How to build the best core team for your startup
You have created a product or a service. You are starting a new business, something unexplored or already explored if you have been in that industry for long. But still, things are a bit shaky because it’s a new business and you don’t know how things might go.
You are, say a tech expert and have no clue how to handle the finances or marketing of your products. You are beginning to generate a little revenue but still, it’s rather chaotic.
Now is the time to start expanding your team. Figuring out who those people should be, however, is easier said than done.
While you want to get the best talent in the city, money is tight, typical for a startup. So it is best to not rush through the process. A common way to lessen the burden of salaries is to offer equity to the company. This also helps with employees having some skin in the game and give the job their best self.
The order in which you build your team depends on your business’s specific need, but any employee should have characteristics like passion, trustworthiness, maturity, studiousness. The best way to find your initial team members is by personal recommendations and connections. A new team can be found within your friends, colleagues, and people from your college.
It is also preferable to have more than one founder because having a sole founder is a red flag. It means one person is handling different areas. And a sole person cannot have expertise in only so many areas. Therefore, while you are considering your co-founders and other members, you need to consider the skillset they specialize in.
- Chief Strategist and an Operations Head
These are the most important people you want in your team. Typically, the founders take up this role. The same person can handle both of them or have different people for each.
If you do have different people for the above, it is important to know the dynamics and the characteristics that would complement each other the best. Chief Strategist is the ambitious person who controls the company’s direction and vision whereas the Operations head handles day to day working of your business.
It is important to have both of these with different personality traits. One who is the optimistic and the second one who is the realist and sees things for how they are. Even though both of them should be the opposite, it is important for them to be compatible with each other to keep the business running and the team moving forward.
- Product Manager
This is one of the most important members of your team since this person would be responsible for the product’s strategy, implementation, and development. They would work closely with the marketing and technology team and would overview smooth working of the processes.
As you go ahead, you will probably need a different person for this. But we advocate for a startup to be as lean as possible. And naturally, it’s the chief strategist or the founder who has the best knowledge about the product.
When your team needs to expand, this should be the top priority since there is only so much the founder can do. And we do not want our founders to burn out badly. This person needs to be in close contact with your chief strategist to keep in touch with his vision for the product but also discussing with them the necessary changes that the product would require going forward.
- Technology Head and Marketing Head
Especially for tech startups, which are most of the startups today, it is important to have a member specializing in your business’s technology. This person would need to consider everything; from hardware to software to mobile technology.
The marketing head would focus on your customer and how they view your product. It is essential to make sure that your audience sees your passion and what you are building. You would need an expert for that. One who has excellent domain knowledge and promotional skills. Often, they would also need to interact with customers and act as a community manager to maintain positive relationships with your clients. This person would also need to work with the product manager to incorporate customer feedback into product development.
We will continue with the rest of the essential team members and what qualities and soft skills your team should possess on our blog next week.
