The Top 10 Hires For Any Start-Up

It goes without saying that every start-up needs a certain amount of diverse functional expertise to help it get off the ground. The CEO is the decision-making hub, the finance guy crunches the numbers, the sales team do the schmoozing, the marketing team make everything look pretty, and the operations guys make sure that everything works.

It is far from easy to find people with the right functional experience, but in the white heat of a start-up atmosphere, I would like to argue that functional experience is far from the only hiring criteria.

You have to have a mix of the right personalities.

The Catalyst. A start-up cannot function without ideas. It requires people who can think laterally and have the courage to challenge the status-quo. They need to be compelling influencers within the team. 

The Architect. Architects understand the overall “plan” and can describe how to construct it, but they are also incredibly detail-oriented. They understand the impact of various decisions on the direction of the whole. They are the rational “go-to” people when the CEO wonders “does this make sense?”

The Slogger. These types hit their desks at 0700 in the morning and don’t stop slogging until 0700 at night. They laugh at the concept of work-life balance, and although their habits are a little unhealthy, they set a high bar for the rest of the team. 

The Butterfly. No one wants to work in a stressful start-up where everyone is sitting with their headphones on, immersed in their work. The social butterfly acts as the social glue of the outfit, always suggesting lunch out and coordinating various activities where people can get to know each other better. 

The Dreamer. The deep thinkers of the start-up, the dreamers often drift off into their own little worlds, only for their sub-conscious to come up with the next amazing idea. Without lofty dreams, no matter how “impossible”, start-ups will wither and die pretty quickly.

The Scrooge. With “burn” cited as the number one reason for start-up failure (duh, obviously), there need to be people who are keen to calculate the ROI of various initiatives. Start-ups should be run with the intention of becoming a profitable business, but without a few Scrooges, this will never happen.

The Finisher. With so many balls to juggle, it is inevitable that many will fall to the ground. Prioritizing is important, but even more important is having some completer-finishers on your team. It is all well and good having great ideas, but those great ideas have to come to fruition. 

The Encourager. Working in a start-up is hard work. There are days that your mind is begging you to go and work in a comfortable corporate job, and you desperately need a few people around you to say “it will all work out fine.” Positivity is vital when failure is commonplace. 

The Wrecking-Ball. Sometimes there is no way around a wall, no way over it or even under it. You have to smash through it, and the wrecking ball personality delights in doing exactly that. No obstacle is insurmountable, and they do not flinch at the thought of hurting themselves in the process. No pain, no gain.

The Believer. This personality type is the most crucial in my view. No matter what the difficulties, no matter how long it might take, they fervently believe that everything will work out as planned. Belief is contagious, and just a smile from the believer at a difficult moment can imbue the team with an extra sense of purpose.

There are my ten personalities. I am sure that you will recognize some of them, but I am really interested if you might be able to suggest any others.

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