How to Build a Startup Team
What Startup Founders Get Wrong All The Time
As you read this article, you might be thinking about building a startup team? There can be many reasons behind this question.
First of all, you might be thinking that “I am building my own startup, and I need to build a startup team for it” or “I am an employee working in a startup and want to know about the founder’s point of view.”
This article will help you understand how to build your startup team and tell you what the main factors affect the success of your venture.
Remember, it is not only about team building but also about team management.
In this article, I will be talking about the following topics:
What is a startup team?
How to build a startup team?
Why do you need to build a startup team?
What are the factors that affect the success of a venture?
The founder’s point of view and why they are important for you.
What could go wrong with your venture and how to handle it.
How to manage your startup team and what could go wrong if you don’t know how to manage them.
What is a Startup Team?
A startup team is essential for any venture. It is as important as the idea you have in your mind. If you are building a startup team for your own venture, you should know how important your idea is.
But if you are working in an existing startup, you should know the importance of a startup team and build a successful team.
The startup team is like a body. The body can’t do anything without its organs. It is very much similar to the concept of a startup team.
A venture can’t do anything without its members or its departments or any of its employees.
A startup team is just like the root of any plant. As you water it, it grows, and as it grows, it will give fruits (money).
In short, if you want success for your venture, then you need to build a successful team for your venture.
Let’s see what factors affect your venture’s success and how to build them in the next section.
Why Do You Need To Build A Startup Team?
First of all, let me ask you one thing: Do you know what Steve Jobs said about Apple Inc?
He said that “Many times, people focus on finding someone else to do the work for them, instead of doing it themselves”.
If you are a startup founder and want to build a successful team for your venture, you should know that you can’t do it independently.
You may be an expert in one field or maybe in more than one field. You might be good at programming, designing, managing, etc., but still, you need to build a team because other people have expertise in those fields.
There is no doubt that every team member will share their point of view about the project. Some may say yes, some may say no, and some may say wait for the time being.
The benefit of building a startup team is that it can reduce the risk factor and increase benefits for your venture.
What Are The Factors That Affect The Success Of A Venture?
As we discussed in the previous section, we need to build a startup team for our venture because we can’t do anything with our idea without doing so. A team can help you think of new ideas, develop better solutions and share their point of view.
A startup team is as important as your idea, and it can make your idea a reality. In the following section, I will talk about the founder’s point of view and why it is important for you.
The Founder’s Point Of View And Why It Is Important For You?
Many people think that they are the founder because they have started their own ventures, but they are not the founder of that project or venture in reality. Here I will talk about what a real “Founder” means:
A Founder is someone who has created something or someone who has started something from scratch.
For example, if you have started your own company, you are a real founder of that company, and people around you will call you the Founder of that company/venture.
If one day you sell your company to someone else, then he or she will become the new owner of your venture, but now he/she is not the Founder because he/she owns it now and not created it from scratch.
The same goes for all other ventures. If you have created something new and started it from scratch, you are the Founder of that project.
As I said previously, many people think that they are the founder of their ventures, but in reality, they aren’t.
So if you really want to build a successful team for your venture, you should know what the Founder’s point of view is and why it is important.
The founder’s point of view is critical because if you want to build a successful team, then you need to understand what your employees think about your idea and what can make them work for you or not.
The reason behind this is that everyone has their own point of view about any project or idea, and the benefit of understanding this point of view is that it can help you share the same vision and vision and could change according to the vision of your employees.
How To Manage Your Startup Team?
What I want to tell you is that you are the owner of your startup team. It would help if you managed your team properly.
A successful venture requires great management and great leadership. If you fail in management, it can lead to many problems for your venture like loss of money, loss of team members, etc.
So if you want success for your venture, you need to know how to manage and lead your team properly.
As we talked about in the previous section, many factors affect the success of a venture, and if one or more factors are missing, then there is no point in building your own venture.
In the next section, I will talk about what could go wrong with your venture and how to handle it.
How Could Things Go Wrong With Your Venture?
There can be many reasons why things go wrong with any project or any other project, but these are some most common reasons:
The founder of the project or venture doesn’t know how to manage and lead his/her team. The team doesn’t have any clear vision of the project. The founders don’t have any knowledge about their competitors.
The team doesn’t know about that industry’s market growth rate — lack of funding for a specific time.
There is no proper planning and strategy for a specific time. The team members are not interested in working on that project or don’t want to work for the long term.
Every problem has a solution, but most people fail to find out the solution and how to solve it.
If you don’t know how to manage your team properly, then there is no point in building your own venture because without managing your employees, you can’t build anything good for your venture, and you can lose much money or even lose all of them as well.
If your team members are not involved in the vision, they can leave any time they want.
They can leave any time they want because they don’t have any interest in your project.
So if you want to build a good team for your project, you should ask all the members to be involved in your vision or not be involved in your vision, then try to get them involved.
The market growth rate is significant because many ventures fail due to this reason.
If you are sure about this reason, then there is no need to worry but if you don’t know anything about the market growth rate of that industry, then, first of all, get proper knowledge, and the next thing is that find out which industry has better growth rate and which one is growing more than others.
There are many times when the funding for a specific time period is not available. If it happens with your venture, then there is no point in building it because, without funding, you can’t build anything good for your venture.
If there is no proper planning and strategy for any time period, then there is no point in building it because, without proper planning and strategy, you can’t build anything good for your venture, and if something goes wrong with that project, then it will directly affect the whole business as well as there will be many problems for your business as well.
If the team members are not interested in working on your project or if they don’t want to work on it for a long time, then there is no point in building it because if the team members don’t want to work on your project, then they can leave any time they want and it can result in loss of money, or you can lose all of them.
In summary, if you want to build a successful venture, then you need to take care of all the above factors.
It is essential that you have a clear vision for your project and if you don’t have one, try to find out the clarity of your vision.
You should also know about your industry’s market growth rate, what is the current status of your competitors, and so on.
If you don’t know how to manage and lead your team properly, then there is no point in building it because without managing your employees, you can’t build anything good for your venture, and if things go wrong with your employees, then it will directly affect the whole business as well.
About the Author
I am the Founder of Cudy Technologies (www.cudy.co), a full-stack EdTech startup helping teachers and students learn better. I am also a mentor and angel investor in other Startups of my other interests (Proptech, Fintech, HRtech, Ride-hailing, C2C marketplaces, and SaaS). You can also find me on Cudy for early-stage Startup Founder mentorship and advice.
You can connect with me on Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderlhk) and let me know that you are a reader of my Medium posts in your invitation message.
