Proletariat Core Values: Week 4 – Exceed Expectations
This is week four in my five-part series on the core values from Proletariat Inc., how we wrote them, how we lived them, and how they helped shape a high-performance culture.
So far we’ve covered:
Understand Why – curiosity and transparency
Decide Fast and Iterate – action and learning
Take Responsibility – ownership
This week we’re talking about going beyond just doing the job: Exceed Expectations.
The Core Value as Written
Exceed Expectations
Be innovative, have ambitious goals and work to achieve them on aggressive timelines. Aim high, be scrappy, creative, efficient, and resourceful. Exceed expectations, and push yourself to the best of your ability while taking pride in your work.
Why It Mattered
A startup lives or dies by its ability to outperform expectations, internally and externally.
This value wasn’t about working more hours or grinding unsustainably. It was about showing that you can do more with less, and that every person on the team was capable of creating exceptional outcomes, not just meeting the minimum bar.
High functioning teams are ambitious by their nature. They strive to punch above their weight class. We wanted a culture that encouraged taking ambitious risks.
“Exceed Expectations” helped us signal to ourselves, our players, and our partners that we were serious, not just about building something, but about building something great.
What It Encouraged
High personal standards – Delivering something “good enough” wasn’t the bar, we demanded excellence.
Creative problem-solving – We expected teams to work with limited resources and still deliver top-tier results.
Pride in craftsmanship – From internal docs to production art, people cared about the quality of what they made.
Ambitious planning – We encouraged people to set bold goals and reach for more than they thought possible.
How We Applied It
“Exceed Expectations” showed up across the company in ways big and small:
In development: We’d surprise partners with polish and innovation far beyond what was expected from a team our size.
In communication: When we delivered bad news (which happens), we’d also show the thoughtful work behind the decision and what we were doing about it.
In support and community: Our team often went out of their way to answer questions, support players, and improve the experience beyond the basics.
We never framed this as starving our team of their needed resources. We framed it as: take pride in your work and reset the bar on what people think is possible.
What Made It Work
“Exceed Expectations” can backfire if it turns into burnout. That’s why we reinforced three key ideas:
Ambition isn’t exhaustion – We made it clear this value was about smart innovative ambition and being scrappy, not pushing people to overwork.
Celebrate effort and creativity – We publicly praised creative problem-solving and clever solutions, not just polished results.
Paired with trust and iteration – This value worked because it sat alongside Take Responsibility and Decide Fast and Iterate. We built safety first, then challenged people to rise to the occasion.
Final Thoughts
“Exceed Expectations” wasn’t just about pushing hard, it was about aiming higher, embracing creativity, and surprising people (including yourself) with what’s possible.
I feel that the most disadvantageous thing you can do to your team and yourself is simply “go through the motions”. The reality is that delivering simply what is expected is underperforming in a competitive market. Setting and exceeding expectations is one of the single most powerful abilities for anyone to accelerate their career and team success.
When every person on a team holds a mindset where they are resourceful, ambitious, and proud of their work, you get something rare: a culture that consistently punches above its weight and does more with less.