The challenges of a startup varies at various levels. The challenges range from cash flows to family support to choosing the right investors when you are raising funds to just a simple one as to…”Hire the right set of people in your startup with the same passion.”

You have a great idea. You have some funds. You have a plan in place. Awesome! What’s next? Since you can’t do it all alone…do you have the right team in place?

Going with my experience and with many of the startups that either I was part of, seen or mentored these are the list of the key qualities a great startup team needs to have:

1) Passion: Period. First and Foremost they should be a bunch of passionate people who believe that they can drive the product or service through their passion and willingness. The passion for the sector or service is the first thing that a person who is part of a ground up venture needs to have.

2) Self Driven: People and specially startups are self driven ships. If the team is not self driven and a whole lot of training is required to upscale them, most likely chances are that the time would be wasted to get them up the curve. Self driven individuals perform better and they just need polishing to get up the curve. This doesn’t mean they have to be expert but yes they should have some ability to be good in the sector if not attain expertise.

3) Multi Tasking: Startups function with a flexible organization structure and ability and opportunity to do lot of things. Many things and different things at the same time. An indvidual who is willing to be a marketing man one day, sales man the other day and an operational guy the other day will have more chances of getting groomed as an asset.

4) Flexible: This is one critical thing. A startup is not a 925 job.It is always challenging and driven to meet goals and realistic expectations set by the team. E.g. A startup in US who has clients in Germany will have to match timings for client dealings and likewise tune themselves. Clock or Anti clock if there is an element of flexibility in the prospects they are a good fit.

5) Drive for Innovation: A Startup team which can be innovative and can bring new processes, controls, products or ways to get the startup high up in the curve will have better chances to grow and excel and not just survive.

Remember hiring the right human capital is just building the right base for your multi level startup building, the wrong base bricks will just bring the building down.

So don’t be impatient when building your startup team, or when adding to your team as a growing business. Keep your foundation strong at all times so your biggest dreams can manifest into a solid reality!

Tommy Runfola
Keep fighting the good fight – “GET BACK UP!”