Picking the your dream team

Every start-up needs a good team. It's one of the first things Venture Capital look at and a common cliché is that VC's invest in teams, not ideas. While I don't 100% believe that you require a proven team, after all Google and Youtube were not proven teams when they got venture vending. Nevertheless, you cannot run a start-up by yourself and picking the right people to join you is a decision to not be taken lightly.

I think the first thing to consider is what you are looking for and where to find it. Look for the gaps in the team. Don't just hire the best person from the best company you can think off. To use a football analogy, if you were to do this strategy you would go to Real Madrid to hire Cristiano Ronaldo then Barcelona to hire Lionel Messi. For starters you have just hired two very similar people with roughly the same set of skills. But what if you needed a leader? Then the best place to go is to go to Chelsea and hire John Terry (England Captain).

So for instance if your a tech company, hiring the vice-president of technology from Microsoft might sound like a no-brainer but the company might already all the technological knowledge it needs and just require marketing and sales experience. In addition, a vice-president from Microsoft might have no idea what it is like to work for a start-up. They are 2 completely different environments and they might not be well suited to it.

From Guy Kawasaki, the Art of the Start, it is also important to hire people that are better than yourself. "A player's should hire A+ players". If you start hiring people who are worse than you then it might start a downward spiral until the company is full of Z players. 

So once a potential candidate has been identified, one needs to assess the candidate based on 3 key things on whether they are suited to join the team:

1. Psychological state - Will they do the job
2. Ability - Can they do the job
3. Personality - Will they fit in

The eligibility criteria (Ability) shows whether the person can do the job. Things to look for include:

• Relevant qualifications, functional expertise and skills. 
• Prior entrepreneurial experience, regardless of whether it ended in success or failure. 
• Contribution to the Capital mix
• connections up, down and across the value chain

Next is the Suitability criteria (Psychological state, Personality) which shows whether the will do the job and whether they will fit into the team. The type of things to consider involve:

• Shared vision, values, beliefs and goals
• Personal fit with team
• Mutual trust
• Versatility & Flexibility
• Ability to learn and adapt

Failure to not consider eligibility does not occur too often as business tend to not overlook those factors. However it can arise if hiring friends or family when ability isn't the primary factor for hire. Failure to assess eligibility correctly can have drastic effects as it may result in technical and functional incompetence.

Suitability criteria are much harder to assess and therefore are often not considered as vigorously as eligibility criteria. However they can have just as a drastic effect on the performance of the new venture. If the team has too many different personalities that clash with one another, then it can be very counter-productive, and motivation and commitment may suffer. Likewise if team members have different psychological states then this could lead to many conflicts.

Therefore both eligibility and suitability should be assessed when picking new team members.