The 8C’s of a Startup Team

You’ve probably read enough articles from a lot of experts about the Team being the most important element of a startup. In fact, the primary factor that investors consider while backing a startup venture is said to be the Team. So what makes a good Team?

From our experience, I’ve tried to list the attributes that we learned was critical to the startup team, in no particular order. Enjoy!

Chemistry – You are going to spend more time with your Team than your own family over the next several months of your startup journey, so keep that in mind when you select your fellow adventurers. It is absolutely fundamental that the team gets along. You are going to see more than your fair share of ups and downs, and being able to enjoy this ride with each other is very, very important. After all, if you are not having fun doing this together, then you are probably not going to be able to do it for very long.

Culture – Probably something that gets underestimated more often than not is the Culture that the team shares. While its obviously not necessary to agree on every aspect that falls under culture, there needs to be basic agreement on the value system – things like integrity, means of earning business etc. Not paying enough attention to this can certainly impact the Chemistry and everything else that goes with it. And as you grow, this shared culture should evolve into the basic DNA of your organization, so this is something that needs to stand the test of time. Taking the time to understand why each member of the Team is involved in the startup is probably a good starting point to evaluate the cultural fit.

Completeness – In the early days, the Team is the be all and end all of your startup. That means that the Team better be complete with regard to the goals that you are trying to achieve and what those goals entail. Of course, during various phases, the goals start to change, evolve etc and this will warrant evolving the composition of the Team as well but you better not be missing any key functions for the goals you are trying to achieve in that particular milestone. If that happens, it is quitely likely that all the good work of the rest of the group will come to nought. For instance, if that milestone requires achieving a certain volume of sales, there needs to be someone in the core team that’s capable of making that happen. Not every member on the team needs to be a rock star, but together, you better have a unit that is special and capable of big things.

Commitment – Again, probably something that’s taken for granted. Working through the early days of a startup is often considered sexy and exciting, but very few first-timers truly realize how difficult those early days can be. The core team needs to show unflagging commitment, and not just in patches, but on a consistent (read daily) basis. For those that are doing this part-time, this can quite often be a challenge, but if you don’t find a way to do this, you are going to quickly fall behind and will find it much, much harder to recover. And if you don’t recover, well, you know what happens…

Collaboration – Lets say the team is complete and every member has his/her role assigned, so you have primary areas of ownership clearly identified. But there are going to be times when the primary owner is overwhelmed and the rest of the team needs to play a supporting role and pick up the slack…and some of this will most certainly be dirty work. Someone has to make the coffee, someone has to clean the plates and so on…No one said it was all cool work but the work has to get done – so you better get busy on those plates.

Communication – If there is one thing that gets taken for granted, it is the Communication aspect. Please do not underestimate the importance of keeping everyone on the same page – beware, this is very easy to do and you won’t even know it. It is quite likely that you are working on a somewhat distributed setup, and a lack of communication can not only foster inefficiency, it can quickly lead to frustration and create a negative climate all around. And as we all know, such negative sentiments will pull your entire team down like quicksand. Have regular meetings, status updates, reports etc – whatever it takes to keep the communication lines open and functional.

Character – If you are involved in a startup, you probably have a lot of Character to begin with. Good, because you will need it and you will be severely tested. Unless you are one of those incredibly lucky startups, the proportion of bad news will far outweigh the good news that you get to face and it is just incredibly important that you don’t let it wear you down. Every day is a fresh start and the commitment to the goal cannot waver – and that takes character, lots of it.

Commander – And last but not the least, you are a team and you will work together and a lot of decisions will be by consensus because its a small unit, but there are certainly times when you’ll disagree. It is therefore important that there is a clear leader in the group. And it is very, very crucial that the leader is the right person for the job. While being able to command respect is a necessary condition, it is absolutely not sufficient. The leader is the one that shows conviction, demonstrates tremendous clarity of thought, stays committed to the vision, is able to stare adversity in the face and lead the team in pursuit of the stated goals. You are expected to question decisions that you don’t agree with, but in the event that there is disagreement, you have to be able to trust and defer to your leader’s decision-making abilities and support the team, period.

I do make it sound very serious and somewhat negative, don’t I? Its because after almost two years of doing our venture, I now fully believe that the Team is the most important aspect to the startup that there is, and the attributes I list above warrant a good deal of attention. If you are able to assemble the right team and go after the objective together however, it makes for nothing but an unbelievably fun ride!