Getting Your Startup Team Right

This article is written by Brian Malika, a Contributor Author at Startup Istanbul.

Hovhannes Avoyan is a serial entrepreneur, investor and scholar. He is the current CEO and founder of PicsArt, a leading social photo editing startup with more than 400 million users worldwide, backed by Sequoia Capital, Insight Venture Partners, DCM and Siguler Guff. PicsArt is employing more than 400 people and headquartered in San Francisco.

One of the key things that investors look out for when considering to partner with a start-up is the team that will be involved in the whole process of bringing the innovative idea into fruition. Therefore the attribute of team spirit must be nurtured way before a start-up starts operating.

Everyone within the start-up team must acknowledge the efforts and uniqueness of other team members. And above all, each team member must learn to trust that their colleagues are able to deliver results with the right support.

 Five Team Work Hacks That Will Facilitate Sustainable Success For Your Start-up

Its all about passion

Imagine having a team in place that will work to actualize the vision of your start-up but still, some team members don’t like the issue that your start-up is working, like for example, some team members are in just for that paycheck or other benefits that come by being in your start-up team.

Team members that are not passionate about the area of interest that your start-up is working on will always have an excuse to leave in case another opportunity pops up somewhere else and as such forcing you as a start-up founder to invest time and resources recruiting and training another team member to take up the vacant position.

Energy must be felt within the team

Once you have the right team members that are passionate about your product , you will notice that during the first days of work team members will be energetic in every role that you assign them .

However, as days go by , the team spirit  fire will start to cool down . And no matter how passionate your team members are, they are bound to feel that their roles are getting boring with time. And that is why it's always important to keep the team fire glowing from the first day the team was formed. 

One of the techniques to maintain the team energy is by having team sessions that involve engaging brainstorms that reiterate the start-up goal on a regular basis.

Go for a team that owns your business  idea

Do you know that you might have a team that completely believes and is passionate about your business idea but they contradict with your implementation model?

Yes, you can have a team member(s) that are passionate with the area of interests your start-up is indulging in but at the same time they reserve different views when it comes to the implementation plan . In such a case there is bound to be conflict within the teamwork processes.

Therefore, it is advised that you agree on the specific implementation framework that s agreeable to everyone.

Look out for skills

Make sure that all the specific skills to perform the various functions within your start-up or business are incorporated within the team.  Aim to have engineers so that they can work on the product efficiency,  marketers to inform on the customer journey, psychologists to inform on the various social forces that control customer behavior and even accountants to track every flow of money within the business.

Deliberately employ a specific skill with a reason in mind.

Look For A  team That Builds The Business

Once you have team members in your business that are passionate, skilled, energetic and own your business idea then the remaining attribute is to open up the floor so that every teammate can contribute to improving the business.

 Don’t make it hard for ideas, creativity, and innovative change to be communicated due to bureaucratic processes. Make the communication process within the team in terms of bettering the business to be easier and flexible.

Iron Sharpens Iron

Finally, no matter how innovative you can get in ideating business solutions, the success of your company is at the fate of team members that will assist you to realize your business goals.

Therefore, always be unbiased, sober and informed while selecting your team members. These five hacks that I have talked about in this article have the potentiality to enable you settle on an effective business team .