What Are The Qualities You Would Look At In Hiring A Startup Team ?

Ravi Kikan
Ravi is a Mentor at MentorEdge ( A CIIE- IIM-A initiative), A Knowledge driven enterprise. He is a Growthhacker for Startups, Online Community Builder, Startup Connector and B2B Marketing Expert.

A bunch of fools with a great idea is a pure suicide for the venture

You have a great idea. You have some funds. You have a plan in place.

Awesome !

Now what ?

Do you have a good team in place ???

Read: The Perfect Way To Hire For Your Startup?

Going with my experience and with many of the startups that either I was part of, seen or mentored these are the list of the key qualities a great startup team needs to have:

• Passion: Period. First and Foremost they should be a bunch of passionate people who believe that they can drive the product or service through their passion and willingness. The passion for the sector or service is the first thing that a person who is part of a ground up venture needs to have.
• Self Driven: People and specially startups are self driven ships. If the team is not self driven and a whole lot of training is required to upscale them, most likely chances are that the time would be wasted to get them up the curve. Self driven individuals perform better and they just need polishing to get up the curve. This doesn’t mean they have to be expert but yes they should have some ability to be good in the sector if not attain expertise.
• Multi Tasking: Startups function with a flexible organization structure and ability and opportunity to do lot of things. Many things and different things at the same time. An indvidual who is willing to be a marketing man one day, sales man the other day and an operational guy the other day will have more chances of getting groomed as an asset.
• Flexible: This is one critical thing. A startup is not a 925 job.It is always challenging and driven to meet goals and realistic expectations set by the team. E.g. A startup in US who has clients in Germany will have to match timings for client dealings and likewise tune themselves. Clock or Anti clock if there is an element of flexibility in the prospects they are a good fit.
• Drive for Innovation: A Startup team which can be innovative and can bring new processes, controls, products or ways to get the startup high up in the curve will have better chances to grow and excel and not just survive.
• Domain Experts: A great thing to have.If you club this quality with some of the above mentioned qualities it is an amazing fitment to have. They will bring progression to the startup at faster scale.
• Tried Testers: Hiring someone who has already tried in the sector you are trying to work on is also a good idea to have though many people may not agree.The failures of the past also gives someone an edge to handle things safely in future. Not many people do it but e.g. if someone could not raise funds but was successful in creating a great product, he could be considered for a startup role. Failure is never a hindrance to hire able human capital, it is just a way to allow someone to perform in his or her strength areas.

Also Read: 5 Key Tips On Hiring Your Top Team

Remember hiring the right human capital is just building the right base for your multi level startup building, the wrong base bricks will just bring the building down.

Bon Voyage !