Forming a Startup Team

What are the considerations when forming a business team in a startup venture

Well, to start with, these are the people that you're going to work with every single day

I would say that culture and the ability to get along with others is more important than any other factor when choosing teammates to start a business venture

Now oftentimes you won't be able to exactly choose your teammates. As the

business grows you end up hiring people with special skills or other people will

be charged with hiring people and they may not have the same culture and fit as

well. But with the initial team that is the individuals founding the venture

identifying a common culture meaning that you have a common understanding about the business venture, what are your objectives, what you hope to achieve, what

are your plans or vision. So those early aspects, the mission, vision, values of the organization

all of these need to be in line and in sync Next look for people that have complementary rather than duplicative skills Building a business is very similar to project management

and there are so many aspects of the business that need to be taken care of

The operational aspects, the marketing and growth aspects, the financial and accounting aspects

all of these things require various skill sets. So finding people who have complementary skills that don't simply duplicate what you bring to the table is another important factor

Now, I mentioned earlier that oftentimes you won't be able to choose your team members

Early on, the team is going to be the founding members and potentially early employees

At some point if the business seeks investment from outside investors you're

going to take on individuals in the role of shareholders if they purchase an

interest in the company or if they purchase an interest in an LLC which is

less common they be members But nonetheless they have a right to information some ability to vote for the major decisions in the company and things of that nature So you want to make certain that even if they not going to be working along with you

on a daily basis, that if you do take money from investors, that there is some level of commonality

of understanding. Because these individuals, once again, may be on your board of directors

They may assume advisory positions. They may even become executives in the company itself

So again, this is extremely important and this is an important time to reconsider exactly

what are the requirements for your business to continue to function as a cohesive unit

Also, as you hire employees, Generally, startup businesses cannot afford to pay their employees market rate because they're using all available funds to grow

Well one way to incentivize employees to work hard and to dedicate so much of their life for less than market rate compensation is to offer them an ownership interest in the business This normally comes in the form of stock options or oftentimes just the granting of an ownership interest actual shares or membership units in the company Now when you

do this, you now have co-owners, right? They may be minority co-owners, but they are owners

nonetheless and they have very similar rights to the founders and any other owner in the

company that comes in at a later point in time. So it's really important to consider who you are

hiring, how you are going to incentivize them to perform. And if you do offer them an ownership

interest, make certain that they're not just good employees, they're also good co-founders

that that element of culture and fit are still present in the organization by bringing them on

because once again, as co-owners, they have a voice, they have access to information

and they are going to be equally vocal about their opinions and things like that

So making certain that investors fit in and future employees fit in the same way your early team members do

in terms of culture and with regard to the skills that they bring to the table