“Luck,” she said, “lots of luck. And patience.” I asked Sam, my girlfriend, for her thoughts on how we built our team. She’s right – it definitely takes plenty of both.
There are also a few other important things: figuring out your weaknesses, thinking about the type of organization you want to build, and putting a process in place that allows you to find a broad number of potential candidates and screen them for the right set of skills and character.
It matters because there is little more fundamental to what you are as a startup than who you are. It’s not the idea or the product or the brand or your bank account – those are all results of the people behind them.
Building a team that can execute on any idea can seem daunting to a solo founder with just an idea. Once you come to terms with the fact that you can’t do it yourself, the process of figuring out what the right pieces are, and how you might possibly pull them together becomes your biggest challenge. This will become the crew you’ll find your wave with, catch it and ride it, watch it come crashing down on your head, and then jump back on the board knowing that they’ve got your back and you’ve got theirs.
deep thoughts 