Building the right team

An article that from a "start up website"...basic but has a few truths for the ealrystage entreprneur, the early lesson that we need learn very quickly when the company is growing is that of we are not superman/woman...and if you want to grow fast you need to get a team that you trust in place quickly...

Being a jack of all trades is a phrase often associated with starting up and then running a small business. This works so far as being the decision maker, creative input and tea maker but what happens when you come up against an area you can't handle - we're not all salesmen, for example.

This is the point where you are forced to acknowledge that although it's entirely your business, you can't do everything. That's the hard part. The easy (or easier) bit is then building up the expertise you need around you without having to employ leagues of people you can't afford.

You need an extended, partly virtual, team.

Company and marketplace

The first thing is to identify what skills and experience your company needs to grow and make it a success. Only once you know this can you start to work out where your team is strong, where it is lacking and how to rectify this.

• If you haven't already done so in you business plan, define the exact nature of your product or service and its marketplace and how to recognise the problems of that market.
  This doesn't have to be complicated, simply testing at a local level to see how your company fits in can be your first step:

Sophie Brown runs Marmalade Cards in Cambridge, "I started by trying different designs in different local outlets - testing what sells in the post office, the pub or the shop. This helped me build up a basic range." She basically got to grips with what her market would accept and what it wouldn't.

Brian Steel at Business Link Berkshire and Wiltshire has four key questions, which can help in identifying areas for improvement:

• What does the company do well?
• What does it do badly?
• What it needs to start doing?
• What it needs to stop doing?

All this might seem rather theoretical but if you put it in context of customer service, advertising, growth, product range and so on you'll build up a picture of areas to address.

What are your strengths?

This is the part where you identify where you can reasonably manage without the expertise of others by relying on your own resources. In some ways this is the most important stage.

"The areas that the business plan shys away from are often the areas where the problems are," says Jon Howes of chip design company NEuW. "For example, there might not be a proper marketing plan or the financial side might be weak."

It's a variation on facing your fears but the whole point is that you don't have to face them on your own, these are the areas to seek help. It will also equally show you where your strengths are.

"It's vital to be strictly honest about your strengths and weaknesses," agrees Brian Steel. "And it should be an ongoing process, continuous improvement comes through continuous monitoring."

Practically speaking, you can learn to market your own product - after all you are the expert on it - you can run the office and develop new custom. But if for example on top of this you are spending far too much time struggling to balance the books when you don't have a head for figures, it's time to pay someone else to do this. It won't be a full time job and the time saved will be worth the money.

Slainte

Gordon

Sailing the Startup Seas

Sailing the start up Seas

The Analogy

I like analogies. I especially like those that are vivid and graphic and speak to large numbers of us. Building a technology company, startup or otherwise, is a complicated, dynamic and, I hesitate to say, even chaotic, activity. I tried to think of another human activity that parallels this at least in some ways and I think I've come up with one: sailing the oceans. Actually … sailing in the good old days at the time of Columbus in wooden sailing vessels. Let's look at the parallels:

1. Both are done in vessels made by a group of people. Startup companies are like smaller sailing vessels. Big corporations are more like clipper ships. Columbus was a startup.
2. Navigating the ocean (or the ocean of business) is a tricky business, subject to winds and tides and other elements beyond our control.
3. Our ability to navigate these aided by only the most primitive tools. In Columbus's case he had primitive maps and perhaps a crude sextant. We have marketing surveys and the media, the modern maps for navigating our technology companies. Columbus's maps only went so far, and showed the edge of the Earth with notes like "Monsters be here". There is, of course, a big difference between these maps and a marketing survey. The warnings on the maps of monsters and the edge of the Earth were myths, while the oceans were quite real. In a marketing analysis, the description of the market and its potential (the analog to the ocean) are myths, while the very real dangers of falling off the edge or getting eaten by monsters are unmentioned, unmarked and undreamed of, but quite real.
4. You may be sailing along smoothly, but at any moment the environment can turn quite nasty, develop into a big, nasty storm … and sink you.
5. Pirates could appear at any time, shooting your ships to bits, capturing your crew and plundering your assets.
6. When you get somewhere, you may think you know where you are, but in actuality, you may not have a clue as to where you truly are.
7. When you have finished your voyage of exploration and returned to your homeport, people will have trouble understanding where you've been and what you found, even if you bring a captive or two to show off.
8. The actual results of your voyage will not be apparent, even if you think they are. It may take quite of bit of time to see the real results, and you may not be the one to profit from them.
9. If you don't bring back the gold and jewels the sponsors of your voyage expected, you might lose your head.

I'd like to go on, but the parallels get weaker and I think the point was made, enjoy your voyage it will change you for ever and have fun.

Slainte

Gordon