Even though you may not get the perfect hire for your startup, you should try getting the best people possible. Even if you are just a college startup, you shouldn’t just take anyone on your team just for the sake of building an organisation hoping to get the work done. Trust me, not even half of the work will be finished. It’s the team which makes or breaks startups.
Know the following now, and make sure you follow them while hiring people for your startup:
- Compromise on the right things: If a person is perfect, he will not work for you. Perfectionists never work for startups. If they do, they do so in very rare cases. Mr. Dharmesh Shah, CTO of HubSpot says in a blogpost:
Everyone you bring on is a compromise. The trick is to compromise on the right things.
So, when you are about to hire someone, don’t just think that this guy can’t do this, or he doesn’t even know what guerilla marketing is. Relax! Everyone can be taught the tricks. Make sure that he/she has the requisite passion.
- Team Matters: You had the idea. You built the prototype. After the seed funding, things started changing for you. Now, you need to have a team which could work with you. You set your eyes on hiring people – how would you go about it? I’d hire the most talented people. For people with more than one skills, the doors to my startup will always be open. The reason I say this is because accordingto Mr. Mark Suster, VC at GRP Partners:
Startups. We know the mantra: Team matters. Is this philosophy exaggerated? Overrated? Cliché? No. Team is the only thing that matters.
Hiring the best talent is important otherwise the rival company will gain an advantage. To not lose that new lead, you need to have an awesome sales team. To meet deadlines, your developers need to know what they’re doing. Skills and skill-sharing maketh a team.
Attitude or Aptitude??
Both if possible.
I say so because an ideal startup employee for me would be someone who has the passion for building things from scratch and the skill to take it into the startosphere. And, most of the times, the skill is gained through experience. But if I did not get one such guy and can spare some time to train folks, I might also hire someone who does not have much experience but is always ready to explore new things and is sensible.
To put it straight:
If you have time to mentor, then definitely passion. If you need someone to stabilize the ship, then experience.
But, somewhere you need to set a minimum acceptable skill level. If the candidate meets your needs, and there are many who do so, choose the one who is the most passionate about working in a startup – who is ready to tackle failure with the same passion with which he tackles success.
I’d choose passion over experience any given day. If you are still having trouble deciding, have a look at the discussion on Quora.
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