Choosing your team ...

Everyone says it, "In a startup the most important aspect is your team". Yes i totally agree. Its difficult to see how we could have gotten this far with the software if i hadnt had Mark as the co-founder. Sometimes its very difficult to find that diverse set of skills within a group of guys that are looking to build a startup. I think the main reason is the fact that human nature dictates we flock together beause of things they have in common and our shared interests. In many cases it could be hobby interest, sports interest and simply just background and ethnicity. We all know that many startups begin by a couple of friends with similar interests talking about an idea and making that extra step to bring the idea to life. If the team has similar skills and interests there will need to be some flexibility in reshuffling and learning of new skills to strengthen the diversity.

Diversity and flexibility is the key. If everyone is a hacker its possible the team can create a great backend, great api's and fantastically optimized code but assuming that the product isnt just a single button and a text field, who will design the usability and the interface that is friendly to the user. Hackers on the team may do it and may come up with a decent interface for user interaction, however only when this task is given to seasoned designer can we see the short-comings of the initial design.

The way a hacker looks at code enthusiastically, trying to squeeze out the last amount of efficiency or laboriously trying to ensure that the architecture and design is such that scalability wont be an issue for growth, graphic designers will look at colors combinations, the number of clicks that a user needs to do to achieve a function, the size of the differente widgets with the same amount of detail. As hackers and architects look at scalibility, equally designers look at the CSS and html, trying to ensure that any design changes in future will not result in a complete overhaul of the presentation layer code.

If you're lucky you may also come across potential team members that are distinctly very different in terms of their core strengths but have various skills that overlap. This kind of team will be able to understand at a high-level the complexities of each others work and in turn ensure that any interfaces whether its a new screeen, the tuning of the database or the network architecure design is built to provide the best quality both individually and as a component of the overall system.

Last but not least even though skills may match it is important that with a bootstrapped startup all the team members are on the same page when it comes to their current outlook on life. Building a startup is hard and requires alot of work, most important to note there isnt any money to be made during the difficult early stages of the startup. Even though you have a potential team member who has the perfect complementing skill sets if they are either busy with family, just got into a relationship, want to have fun and go bushwalking or bike riding every weekend or looking for that promotion within their 9-5 job chances are things wont work out. The focus needs to be to finish the job at hand and be excited about the potential of the final outcome of the startup. There is a reason why some people work and some people start companies and that reason is the ability to take gratification later instead of now(as be the case with getting a monthly salary from a large corporation VS working hard on a startup for a year without any substancial income)

Finding people with the drive is hard, finding people with the drive and the skills to work with you as part of your team is harder and finding people with the drive, the skills and the ability to keep going even though things may crash and burn is even harder but at the end of it, the gains if successful are well worth the effort.