Nothing can be done solo. Everything can be done with the right team.
I meet dozens of people in Bangalore, who when they realise I am an entrepreneur ask me my two
cents on starting up. Some of them have started up, some are about to and many want to sometime
soon.
If there is one thing common between many of them – it is the lack of a great team. Or any team
at all. I see people with great ideas and motivation, trying to hammer things around by putting a
pitch deck, putting some of their own money, or friend’s money, and outsourcing crucial parts of
the business to folks on hire or contract.
This saddens me immensely, because almost immediately I know that they will fail. Or will have a
long and hard road ahead of them before they surface up.
I know this with certainty because it has happened to me in my start-up journey and it has happened
to so many other people – it’s now a common wisdom – get a good team first. But almost always,
enthusiastic first time entrepreneurs ignore this and surge ahead.
It’s become such a common phenomenon around us that I want to reach out to everyone who has
recently started up, or is about to start-up and tell them this one thing –
- Get a team before you get an idea. How do you know you have the right team?
Here are a few thoughts around that -It’s important to be able to have fun with the people in this team.
- It’s important to be able to have nasty fights with them at night and then look forward to
seeing them next morning. - It’s Important to believe these people – to have faith in skillsets of these people.
- It’s Important to be able to visit each other at home, cook together and share a meal.
- It’s Important that everyone has a sense of humour – in some way.
This might sound crazy and completely irrelevant to doing business or starting up. But here’s the
thing – start-ups are painful, serious business. They are a long commitment and need blood, sweat
and tears. And they are almost always impossible in solo mode. The only thing good in the early
years of building a start-up is the people. Each day – from morning till night it’s the people around
you who will make you want to keep going. It’s the people who will make the insurmountable odds
seem possible.
Start-ups should be fun – even when they are serious business. Because unless you are having a
good time doing something, you are highly unlikely to give your customers a good experience or
value. And it’s the people who make the start-up fun. So, get the right people around you before
starting up.
In a follow-up post to this one, I will share some experiences and insights on how to surround yourself
with the right people and build the team. Just as everyone isn’t born with a silver spoon, similarly
not everyone has the good luck of going to college with the right set of people. The post will
hopefully be of use to those folks.