Building a strong team is crucial for any startup, but it can be challenging when you have limited resources. How can you attract, retain, and motivate talented people without breaking the bank? Here are some tips to help you create a team that can grow with your startup.
Before you start hiring, you need to have a clear idea of what your startup stands for and where it is going. Your vision and values will guide your decisions and communicate your purpose to potential team members. You want to hire people who share your passion, mission, and culture, not just your skills and experience. A clear vision and values will also help you align your team and foster a sense of belonging and ownership.
In my three decades of entrepreneurship, I've distilled a few key insights: - Shared Ownership: When teams see a dream as their own, their passion and dedication soar. - Embracing Diversity: Inviting my teams into my vision has brought invaluable, diverse insights that have shaped our path. - Deep Commitment: A shared vision fosters unparalleled loyalty. - Vision Over Money: While finances matter, a collective goal often motivates more than monetary rewards. In essence, transforming a personal dream into a shared vision has been pivotal in my entrepreneurial journey and is the key to building strong teams with restricted resources.
Storytelling is the essence of a startup and the ability to vision cast is core to being a founder. Part of any successful startup is the ability to tell a compelling story - regardless of whether you are fundraising, hiring, or selling. And when you weave your authenticity, passion, and conviction into that story it will inspire followership. This will help you recruit top tier talent. People want purpose in what they commit themselves to, these are believers, "missionaries" over "mercenaries" and storytelling helps people align their purpose with the vision of the startup…
??Establish a distinct goal and vision to coordinate the work of your team. ??Ascertain that every team member is aware of their own duties and obligations. ??Utilize each member's abilities and strengths to the fullest extent possible. ??Encourage candid and open communication among team members. ??Make the most use of available resources, and promote cooperation and teamwork. ??Make training investments to improve team competencies. Maintain team motivation, and acknowledge and honor accomplishments. ??Exercise flexibility and adaptability when allocating resources and resolving issues. ??Pay attention to important tasks that support your objectives. ??Reduce costs by finding more efficient ways to do tasks.
Most of the time, identifying vision is difficult which also seem to change over time. In early stage of an organisation, flexibility to work with changing narrative and ability to work with uncertainty are important.
There's no success without a great team. Building that team is about knowing your vision, being mission driven and communicating that story. Even when you don't have the most money or benefits, you can excite the very best people who connect to your vision and feel excited to be part of making it happen. In every company I've built, the story and the vision are how people can see themselves in the picture. Paint that picture clearly, with colour and feeling - tell them why you're there but much more importantly, LISTEN to what is important to them, what excites them. When you understand how they see themselves now and in the future, you can tell a story where they are a critical character to a great outcome. And now your team is growing!
When you have limited resources, you need to be smart about who you hire. You don't want to waste time and money on people who are not a good fit for your startup or who will leave soon. Instead, look for people who have the potential to grow with your startup and who fit your vision and values. Potential means having the ability and willingness to learn, adapt, and take on new challenges. Fit means having the personality, attitude, and mindset that match your startup's culture and goals.
Some keys to building a strong team 1. Assess potential fit based on Culture, Values, and Attitude; Skills can generally be developed if those other elements are a productive fit. 2. Look at other facets of the candidate's life to see what patterns show, because our beliefs impact our lives through our actions. Further, deeply held beliefs, create outcomes no matter what. Look at the candidate's total life and see what story it is telling about them. 3. Trial small tasks that seem unrelated to the role with them; how you do anything is how you do everything and how you practice is how you play. 4. The better you understand that candidate outside of "work", the better you can determine if they will be a "fit" for your small team.
It is very important for a startup to hire the right resources. One bad hire can spoil everything. Therefore, it is essential to look for a perfect fit before anything else. The potential of a candidate is important too. In a startup environment, one needs to do all the work. The core skills of a candidate can get further strengthened in a startup but the candidate can pick up a whole lot of peripheral skills essential to running a smooth operation. These are very valuable in the long term for the employee. The willingness to learn determines growth.
Specialist or Generalist? When building a team at an early startup, it's crucial to think about the identity and purpose your early hires have. A specialist will bring the needed domain knowledge and background which is clearly needed to develop an outstanding product. Specialist though tend to be focused on their area of expertise and can struggle with change especially when they need to un-learn past behavior and take on new perspectives. This makes it tough for them if you need to pivot. Generalists on the other hand might struggle with learning all the aspects of your domain and might need time getting up to speed. They tend to be more valuable at a later stage when you've already reached PMF or at least problem/solution fit.
Alignment is crucial when hiring. Right off the bat, when hiring people you get to see and feel their energy and that contributes to the whole process including the interview with them. When hiring it's important that the people you'll work with have a clear vision on where and what the company is aiming for and share plans on how you want to expand and help them advance their careers. People always want to be valued, so giving them those details will help in the process. Again, it's character over skills. Character is like a trademark of a person, you can't teach character, but you can do it with skills.
One of the benefits of working for a startup is having more flexibility and autonomy than in a corporate environment. You can use this to your advantage to attract and retain talent. Offer your team members the opportunity to work remotely, choose their own hours, and manage their own projects. This will show that you trust and respect them, and that you value their input and creativity. It will also give them a sense of ownership and responsibility for their work and results.
Yes! As a recruiter of over 20 years owning my own agency, I can say for sure that gone is the age of even striving for work-life balance. Humanity is in desperate need for work-life empowerment. So if we hire for shared values and meaning, foster an environment of respect, diversity, and cooperation – then superb work gets done, no matter where the location or the schedule. A strong sense of personal commitment and appreciation drives work and the desire to succeed for all.
Feedback and recognition are essential for keeping your team motivated and engaged. You need to provide regular and constructive feedback to help your team members improve their performance and learn from their mistakes. You also need to recognize and celebrate their achievements and contributions, both individually and as a team. This will show that you appreciate and value their work, and that you care about their growth and development.
My stint in leadership has thought me that; 1. An employee is more likely to stay (against the lure of a juicy offer) if their work is appreciated and they are told about it. 2. Individuals in a team are quick to take ownership when they feel seen. This implies the need to foster respect through the language of feedback. 3. Empathy goes beyond throwing out buzz words. Leaders must demonstrate concern by actively supporting team projects, the advancement of individual career goals and the rigours of personal life.
Another way to show that you care about your team's growth and development is to invest in learning and development opportunities. You don't need to spend a lot of money on expensive courses or programs. You can leverage online resources, books, podcasts, webinars, or mentorship networks to help your team members learn new skills, expand their knowledge, and stay updated on the latest trends and best practices. You can also encourage your team members to share their learnings and insights with each other, creating a culture of continuous learning and collaboration.
I always say that learning is an essential factor for growth. One can never improve if there are no new learnings on a daily basis. At Remotify, we make sure that we support our people in advancing their career and helping them boost overall wellbeing through different programs that we offer. We believe that everyone deserves to learn and grow in their chosen career path. And with each one learning and sharing their experiences, we all get to benefit from each others' potential, and the whole team grows together.
Learning and Development is something always ignored by startups. Even in the world of today, there are too many avenues for the same, such as Udacity, Udemy, Safari and so on. In the era when these services were not there, I used to force team members to give a tutorial about technology they needed or wanted, because teaching is the best way of learning. I make sure to tell every team member that learning is their responsibility and they have to actively pursue it. At least put in 2 hours per day out of 8-hour work days on learning something new. Go to Hacker News and stay abreast of the current technological trends.
Building a robust team on a limited budget demands resourcefulness and strategic planning. Start by clearly defining roles ensuring each team member contributes effectively. Leverage remote work options to tap into a global talent pool, potentially reducing costs. Foster a collaborative culture by emphasizing shared goals and open communication. Include employee development through skill-sharing initiatives. Offer non-monetary incentives like flexible schedules or recognition programs. Seek partnerships and collaborations to extend your team's capabilities without a significant financial investment. Ultimately, building a strong team is about maximizing the value of every resource and creating an environment where members can thrive.
In this digital age of growing remote-work-culture and moonlighting this topic is very pertinent. It needs a complete bottom-up relook. There is a need to remove the layers of managers who end up wasting most of their time in policing the team, monitoring the task-dashboards and internal collaboration, which all adds up to a huge waste of resources. Hiring people with a fixed salary just adds a huge burden of ensuring to get the desired value from them. Building an organic team is the key; organic, not in terms of lateral or internal hiring but in terms of characteristics that align with the Founder and Co-Founders. The main characteristic being entrepreneur-mindset, which remains the key characteristic in the future hiring lens.
In startups with limited resources, there's little room for role specialists. A culture of accountability is crucial. Team members should feel responsible for overall success, not just individual tasks, enhancing engagement and shared ownership. Many team members have untapped potential outside their primary roles. Encouraging voluntary expansion of responsibilities saves hiring costs and leverages existing talent. Accountability is not just managerial; it's a foundational element of company culture. While it maximizes output, care must be taken to not stretch resources or personnel too thinly.
Hire motivated people with culture fit. Skills can be learned. Limited resources often means you can’t hire in your country. Hire outside where it’s cheaper but good quality. It’s a global world and distributed teams are a norm.
To build a strong team with limited resources: 1. Tech Founder: Have at least one codepreneur founder who can be the backbone of the tech startup, providing an extra edge. 2. Practical Experience: For non-tech companies, ensure one founder has solid practical experience in the relevant field, contributing to the company's success. With these key elements in place, building a capable team becomes more accessible, placing the company in capable hands.