Hardcore Startup, Part II

How to Make up a Dream Team
Previously on Medium I told about how many NOs and YESes I faced on the way of making a Dream come true, how many mistakes I made and which decisions were taken.
This part of my chronicles will be dedicated to The Team. Three years have passed and with highsight I now see that I tried to put a squad three times. Let me introduce myself for those who didn’t read Part One — I’m a businessman with some experience in e-commerce who decided to try a fortune in an IT-startup.

#1. Team Inside a Team

Working in e-commerce selling climatic equipment I worked together with a small IT-team that were a Support Team for my online-shops. I began to expand IT-department staff to build up a team for my future start-up activities. I failed as any Idea requires a full absorption and devotion to, and you cannot eat your cake and keep it…
But the main thing is, that I found a business partner who became my True Friend and we both are still burning with excitement to change the world.

#2 One Man No Man

I was pacing like a caged animal, I lost my way and didn’t know which route to follow feeling like an idea-hamster. I was only sure that the storm would stop, the dawn would come and that would be the time I’d find my way to move along.
One man no man, and that was the reason I tried to keep in touch with key people who would surely follow me in my Battle.

#3 A Tough Call

We came to the flat we rented for our start-up thinking the Idea and the Team were enough to begin with. We had The Idea, we made up a Team, we came to work and I heard the question:”What’s for TE?”
We didn’t even have the technical enquiry so we had to drop a team as we didn’t know which tasks to allot. The next two months my partner and me were staying at work after midnight thinking over the project’s logics, technical requirements, interface. I was drawing some sketches of pages’ prototypes and my friend was digitizing and finalizing my ideas on the PC screen.

#4 Inflated Expectations

The third composition of team’s line-up was the one we pieced. First job interviews had shown that lots of developers made serious demands, such as:
competitive salary;
partial company ownership;
control authorities;
setting the rules powers.
When I asked one of them about what he would sacrifice to satisfy his claims, he didn’t understand my question. I tried to explicate my saddest expectations and asked if he would work for less, if he’d wait for money for some time, if he would be ready to work overtime in case of a deadline and, the most important, if he was ready to change and rise. I received a negative response.

#5 Teambuilding

Gathering a group doesn’t mean gathering a team, so I decided to organize a tour as I wanted everybody to know each other better in a relaxed atmosphere, I wanted everyone to to sink into the Idea, into the Concept. I wanted everyone to devote themselves entirely to my Dream.
To put their heads down to work, I initially wanted them to inflame my Team with my Idea, I drew lots of sketches asking everyone to explain how well they understood me, it was very important for me to know how deeply immersed they were. I wanted to achieve some common goals, dreams and vision with them.
We tried to make up a home atmosphere to encourage our team to keep coming back to the office, so we tried to make that flat as much comfortable as possible. You can be true to yourself in such a microclimate knowing that you’d always be supported and understood by others. Team is like a family whom we can trust and rely on.

#6 Cool Your Heat, Guy

Start up is very much native to uncertainties. I was realizing that some changes were hard to bear for some guys in our team, so they began to think I was fooling them. Most of them were used to traditional business climate where everything is planned for the next five or more years. But we all should know that the wind of changes is always warm and means progress. Positive reaction to changes — that is the main rule for a start up, as well as for the whole life. If we get stuck in our original ideas we’ll get lost and fade away.

I thought I knew and faced a lot. I was a sure person and used to long-term thinking and speedy progress, so I made one more mistake: I expanded the staff. The time was running, the salaries were growing, and the budget was scaling back. I wasn’t careful enough to gradually apply the innovations including staffing. I forgot that Startup was a “sprint” where you should clearly allocate all available resources.

#7 A Free Tip on Job Shed

You should immediately get rid of those who ruin the team from the inside. From those who aren’t all about the Idea, who begin to cast in a bone between valuable members of the team. You have to immediately excise a tumour.

#8 Cleaning Up

Imagine you were handling an aeroplane and ran out of fuel before you reached the destination point, what would you do? Right you are, you’d throw off the dry load. Somebody sensitive and emotional would definitely catapult. It is really hard to throw off dry load in real life. It is especially hard to do when the dry load is your staff and you’re so tired that logic doesn’t always work for you.

The idea of changing the world works for America and me, not for typical Belarusians for sure. When I was asking my potential team members if they were ready to work for free or have to wait for salary a couple of months, they probably didn’t fully believe me. They thought I was joking, agreed to work just to be admitted. Most people don’t realize their real values, but most people’s values are power and the money, money and power, minute after minute, hour after hour…©
Another part of the team agreed at once deeply realizing what they’d have to face. The sacred ones.
I grasped the fact that you sometimes need to run out of fuel, face the northern winds and experiment shocking therapy. All that to see my Dream Team was 30% from the starting variant. Step by step you stay with less and less people beside.

#9 Money, Money, Money

Summing all up I understood that staffing a startup you should always look for employees who are also looking for a startup. My HR-practice was limited just by an interview with talking way more about the money.
I managed to waste a tremendously vast sum of money just within a year. The money I wasted could become a released project if I were not so light-minded staffing my team. To attract some talented and skillful guys you have to seriously search for such ones. They should also have a desire to change the world, also burn with an Idea, also have a kind of “My Precious” Dream. You’ll see Your team at first sight. Just know it.

#10 Ask me…

If one should “dare to start a startup”? I’d say yes, sure. But it’s not for everyone.
My life concept is as follows:
“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.” © Søren Kierkegaard, danish philosopher.
And One has to always follow his dreams… and our updates=)