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Everyone in business wants a success formula – don’t they? According to this Primus blog post a “scrappy” culture could be the key. Please note there is a big difference between scrappy and crappy.

The post explores the wellspring of entrepreneurial success that has emerged from the PayPal environment. It includes companies such as YouTube, LinkedIn and Yelp. As enlightening as I found this post, it is important to remember that you can rarely duplicate conditions and circumstances from one company to the next. However, the subtext underlying the success of PayPal progeny boils down to an extreme emphasis on finding new ways to solve problems. This, of course, is at the heart of any successful new business. But what really intrigued me, was seeing how they combined creativity and self-managed groups with a fierce reliance on data to make a point.

When groups are arguing about whose opinion is right or wrong, things have a tendency to bog down. However, once people start backing up their opinions with data that demonstrates their point of view, it is easier to make decisions and move on. The PayPal culture embraced that. This is one of those articles where it is quite easy to imagine expanding the points of the story into the chapters of a book.

Take a look at the link. There are a lot of good lessons in there for all of us!