I don’t believe in mission statements. Too often they are dry, broad statements that are conceived at the birth of a company and then filed away. These problems were pointedly mocked by Scott Adams’ Dilbert Mission Statement Generator. Sadly this handy tool, which saved MBAs hours of work, is no longer available. However, I was lucky to find a few statements referenced online.

It is our job to competently maintain high-quality intellectual capital while continuing to continually facilitate progressive meta-services

Our mission is to proactively coordinate emerging sources in order to solve business problems

It is our mission to completely utilize mission-critical opportunities to stay competitive in tomorrow’s world

Because of my rejection of mission statements, a couple years into our business I realized that we never hadn’t taken the time to capture the vision of Paper Tower. We were starting to be at a place to bring people onto our team and we needed something we could point to and say this what we are about. But ultimately it was something Brenden and I (founding partners) needed just as much as a new employee. Something for those difficult days, every business goes through, that would remind us why we’re putting in all the long hours and sacrificing to build a business.

Author and Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki believes that a mantra is a better way for businesses to communicate its purpose of existence. He recommends that mantras be three to four words long. Tops. Between Guy’s book The Art of the Start and another book called The Starbucks Experience those books helped me figure how I wanted to communicate the essence of Paper Tower. I like lists, so I settled on five guiding principles.

So, here are the principles that guide Paper Tower

1. Honor God
2. Be A Blessing
3. Do Great Work
4. Always Learn
5. Be Profitable

In a future maybe I’ll go into detail about each one of the principles, but for now I just want to share them. These principles are Paper Tower.