My advice on building a team
Finding people, motivating them and solving problems together in an early-stage startup environment.
Full disclosure: I do not claim to be an expert in the field of team building, hiring, or executive leadership, having assumed these responsibilities in the past 7 months and also being an active duty veteran; I’d like to share what I’ve learned thus far.
Finding The Right People
When I started ForgetMeNot I was going into it a lone wolf. I thought that I was going to code the entire web application myself, and the only outside help I would need is just a UI/UX designer. That isn’t to say that I wasn’t keen on reaching out for help and advice from people who I thought might be able to give it, but when it came to the business, I was alone.
That was, until, I hired my UI/UX designer. I posted a job titled “Graphic Design Work & Web UI/UX design” on UpWork and it shifted my perception on hiring and team building.
I screened 15 UI/UX designers, some of them great in interviews with poor quality work, others didn’t do so well in my interview (There were a lot of language barriers, which I don’t hold against them) but had great work.
The one thing that I cared most about, even more than the quality of work they had on their portfolio, was how motivated and excited they got when they knew what the project was about.
I still remember the look on the designer’s face after I pitched him the idea. He said “Wow this is going to be great”. Now, whether or not that turns out to be true is a different story, but I knew from the moment he said that, that it wasn’t just another project for him to complete. He believed in the idea, he thought it was good, and that little difference will mean the world when it comes to designing the product with the correct audience in mind.
— This idea extended to every additional hire that happened after that. For business development, software development, digital marketing and business administration. Every one of these job titles working on the project had to pass my smell test, and I think it had made a world of a difference for us.
Building Trust and Motivation
We build trust by working together, it’s that plain and simple. Just like anything else in life that requires trust, it takes time. But I’ve noticed up to this point, that the most trust in my team was gained in situations where we had deadlines to meet. Now certainly deadlines get blown but it’s the action of working together and failing together that makes the team feel closer.
As it pertains to motivation, I don’t necessarily see this as a tremendous problem at this point. I like to think by bringing people on who believe in the project and how our work will be impacting people, that motivation levels tend to run pretty high. That’s not to say we are robots that perform work at 100% enthusiasm all the time, there is a necessary amount of motivation that I bring to the table for everyone.
I see that a well placed praise and acknowledgement can turn something completely around. It’s important that it’s genuine, I don’t think you can make trips around your office 3 times a day praising everyone and their dog for being alive.
When the standard of work is so high for everyone on the team, excellence is mediocre, and just because people make it look easy does not mean that it actually is. Praise the people working with you.
Solving Interpersonal Problems
Working with a team of highly motivated people, who are great at what they do will likely always lead to disagreements.
We are no different. We frequently have hot topics spur up in our weekly meetings and it’s important that we know when to put the fires out.
Sometimes there needs to be controlled burns, and others we need to put out right away and the difference in that is huge.
I believe it’s important to let people have their disagreements, but try to keep everyone on track. If it seems that it’s going no where then you need to interject and change the topic so that the others can calm down. And the same goes for yourself.
Final Thoughts
The past 7 months have been incredibly challenging, cost me a ton of money, but I’ve learned more in that time than likely in the cumulative sum of life as an adult.
If you’re a founder, co-founder or early employee at a start up, or aspire to be one of these soon, I hope this information was able to provide some sort of insight into my life right now.
If you guys want to reach out to me directly, feel free to on my social pages or LinkedIn.
Good luck!
