Recently a few posts have been popping up on the Web about “Rules for Startups”. What’s really neat about these posts are they are written by successful entrepreneurs, they explain their reasoning behind each rule. It’s quite an insight to see why some companies do the things they do.

Some of the rules written by one person are in conflict with some written by another person, kind of leads me to believe that these rules are not what makes a successful startup. Still, I find the points and reasoning interesting, there is also some interesting conversation in the comments.

• The one that started it all, written by Jason McCabe Calacanis (CEO of Mahalo.com) — How to save money running a startup (17 really good tips)
• A reply by Pat Phelan (President of Cubic Telecom) — Jason Calacanis tell us how to save money
• 37Signals made a post about Firing the Workaholics, they also made a post earlier this month about Workplace Experiments (go 4 day work weeks!)
  
• Mark Cuban (owner of the Dallas Mavericks and has paid over 1.5 million in fines to the NBA) posted a few of his rules for startups (he doesn’t like the espresso machine idea, darn!)

At Well.ca, we’re trying some stuff to make our office the best it can be. Examples are:

• Open space — We have a huge open space as our office. At times this doesn’t work the greatest, I might be in the middle of a problem and be interrupted only to lose my train of thought. However everyone can keep in touch with the pulse of the company and knows what is happening as it happens, a huge benefit with a company so small.
• French toast breakfasts — Ali, our CEO & founder, is starting to become famous for his french toast. We might not talk work during these breakfasts, but we can discuss everything else and grow as a team with a common goal.
• Everything on the table — Ali is awesome about keeping everyone up to date and informed on what’s happening with Well.ca. There isn’t once that I’ve felt in the dark, and I know for me that means that I feel even more a part of Well.ca

That’s just a few of my observations about Well.ca. Hopefully I’ll get Ali to comment on some of these and maybe come up with some of his own.