Top 15 Early Startup Talent Traits

The HR of early stage startups is a fascinating topic. You are too young to even have an HR, so it's likely as a CEO or even as a few co-founders that you will be deciding together your first hires. You want to attract the ideal entrepreneurs as candidates for your early stage startup. 

Your first hires and co-founders at your early stage startup are mission critical. This is because they are the ones who will help you create the type of startup you are wanting to build, and give you the best chance of succeeding in an area where failure is the status-quo. 

To continue my series of early startup tips, last time we covered mostly marketing tips for early startups. This time, I wanted to focus more on HR and the qualities of the people you will want to attract so without further adieu, here they are: 

-1- Hire for Character

Hire people who can get the job done, but also who have the creative mind-set to be innovative, the drive to exceed expectations and who have leadership potential. This is what I mean by character: creativity, work-ethic and leadership. 

-2- Passion over History 

Your first hires should be capable of sustainable passion and optimism to implement the vision, this is a genuine quality that is difficult to fake fully. Are they committed to their potential and your product, or do they simply have a track record. That extra something that fits for startups is passion. 

Passion means they have entrepreneurial qualities, are scrappy and have tried a variety of things and not necessarily stuck to the beaten track. Do their passion and skills marry well with your vision? Experience and education are not as essential as this hidden start-quality. It cannot be taught. Typically employees either have this or they don't, and it's more rare than you would assume. 

-3- Intrinsic Motivation 

This means they are self-driven and have the self-motivation to accomplish tasks and are exceptionally goal-orientated. An early startup environment is an autonomous context of action, so it's extremely important they are pro-active and make use of the freedom and commitment to take on many roles, whatever is required of them. This makes "owning it", a whole new level of action. 

-4- Integrity & Loyalty 

Co-founders and early startup employees must be trust-worthy and have a sense of what is best for the product, the deadlines and the brand you are building together. This requires that thy fully believe in the idea and buy-in completely to the product, the values and culture you will be creating. When the going gets tough, you will need qualities of integrity and loyalty in your first employees to ensure solid foundations.

 -5- Network Referred & Social Authority 

Usually the best hires are those other team members know personally, this ensure a better cultural fit and ideally they are referred from inside your own direct network of professional associates. This kind of street cred can go a long ways to boosting the chances that they will not churn and have a lasting contribution to the company. 

-6- Grit 

What I mean by grit is having a "can-do" approach to tasks, and ability to withstand criticism and in all respects to be a fighter with a thick skin. This is because early startups require a growth hacking spirit, and people who can problem solve in real-time and get around obstacles in non-traditional ways. Your first employees should be battle tested, and this will help them not take things too personally or be overly sensitive to the stress, conflict, and budding of heads that can sometimes occur in the competitively/cooperative early startup environment. 

-7- Demonstrated Skill

For most early startup, it will be essential that the candidate knows their job inside-out and possession above average skill in their position. To instill confidence in their team, they will have to be talented in their domain. Test for this, when considering those first few hires especially. Have them complete a task as part of the interview process and rate your candidates on it. Screening for skill or aptitude will separate the pretenders from the creative thinkers and problem solvers. 

-8- Team Consensus 

Allow your team to veto candidates whom they do not feel they will be able to work with optimally, and interview them candidates themselves. This is because of the importance of cultural fit with the actual people they will be working with on a daily basis is key. Just because Person A and Person B get along, and Person B and Person C get along, doesn’t mean that Person A and C will get along, so the story goes. Make sure multiple co-founders agree this is a good hire. This may seem tedious, but is worth the ROI, when they do not churn and are more accountable. 

-9- Invest in Onboarding 

The best employees want to feel part of the team, get the benefits they deserve and the perks of responsibility, belonging and culture that the ideal early startup possesses. If you treat them like an employee, they will behave like one. If you treat them like part of the early family of your startup, then their expectations and commitment will be at a whole other level. 

The ideal on-boarding process for your startup will be be personable, include some guidance, a chance to orient to different team members and should include aspects of culture, expectations, intent, company history and role strategy and have regular one one one meetings to check in with them during the initial period they start at your startup. 

-10- Are Actionable Heroes 

Choose initial hires who would rather act than have meetings, and are open to taking risks rather than being too cautious and seeking approval. Early startups often require exceptional doers, who aren't afraid of making mistakes and this is the environment that startup hires can thrive in. Make sure they know they can make mistakes, that their is failure tolerance, so they can solve problems and find out what does work. 

Actionable hires can pivot, adapt, innovate and accomplish tasks, week after week, with perseverance, ingenuity and self-directed intelligence where they know it's on them, where they are empowered to lead by example and scale the startup by their own heroism. 

-11- Are Customer-Centric 

An early startup needs employees who are exceptional at empathizing with the customer, identifying with the end-user and have a capacity for empathy in general. This means, they will always be able to see things from the perspective of the people the product or service is going to help and serve. 

If your early hires are customer-centric, that customer-centricity will become ingrained in your culture from day one. This is basic and yet not all employees or people possess this genuine quality of empathy and actually caring about the people who buy your solution. 

-12- They are Not Status Seeking

In an early startup, there is not supposed to be hierarchy, you are all equals, with your special roles. The early startup environment is about collaboration, synergy, feeding of the enthusiasm and resilience of each other, this is not the place for ego or for people you think they are special or somehow "know better" than others. 

Early startups are not the place to over-rule others or inhibit their growth, they are a place for empowerment, doing, A/B testing and finding the best solutions together in a spirit of urgency. Your early startup  talent should not be too attached to position, status or a management role. 

-13- They Believe in Meritocracy 

An early startup is an intense teamwork experience, with intense pressure on everyone and every role. As such, great startups display an uncanny ability to not be political, avoid hierarchy and elitist groups, talk through issues and resolve conflicts democratically and with maturity. Great startups aren't "old school" or perpetuate "good old boys" networks. 

You'll want your early startup talent to be up to succeeding on their own merits, because they believe in themselves and can uphold their place in the team. Believing in each other is extremely important in the startup environment and meritocracy means you are there to support each other to succeed because that's how great things happen. 

-14- They Cheer their Peers

Early startups require talent that an an emphasized ability to not only work with others, but inspire others. A startup is a community to grow a product, scale an idea and serve a niche. People who care more about their peers than the perks is a good day to put it. 

The best people want other people to succeed, they are helpful and go out of their way to build that sense of teamwork. The early startup environment is supposed to be about a few things, things like learning, teamwork and driving forward together while being autonomous. 

Ask yourself, is this someone who will cheer on and support others?

-15- Are Mission Statement Enablers

The right hires for your early startup will uphold your mission statement, vision and motto intuitively and some would even say instinctively. This means, they will create value in any role, take on projects and be role-models and examples of the values your startup is based upon. 

It's key that your early stage startup is not just a product, but are a core group of people bonded together by authentic values that has a defined ideology, customer-centricity and passion for excellence. Early startups aren't just about the bottom line, they are about bringing something new to the world that people need. 

Good early startup employees carry this idealism and are thus more credible to their team members, to the customer, to venture capital and believe in what they are doing at every step of the process. Of course your startup leaders have to be worthy of this respect and be authentic themselves if these employees are to stay engaged. Leading by example is not just something for leadership, it's something every hire should take pride in. 

What are qualities you believe are the most key for early hires for early stage startups? Share with us your experience?