Many startups fail. Founding teams don’t expect to fail when they create their startup, but something goes wrong along the way. These four elements of a great startup founding team will keep your team strong, motivated, unified, and successful.
In your startup team, you want to aim for a diverse group of people. Intentionally implementing diversity in your team, both through soft skills and hard skills, will ensure success. You need people with soft skills that fall into three roles: a leader, a manager, and a doer.
Remember to look at the hard skills offered by each of these types of people as well. You will inevitably need someone who is great at sales because you need to sell your product to buyers and your company to investors. You will also need someone who is proficient at product development, so that you create a high-quality product quickly.
As tempting as it may be, do not hire your friends, or a family member who just really needs a job. For your startup to succeed, you have to focus on creating a great founding team with the hard and soft skills necessary for success. Each person needs to be the best in their own domain.
The building blocks of a great founding team pictured above are originally presented by Point Nine Capital. Check out their decision making framework of 5T's to get more insight on how to improve your idea.
Your founding team needs to have a competitive advantage over other startups. You may have better access to technology or data to create a superior product. Perhaps you have better access to stakeholders in your industry.
Even if you don’t have any unique market insights, one competitive advantage that you can develop that will separate you from the rest is execution speed. While others in your industry may deliberate and consider options, you need to be able to think and act faster to get the upper hand.
Your startup team needs a mission and a purpose. Having a common goal will help you work together as a team even when things are difficult or the money isn’t flowing. A mission could even be seen as a competitive advantage because it unlocks success in so many other areas.
Being able to explain the “why” of your startup, and not only the “how” and the “what” of what you are doing, will set you apart from other startups and make you stand out while recruiting. Employees will be more loyal when they agree with your mission. Leaders who truly believe in the mission will be better at inspiring others and making decisions.