Building startup teams for the win Mei_Lu

BUILDING
YOUR STARTUPTEAM
FORTHE WIN
Mei Lu
Jobfully.com | Geekology.biz

About Me
Geekology
•Technical talent advisory and solutions (training
and consulting) for growth startups
Jobfully
•Job and career coaching for software engineers
and developers
© 2016 Jobfully LLC

SCOPE OFTHETALK

Stages ofTech Startups
•Founding
• Prod team: 1-3
•Seed
• Prod team: 3-10
•Growth
• Prod team: 10-30
•Expansion
• Prod team: 30-100ish
•Pre-IPO
• Prod team: a whole bunch of people

BUILDING A
HIGH PERFORMING
TEAM

Your Plan – Founding Stage
www.pinterest.com/fungiexpress/illustration-comic/
www.comicvine.com
Bruce
Wayne
Diana
Prince
superfriends.wikia.com/wiki/Wonder_Woman

Your Plan – Seed Stage
screenrant.com© 2016 Jobfully LLC

Your Plan – Growth Stage and Beyond
http://dc.wikia.com/© 2016 Jobfully LLC

WhatActually Happens
kittensin.blogspot.com
www.desktopnexus.com
sensevista.com

Building an average team
is easy.
Building a high-performing team
is hard.

What’s wrong with
average
?

Average startups die.
90% of startups fail.

RECRUITING
===
TEAM BUILDING ?
false

Building aTeam… is a Process
Before you start -
•Identify business goals that can’t be achieved with
the current team
•Define the role(s) to best meet business goals

Building aTeam… is a Process
What it looks like
•Attract
•Recruit
•Retain
•Perform
•Refer
(Hint –Think “growth hacking”)

A
A
R
R
R
Convert

Mei’s StartupTeam Metrics
How do candidates find you?
Do candidates have a great
experience?
Do people stay?
Is the team creating value for the
business?
Do people tell others?
Hire
Attract
Recruit
Retain
Perform
Refer

Building aTeam… Measuring Success
How do candidates find you?
Do candidates have a great
experience?
Do people stay?
Is the team creating value for the
business?
Do people tell others?
Hire
Attract
Recruit
Retain
Perform
Refer

Image: http://blog.goyello.com/
Build-Measure-Learn

Team
Practices

Build-Measure-Learn
•Start with best practices – learn from other
people’s mistakes
•Measure and learn what works for you
•Establish your own best practices
•Don’t stop measuring and learning – continuously
improve

Attraction
Recruitment
Retention
Performance
Referrals
Measure:
• % of people
advancing
• Value & cost
per person
Learn:
• What made
them stay?
• What didn’t
they like?
Measure:
• % of people
leaving
• Value & cost
per person
Learn:
• What made
them leave?
• What did
they like?
Mei’s Lean StartupTeam Metrics:
Build-Measure-Learn

THE STARTING POINT
BEST PRACTICES
Aim for excellence (top 10%), not average

Attraction
Recruitment
Retention
Performance
Referrals
Pre-Hiring
Post-Hiring
Coefficient
Hire

PRE-HIRING
Are you getting the right candidates?
Do the right candidates want to join you?

Look for PeopleWhoThrive in Startups
•T-shaped skills
•Pragmatic (prioritizing business impact)
•Comfortable with unknown and ambiguity
•Quick and eager learner
•Get things done w/ limited resources
•Ownership

Avoid Startup Killers at All Costs
•“Not my job”
•Lack of business mindset
•Dogmatic
•Needs lots of structure
•Resists change and learning
•Can’t get things done differently
•Victimship – the opposite of ownership

How to Hire: HenryWard, CEO of eShares
Hiring Principles:
• Hiring means we failed or will fail
to execute and need help
• Startup employee effectiveness
follows a power law
• False Positives are ok, False
Negatives are not
• Culture is defined by who we hire
Hiring Heuristics:
• Hire for Strength vs Lack of
Weakness
• Hire forTrajectory vs Experience
• Hire Doers vsTellers
• Hire Learners vs Experts
• Hire Different vs Similar
• Always pass on ego
https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-hire-34f4ded5f176

How to Hire: HenryWard + Mei’s Mods
Hiring Principles:
• Hiring means we failed or will fail
to execute and need help
• Startup employee effectiveness
follows a power law
• False Positives are ok, False
Negatives are not (i.e. look for
hidden gems)
• Culture is defined by who we hire
Hiring Heuristics:
• Hire for Strength vs Lack of
Weakness
• Hire forTrajectory vs Experience
• Hire Doers vsTellers
• Hire Learners vs Experts
• Hire Different vs Similar
• Always pass on ego
• Hire to Lead vs Delegate
Hire for Future
vs Past

What Do CandidatesWant?
•Career-defining experience – know their career
aspirations
•Opportunities to apply under-utilized talents – to prove
themselves
•Interesting and challenging work
•A great candidate experience – seek validation
•A leader they believe in
•A vision & mission they can stand behind
•Business traction
Thinking
long(er)
term

Candidate Sources
•Your existing network
•Your new connections – grow your
network
•Right job boards (AngelList, Hacker
News, Reddit, GeekWire, etc.)
•Personally proactively seek out “the
one(s)”
Easy
Hard

SellingYour Startup
•Have a clear, concise, repeatable message
•Know what you uniquely offer
•Make it easy to reach you
•Don’t out-source relationships

POST-HIRING
Do people stay?
Does the team perform?

Why Do People Stay?
•Things they were looking for during pre-hiring –
promises kept
•Recognition – contribution confirmation
•Harmonious relationships with co-workers –
respectful and collaborative
•Sense of progress – personal and company-wise
•On board with leadership’s decisions -
transparency

Why Do People Stay?
•“My opinions matter” – voice being valued and
heard
•Career and personal growth – learning and
development
•Visible impact – measurable results of effort
•Performance management / reward system that
makes sense
•Compatible with personal life

Getting theTeam to Perform. How?
(now that’s the million dollar question)

Getting theTeam to Perform. How?
(now that’s the billion dollar question)

What Does ItTake?
A Good Starting Point:
•Always connect business goals to daily activities
•A well thought out performance management
and reward system
•Cultivate intrinsic motivation
Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose
Drive:The Surprising
Truth AboutWhat
Motivates Us
by Daniel Pink

EXECUTION
is
HARD.
Why?

Constant effort
Blind spots

On-going
build-measure-learn
makes it
easier and smarter

WHAT ABOUT
CULTURE
???
Culture permeates everything

Your culture manifests itself
in ALL your decisions.

Your culture is rooted in
the belief system
of the startup leader(s).

Want to have
an awesome culture?
First, evaluate your own
belief system.

MULTIPLIERS
Referrals
Process and Infrastructure

Referrals Can Come from Anywhere
Referrals = Other people recruiting for you
•Employee referrals
•Network referrals
•Candidate referrals
•Job description referrals
•Stranger referrals
Basic
Advanced

Process and Infrastructure
•Make build-measure-learn do-able
•Enable targeted improvements to generate most
business impacts possible
•Increase the efficiency and speed of building a
high-performing team
•Low hanging fruit w/ high ROI if done right

www.colourbox.com
www.hometalkies.com

Don’t do average.
Average startups fail.

To excel in building
your startup team
is
to survive

And…
it starts with
YOU

How to find me
Mei Lu - mei@jobfully.com
linkedin.com/in/meiiam
@meiiam
www.Jobfully.com
www.Geekology.biz

Further Exploration
• HowTo Hire Engineers: Step 0,WhatTo Look For
(https://jocelyngoldfein.com/how-to-hire-engineers-step-0-
what-to-look-for-85ae44bf0a1c)
• Organizational Blueprints for Success in High-Tech Start-Ups:
Lessons from the Stanford Project on Emerging Companies
(http://cmr.berkeley.edu/documents/sample_articles/2002_44_3
_4776.pdf)
• DiverseTeams Feel Less Comfortable — andThat’s WhyThey
Perform Better (https://hbr.org/2016/09/diverse-teams-feel-less-
comfortable-and-thats-why-they-perform-better)
• Startup Genome Report Extra on Premature Scaling
(https://s3.amazonaws.com/startupcompass-
public/StartupGenomeReport2_Why_Startups_Fail_v2.pdf)

Building startup teams for the win Mei_Lu

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