5 Things to Know When Building a Startup Team

When you’re looking to grow your business, you will not be able to do it all alone. If you want to grow your business, you will eventually have to expand your business. When you decide to expand your business, it can falter if you’re not careful, especially if you’re a first-time entrepreneur. Expanding your business means to take on employees and this can be daunting. How are you going to know if they’re the right fit for your company?

It’s not always easy when you go from running your business by yourself to running it full time with others. You’ll want to know how you will manage them, but more importantly, you’ll want to know if they will work with your company. Here are five things to know when building a startup team.

Look At Their Portfolio

When you’re hiring someone for your company, you’ll want to look at what their portfolio says they have done. Their portfolio will never lie. If they say they’re an expert in social media, you’ll want to make sure they’ve worked in the social media field before. You will want to make sure the skills the person lists in their portfolio are going to be beneficial for your company. If they’ve taken a public speaking course, then you know it’s one less thing you need to train your employee in. It doesn’t matter how much of a sweet talker a candidate is, always make sure you are looking at their portfolio.

How Do They Act Under Pressure?

Some people thrive under pressure while other people seem to give way to the pressure. When you’re working on building a startup, you can’t have people who fold under pressure. Give them a task you know is almost impossible to finish in a given amount of time and see how they react. Tell them to tell you why you should hire them in at least 2,000 words typed in under 30 minutes and leave the room. This is a task that’s impossible.

When you come back to the room, you will want to see how the person reacted. What is their demeanor like? Are they making up excuses why they didn’t finish or are they taking ownership for it? You’re the one who will notice the difference between them. You’ll want someone on your team who takes ownership even if they can’t complete the job because once a person makes an excuse, they will always make an excuse.

Working in a startup environment will not be easy. You should be demanding of your employees and hold them to the highest standard. Because your company is small, there is a greater chance of failing. Your startup isn’t a hobby, it’s a business, and it needs to be run like one. By testing someone under pressure, you’ll learn a lot about them.

What Is Their Personality Like?

Sometimes, what someone lacks in their portfolio can be made up for by their personality. If they don’t have everything you are looking for, but you can tell they are a hard worker who is willing to get the job done then it may be worth considering them for a position on your startup team.

Ask them what their routine is like. How do they act before and after work? Are they someone who gets up a few minutes before work and comes in hectic or are they someone who gives themselves plenty of time before work to ensure they don’t come into work stressed? If someone is coming into your work stressed because they were running late, they will never be as productive as they could have been.

Do they read books? If so, what type of books? You want someone on your team who is always trying to improve himself or herself. You know if they are reading books, they will bring their newfound knowledge with them back to work.

What hobbies do they enjoy outside of work? Is there anything the two of you have in common you could talk about? You’ll spend tons of time with this person, so you will want to make sure you have something in common and that there isn’t silence in the room between you two.

Within the first five minutes of interviewing someone for your startup team, you’ll be able to tell whether they have the persona that will fit within your company. Someone can have all the skills you’re looking for, but nothing beats going with your gut decision.

Define The Positions You Want To Hire

It’s easy to get so caught up in the hiring process that you end up hiring the wrong person or hiring too many people for the same position. The easiest way to lose money in your company is by hiring too many employees and not having enough work to give them. Remember, it’s always easy to start out with a few solid employees and then grow your company from there. No one said you had to hire ten team members right away.

Take your time when looking for the right hire. Clearly define what you’re looking for in a given position. You don’t want to delegate work to someone that two people can do. You only want one person on your team doing design, one marketer, etc. Over time, you can hire more of the same positions but you need to make sure you’re delegating your work correctly and that starts with defining the position. I recommend reading the book, E-Myth by Michael Gerber in which he perfectly takes you through the process of delegating your work.

When you’re defining the position, make sure you leave nothing out. Before you even hire someone, start with what your perfect team would look like. Write out your perfect team and their ideal qualities before you even begin searching for team members because this will give you a sense of what you’re looking for. When trying to build your perfect team save your hard-earned cash by checking out eMINDSCLUB. With eMINDSCLUB you can barter with designers or say marketers and have them be a part of your startup team and instead of paying them with cash, you could give them equity in your company, allowing you to invest your money elsewhere.

Define The Values

At the end of the day, you will want to bring someone on your team who shares in the same values as you. Are they passionate about your idea? In the critically acclaimed Ted Talk by Simon Sinek called How Great Leaders Inspire Action, he states that in order to get people to buy into your product they have to believe in the idea of the product. People could easily buy another phone than the iPhone but they don’t because they believe in the idea of Apple and the same will be said for the members of your team.

The people on your team don’t need to love the idea, but they should like it. If they’re only in it for the money, they’ll only do the necessary work and nothing else. If your team member is passionate about your idea, they will go above and beyond their job description.

What do you believe that your team members should also believe in? Are you someone who shows up to work fifteen minutes early? Do you believe in attending conferences and reading books? Define your values and it can help you make the tough decisions when deciding between team members to hire.

Sometimes you may hire someone who you thought was the perfect fit for your company and they don’t end up working out. This can happen when you build your team and you may need to let people go. Always remember that you’re running your business, and it’s a lot easier to fail than it is to become successful. Building the right team will take a lot of time and effort, and it’s not something that should be rushed. When you have the right team members in place, the sky is the limit for your startup!