bounty tasks (experiments) and Standard tasks (proven processes).
Bounty tasks are bets. You don't know if they'll work. That's the point. Try it. Learn fast. Kill it or scale it.
Standard tasks are templates. Someone already figured out the process. Now we're just executing at scale.
Most companies treat everything like Standard tasks - endless planning, risk mitigation, consensus-building. By the time they launch, the market has moved.
We treat new work like Bounties. Move fast. Learn faster. Convert learnings into Standard tasks only after they're proven.
This isn't recklessness. It's recognizing that in startup environments, the cost of moving slowly is higher than the cost of being wrong.
3. Freedom & Responsibility
Trust people to make bets without asking permission.
If you need approval for every decision, you're not empowered - you're managed.
We give people freedom to act. With 1 condition: they own the outcomes.
You can launch a marketing campaign without running it by me first. You can restructure a workflow. You can kill a project that isn't working. But if it fails, you explain why. And you share what you learned so the rest of the team benefits.
4. High Performance
Excellence comes from context, not control.
We don't hire people to follow instructions. We hire people who can think.
High performance isn't about working harder. It's about working smarter - which requires understanding the why behind decisions.
5. Context, Not Control
Give people the why, let them own the how.
I don't tell people how to do their job. I tell them what we're trying to achieve and why it matters. They figure out how.
This requires 2 things:
First, comprehensive context. You can't expect good decisions from people operating in an information vacuum. That's why this handbook exists. That's why we document everything in Linear.
Second, hiring people capable of independent thought. If someone needs detailed instructions for every task, they're in the wrong role.
When you combine context with autonomy, people make decisions you'd never have thought of yourself. That's how you scale beyond your own capabilities as a founder.
6. Highly Aligned, Loosely Coupled
Agree on strategy, execute independently.
Alignment doesn't mean everyone does the same thing. It means everyone understands the goal and chooses their own path to get there.
We align on ICPs. We align on messaging. We align on which experiments matter most this quarter. Then people execute however makes sense for their function.
Marketing might run LinkedIn ads. Sales might focus on warm intros. Partnerships might test integration-led growth. All 3 are working toward the same strategic objective - just via different tactics.
This prevents the bottleneck of centralized decision-making. I don't need to approve every execution detail because we're aligned on what success looks like.
7. Total Feedback
Vulnerability precedes trust.
Most companies talk about "open feedback culture" while nobody actually gives hard feedback. We do the opposite.
If someone's work isn't good enough, we say so. Specifically. With examples.
If someone's crushing it, we say that too. Publicly.
If I make a bad decision as CEO, the team tells me. Not in a 360 review 6 months later. Immediately.
The trick is divorcing feedback from identity. Critique the work, not the person. "This approach isn't working" is different from "you're not good at this."
8. Conscious Leadership
Take responsibility for your experience and impact.
This one's subtle but critical.
Conscious leadership means recognizing that your experience of a situation is shaped by your interpretation, not just external facts. And your behavior creates ripple effects whether you intend them or not.
When something goes wrong, conscious leaders ask: "What's my responsibility here?" Not to self-flagellate, but to identify what they can control.
When someone on your team underperforms, conscious leadership asks: "Did I give them enough context? Did I set clear expectations? Did I create an environment where they could succeed?"
This doesn't mean everything is your fault. It means you focus on what you can influence instead of blaming external factors.
9. People > Process
Invest in humans who make smart decisions, not systems that prevent dumb ones.
Process is useful. But process becomes religion when you optimize for preventing mistakes instead of enabling excellence.
We have lightweight processes - Standupbot, Linear updates, Tuesday meetings. They create structure without creating bureaucracy.
But when process conflicts with outcomes, outcomes win.
If following the standard task template makes the work worse, change the template. If the meeting format isn't working, change it. If a tool creates friction, replace it.
We optimize for smart people making good decisions, not for foolproof systems that work regardless of who's executing.
How these principles reinforce each other
These aren't separate ideas that happen to coexist. They're a system.
Freedom & Responsibility enables Fail Fast. You can't run experiments quickly if you need approval for every bet.
Context, Not Control supports Overeducate, Not Oversell. Teaching requires understanding. You can't educate customers if you don't educate your team first.
Total Feedback makes High Performance possible. You can't improve without knowing what's broken.
Highly Aligned, Loosely Coupled requires Context, Not Control. People can only execute independently if they understand strategy deeply.
Remove any 1 principle and the others weaken. They're not a menu to pick from. They're a foundation that only works when all 9 are present.
The 2 types of people who don't fit
Some people read these principles and think: "This sounds amazing."
Others read them and think: "This sounds exhausting."
Both reactions are valid. But only 1 type belongs here.
Type 1: People who need certainty
If you need clear instructions, defined processes, and predictable outcomes, you'll hate working here.
We don't have playbooks for everything. We have principles and experiments. Some experiments work. Some don't. That's the point.
If uncertainty stresses you out, this isn't the place.
Type 2: People who want to optimize locally
If you care more about your function's metrics than the company's outcomes, you'll create friction.
Marketing optimizing for lead volume without caring about quality creates garbage for sales. Sales optimizing for closed deals without caring about retention creates churn for customer success.
We optimize for the whole system, not individual parts. If that feels like you're being asked to do "someone else's job," you're thinking about work wrong.
Everyone else? Welcome to the cult.
How we spread the cult beyond the company
Our mission is "Build a world where every GTM interaction matters to both sides."
When you first read that, you probably think: buyers and sellers. That's the obvious interpretation.
But think deeper. What is a GTM interaction?
It's any exchange where 1 side has something of value and the other side needs it. Buyer and seller, sure. But also employer and employee. Company and intern. Teacher and student. Creator and audience.
Every one of these is a 2-sided transaction. And in every one, both sides can win - or 1 side can extract while the other loses.
Most companies optimize for extraction. Get as much from employees as possible while paying as little as necessary. Get as much from interns as possible while giving minimal training. Get as much attention from audiences while giving minimal value.
We do the opposite.
When an intern joins Unstuck Engine, we don't just extract labor. We give them something they can't get anywhere else: deep exposure to how modern GTM actually works, and immersion in a culture that most companies only talk about.
They learn Overeducate, Not Oversell not from a slide deck, but by watching us practice it. They experience Fail Fast not as a slogan, but as the actual workflow - Bounty tasks that might fail, feedback that's immediate, iterations that happen in days not months.
Most importantly, they learn to recognize what healthy culture looks like. So when they interview at their next company and hear "we value transparency" while the leadership team operates behind closed doors, they know it's bullshit. When they see endless planning meetings instead of rapid experiments, they recognize the dysfunction.
These interns - most join us after university, 23-25 years old, early in their careers but not blank slates - leave carrying these principles with them.
They go work somewhere else. Maybe they become customers eventually. Maybe they don't. Maybe they build competing products.
Doesn't matter. They're carriers now.
They join another company and ask: "Why are we pitching before educating?" They push back on processes that prioritize control over context. They refuse to settle for cultures where values are performative.
Some of them hire their own teams and build cultures modeled on what they experienced here. Some of them become founders and structure their companies around Freedom & Responsibility instead of micromanagement.
The cult spreads.
Our podcast works the same way - just with a different audience.
We focus on people deciding whether to work in B2B GTM or trying to understand how it actually works. We break down frameworks, share tactics, analyze what's changing in the market.
Yes, we mention our product. But that's not the goal.
The goal is to create content so useful that other companies use it in their own recruiting and onboarding. We give it away free. Use our episodes to train your team. Steal our frameworks. Build competing products using the strategy we just explained.
Why? Because every person who learns these frameworks becomes a node in the network. When they apply Overeducate, Not Oversell at their company - even a competitor - the market gets better. When enough people operate this way, spray-and-pray becomes unacceptable industry-wide.
We're not building a moat around our ideas. We're trying to flood the market with them.
This handbook does the same thing.
We're publishing our entire strategy. Our ICP definitions. Our cultural principles. Our operational workflows. Everything.
Competitors will read this. They'll copy what works. Some will build better versions.
Good.
Because the handbook isn't a marketing document designed to convert readers into customers. It's an infection vector.
When someone reads about Context, Not Control and thinks "yes, this is how it should work," they've joined the cult - even if they never buy from us or work here.
When they build their own company, they'll structure it differently. When they join a leadership team, they'll push for these principles. When they mentor someone younger, they'll pass on these beliefs.
The pattern across all 3 - interns, podcast, handbook - is the same: we give away our best thinking to people who might never pay us, because distribution of belief matters more than protection of IP.
Traditional companies hoard knowledge. They make employees sign NDAs. They keep strategy documents internal. They view education as something you do after someone buys, not before.
We do the opposite. We publish first, sell later. We educate everyone, monetize some.
Why does this work?
Because the companies and people who resonate with these ideas are exactly the ones we want as customers and teammates. And the ones who don't resonate? They weren't going to work out anyway.
The cult filters itself.
Why principles matter more when you're not there
Here's the real test: what happens when the founder isn't in the room?
Most companies fall apart. Because "culture" was really just the founder's personality projected onto the team. When the founder isn't there to enforce it, people revert to default behaviors.
Cults are different. Cults persist because members police themselves.
When someone on our team sees spray-and-pray tactics, they call it out. Not because I told them to. Because it violates Overeducate, Not Oversell.
When someone sees endless planning without action, they kill it. Not because I'm watching. Because it violates Fail Fast.
When someone sees a process that prioritizes control over outcomes, they change it. Not because they asked permission. Because People > Process.
The principles replicate themselves. That's how you know they're real.
And when people leave - interns going to other companies, employees moving to new roles, podcast listeners building their own businesses - those principles go with them.
They don't need me there to enforce the culture. They carry it inside them.
That's what carriers mean.
The rituals that reinforce belief
Cults have rituals. So do we.
Daily Standupbot updates. Not because we micromanage, but because transparency builds trust. When everyone sees what everyone else is working on, silos dissolve.
Tuesday 9am PST team meetings. The whole team. Every week. Not for status updates (that's what Standupbot is for). For strategy, context, alignment.
Public handbook. Most companies hide their strategy. We publish ours. Because we believe execution beats secrecy.
1:1s that aren't just check-ins. Every Thursday, founders meet with team members. Not to micromanage. To provide context, remove blockers, and hear what's actually happening.
These rituals aren't bureaucracy. They're how principles become practice.
Why some people think we're crazy
When I tell other founders about our culture, I get 2 reactions:
Reaction 1: "That's exactly what we're trying to build."
Reaction 2: "That sounds like chaos. How do you control anything?"
The second group thinks control equals safety. It doesn't.
Control is an illusion. Markets shift. Competitors move. Technology changes. You can't control any of it.
What you can control is how fast you adapt. And adaptation requires autonomy, context, and trust.
That's not chaos. That's anti-fragility.
The companies that survive disruption aren't the ones with the tightest processes. They're the ones with the strongest principles and the fastest learning loops.
We're betting on principles over processes. On people over systems. On belief over compliance.
If that sounds crazy, we're probably not for you.
If it sounds obvious, welcome to the cult.
The real measure of culture isn't who joins - it's who stays
Culture as filter works 2 ways.
First, it filters who joins. If you read these principles and feel aligned, you apply. If they feel foreign, you don't.
Second, it filters who stays. Some people join thinking they're aligned, then realize the intensity isn't what they expected. That's fine. Better to discover misalignment in month 2 than year 2.
The people who stay are the ones who don't just tolerate the culture - they need it.
They've worked at "normal" companies before. Where culture was performative. Where values were wall art. Where politics mattered more than results.
They can't go back.
Once you've experienced Freedom & Responsibility, micromanagement feels suffocating. Once you've experienced Total Feedback, corporate politeness feels dishonest. Once you've experienced Fail Fast, planning theater feels like torture.
The cult doesn't trap people. It makes alternatives unacceptable.
That's how you build retention. Not through golden handcuffs. Through making other options feel like downgrades.
Next: How culture shapes everything - How these 9 principles show up in hiring, product, GTM, and daily operations.
Deep dive: How we work - The tactical systems that make these principles operational.
See the origin: How we got here - How 30 years of building companies led to these specific beliefs.
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