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Hire When It Hurts
Capital efficiency is critical when relying on investor capital rather than operating income to build your company. In the early stages, hire carefully. In fact, in general, put off expanding your team prematurely by only hiring when it hurts.
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Facilitating Team Learning Curves
Leading a startup means forging new paths, building organizational infrastructure, and ultimately becoming skilled at facilitating team learning curves. This is one of the most challenging parts of being an entrepreneur trying to create a business.
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It Takes a Village to Build a Startup
A village combines the contributions of many people to build a functioning community, which is an excellent metaphor for what it takes to build a successful startup. And this Thanksgiving season, I am reflecting on how thankful I am for those who have joined the villages I have been part of.
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Creating, Refining, and Executing
When building a startup, you create “stuff” that gets refined and becomes the playbook the team executes.
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Every Startup is a Custom Job
Innovative high-potential startups are, by their very nature, “custom jobs.”
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The Dilemma of Two Good Options
Sometimes when you have one spot to fill, you find you have a great problem: More than one outstanding option to fill that spot.
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Preparing to be Unavailable for a Time
What do you do when something comes up, and you must step away for a time? How do you and your team prepare for such a thing?
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Managing the Wounded
When you have someone join your team, one of the key things to keep an eye out for is where they are wounded. Note that I did not say “if” they are wounded, only “where.”
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Virtual Team Integration
We just hired five new employees, expanding our team by almost a third. As a fully virtual company, one of our challenges is how do we help our new team members integrate so everyone feels like we are one team.
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The Value of Performance Tests in Recruiting
Evaluating potential new team members for skills and capabilities fit is always challenging due to inherent information disparities in the recruiting process. Performance tests can provide pivotal insight.
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The Dilemma of Two Good Options
Every Startup is a Custom Job
Managing the Wounded
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Executive Mindset
An executive mindset does not depend on the job title but on the ability to synthesize, direct, and know when to enforce and when to break the rules.
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Provide Your Capacity to Your Team
As a startup leader and manager, supporting and enabling your team is one of your most important jobs. Yet sometimes, being available feels like you are not doing "enough."
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Consulting as Startup Preparation Ground
Experience as a consultant can develop useful transferrable skills for leading a high-potential startup. Yet, by itself, it is seldom enough. Here are some reflections on both sides of the coin.
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Intentionally Empowering Each Other
One of the great aspects of being part of a high-performing team is how each member of the team intentionally contributes to empowering each other, which elevates both our collective process and our combined results.
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Catch Them Being Good
Carrots and honey beat sticks and vinegar every time. When leading a team, pay attention so you can catch them being good.
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Recognizing When You Need to Change Up Your Team
Are you unconsciously suffering from a role fit problem in your team? First recognizing and then addressing the issue is critical to startup success.
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Intentional Onboarding: Setting New Team Members Up for Success
Whether an employee or consultant, or contractor, when you add a new team member, you hope they can bring value to your team. Enabling that is your responsibility.
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Vetting Prospective Hires
Recruiting team members is always a high stakes process. And that is especially true in a startup. Hiring mistakes are costly, so it is worth taking care to vet prospective new hires well.
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The Shift from Hiring Generalists to Hiring Specialists in a Startup
At inception, the founding team of a startup must be small, but mighty. As the company grows, a shift occurs as the team reaches critical mass, and it becomes feasible to start hiring specialists. Recognizing this new stage of growth is essential.
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My Prospective VC Is Asking For Personality Tests?
“They want us to take personality tests?” My team looked appalled. “Yep,” I said, “And we might even learn something ourselves from the process!”
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For Today’s Startup Problem-Solving, Are We Cooking or Baking?
The work of building a startup varies. Sometimes it is more like cooking. Sometimes it is more like baking. Pick the right skill set for the job at hand.
