Team-Building Secrets for Successful Startups



In our business, we deal with many start-ups. They come to us looking for commercial space, all dreamy and excited... and barely one year later, all hell breaks loose!



Today, I'll like to make some comments about such start-ups. Because too many of them don't make it, and then they come back to us to assist them to "break lease" with the landlord.



Many start-ups, we find, do not pay enough attention to calculating their real estate cost. They get emotional. They see a space, they get excited, they want it. They do not realize that the implication of a 3-year lease with the landlord. I suspect most of them don't even have a realistic 3-year business plan.



I believe strongly that if you are starting a business, and you need space, before you run out there and get a realtor to show you around, you should think harder about your real estate strategy first. Because once you meet the realtor, chances are he or she will press your emotional buttons real quick and you end up signing the lease sooner than you are ready for...


Most entrepreneurs get excited about their product or service. They have their marketing plan, their ops plan... but tragically, no real estate plan...


That's why they get trapped later, even if they do well enough to expand.


Because, as we know from Pareto's 80/20 rule, 80% of your branches aren't going to be real contributors. Only 20% will be bringing in 80% of your profits. So how are you going to manage the real estate cost there? What's your real estate strategy?


Now let's take one step back. Before you can implement your real estate strategy, you must think harder about your team first.... (& this impacts how much space you need for a start, or can you just work from home or a serviced office first? Can you share office with a chum for a few weeks or months as you sort your initial business bits?)

You need to consider team issues because people in your team are what's going to make your business work, especially in the first year. This "knowledge" then inputs into your business real estate plan.


I found an article by by Marilyn Byrd and Beth Polish that talks about teams very well. It is reproduced below for your enjoyment. I hope you will find the tips to apply to your business...


When people start businesses, they often hire staff when needed, where needed, with no strategic plan in place.


Sometimes they are lucky and it works. But more often than not, it wastes money and hobbles the startup, as these typical scenarios show:


Ready, aim . . . wait!


A software developer sits at her computer for more than a year, developing a product that she plans to bring to market. Finally, the product is ready, so she dashes out and starts looking for a marketing consultant. Two months later, she finds one. But during that time, she is not making any sales and her competitors are developing new products of their own.


Well, I needed her . . . last month!


An entrepreneur who is launching a wine distribution company hires a full-time assistant to handle his travel plans, meetings with investors and office set-up. Her presence helps him whittle down his workload, but when he needs funds to hire a sales staff ASAP, his "necessary" assistant suddenly starts to look like an extravagance.


So you should expect things like that to happen in a startup, right? No, wrong! You can take preventive steps to be sure you hire the right people at the right time, strategically:

• Write your own job description first.

If you are as smart as the software developer we mention above, you probably believe that you can do it all. You can develop and package your product, market it, sell it and keep it updated. Well, you can't do all those things. Write a job description in which you realistically lay out your "deliverables," meaning what you can do every week, every month, every quarter and every year. This job description keeps you accountable and serves as a yardstick for measuring your progress. It also helps you identify areas where you need assistance - and areas where you don't belong. In a startup, it is deadly and wasteful for people to be tripping over each other.

• Then write job descriptions for the other people you will hire.

Don't think that a list of titles ("head of sales" and "office manager") will cover these bases. Unless write down the specific tasks that each team member will handle for you ("preparation of payroll"), you will leave bases uncovered. For example, we know one company where the owner forgot that he needed someone to answer the phones! Don't let that happen to you.

• Plan to start small.

Don't hire too early and squander your limited resources. Remember, you can start out with consultants or advisors for marketing, technology and other responsibilities. You can hire part-timers, temps and others per-hour employees too, until your company income lets you expand.

• Hire to meet the big milestones you'll achieve this year, next year and beyond.

Do you need a marketer to produce a marketing plan for you by next January, for example, and then a technology person to set up a fully functioning Internet retailing operation by next March? Whatever your goals are, write them down. If you do, you are more likely to succeed than if you just try to keep them in mind.


As you move from being a solopreneurship to an entrepreneurship, you need to build a staff of people who cover all the important functions and perform as a team.


Don't, like many first-time entrepreneurs, hire haphazardly. Making the right hiring decisions, at the right times, can be the foundation of your success.




Acolades:

Beth Polish,who received her MBA from Harvard Business School, has held senior management positions in diverse industries including media, finance, private investment and technology. She serves on the National Advisory Board of the Women's Leadership Exchange and conducts seminars around the country as a WLE "growth guru."


Marilyn Byrd, President of Byrd Associates, is a seasoned executive recruiter with over 12 years of executive-level recruiting experience.