What does an ideal startup team look like?

10 minutes

It's important to consider the value of teams versus sole founders. Startups are often started by a sole founder. But before long, most sole founders realize that having a team is critical to the success of their company. Hiring a team doesn't just help manage the volume of work, but also helps tap into a broad range of skills and perspectives. Being part of a team also provides moral support.

In this unit, we're going to talk about startup teams. We'll first look at the personal attributes that are highly correlated with success in startup teams. We'll then consider functional roles and how to ensure that they're filled at the right time.

Attributes of successful startup teams

This section lists important attributes that should exist within every startup founding team. It's not essential (or likely) that every team member will have all these attributes, but it's highly desirable that each of the attributes exists somewhere within the team.

It's also important to look for these attributes in early employees, because they tend to correlate with high performance. Also, it's vital to have a good cultural alignment between founders and key employees.

Curiosity

Curious founders are genuinely interested in understanding problems. Curiosity leads to solutions that better meet customer needs.

Founders who have this attribute:

Are willing to spend large amounts of time talking to customers to understand their needs at a nuanced level.
Genuinely enjoy exploring possibilities and new ideas.
Tend to have a breadth of knowledge across a wide range of topics.
Often have acquired a range of self-taught skills to satisfy their thirst for knowledge.

Domain knowledge

Startups that deeply understand the domain in which they're operating are more likely to have important insights that are invisible to others.

Founders who have this attribute:

Might have worked in the domain for an extended period.
Have often experienced the pain point themselves.
Have rare or unique insights that might be counterintuitive.
Have established networks with potential customers or suppliers.
Are viewed by their peers as a domain expert.

When combined with broad curiosity, this attribute can lead to T-shaped skills in which the person has a formidable combination of breadth and depth.

Bias toward action

Speed of execution and rapid iteration are important competitive advantages in any startup.

Founders who have this attribute:

Focus on taking action wherever possible.
Tend not to engage in prolonged deliberation or strategizing.
Are willing to make decisions based on imperfect information.
Aren't perfectionists, and realize that perfect is the enemy of done.
Demonstrate in other aspects of life that they consistently take projects to completion.

Determination

Startup founders need to be able to persist despite challenges and setbacks.

Founders who have this attribute:

Consistently get more done than other people in the same amount of time.
Can delay gratification by working hard toward a long-term goal despite little near-term payoff.
Have high levels of resilience and aren't easily discouraged.
Have a genuine, deeply felt desire to solve the problem on which the startup is focused.

This attribute is often closely connected with high levels of optimism.

Optimism

Successful startup founders understand objectively that most startups fail, yet they have sufficient optimism that they're willing to back themselves to succeed.

Founders who have this attribute:

Have a default mental state of this could work as opposed to here are all the reasons this probably won't work.
Are willing to explore new, untested, and absurd-sounding ideas.
Recognize that unfettered optimism isn't helpful and are able to balance their optimism with open-mindedness.

Open-mindedness

Startups don't follow a linear trajectory, so it's important to be able to pivot and scrap plans when initial assumptions turn out to be invalid.

Founders who have this attribute:

Are able to think rationally and dispassionately.
Are willing to listen to and act on feedback, even if it contradicts their existing views.
Have a high-level of commitment to the problem, but a low-level of commitment to their current idea to solve it.
Can manage their ego and separate their own identity from that of the startup or the idea they're working on.

High emotional intelligence

Startup founders need to be able to maintain a good working relationship, even in a chaotic and stressful environment.

Founders who have this attribute (also known as emotional quotient or EQ):

Have a default demeanor of friendliness and agreeableness.
Tend not to overreact in stressful situations.
Are able to understand other people's perspectives and respond with empathy.
Can engage in disagreements without becoming personally wounded.

Task: Identify strengths and weaknesses on your team

If you're already part of a team, consider each team member's strengths and weaknesses in relation to these attributes. Are any attributes conspicuously absent?

If you're a sole founder, consider your own strengths and weaknesses and identify any gaps. This information will be useful to have in mind as you think about who else to bring into your team.

Core roles in startup teams

Let's now look at the core functional roles that need to be filled in a startup. Because every startup is different, you'll have your own ideas about the specific roles that you need to fill in your company.

The following table lists broad functional roles that need to be filled in most early-stage startup teams. In the early days, it's not essential (and often not possible) to have a one-to-one mapping of an individual to a role. One person might have multiple roles, and roles might be split across individuals.

However, it's critical to make sure that every member of the team is clear on which functional roles they're responsible for. You also must make sure that all roles are covered, or that you have a plan for how to cover them as you grow your team.

Functional role	Key tasks
Leadership	Communicate the vision for the company Be the primary point of engagement with external stakeholders, such as investors and the media Take primary responsibility for day-to-day decision-making, but involve all cofounders in many decisions Provide financial oversight, often using an external accountant as needed Raise external capital if needed
Product development	Build the minimum viable product (MVP) Choose the tech stack and cloud services Build the product Manage the product Track key usage metrics Manage additional developers
Design	Lead UX and UI development Work closely with the product development team Lead brand strategy and brand management Support digital marketing and sales teams with visual assets as required
Digital marketing	Lead customer acquisition, including paid and unpaid channels Engage specialists in areas like ad creation, copy writing, and content marketing as needed
Customer success	Onboard customers and ensure that they have the tools, training, and support needed to successfully use the product
Sales and business development	Engage with customers and partners to close sales or partnership deals

Founder, employee, or contractor

Startup founders often struggle with the question of whether they should bring in another cofounder, hire an employee, or outsource tasks to a contractor.

There are no absolutely right or wrong answers to this question, but let's review some practical considerations.

Bringing in a cofounder

If you're a sole founder, or on a small founding team, you might decide to try to fill gaps in skill sets by bringing in another cofounder.

If your startup is still at the idea stage, this might be a great option. If you bring in someone at (or close to) the beginning of the journey, they'll be able to help you with crucial tasks like developing hypotheses, interviewing customers, running experiments, developing your value proposition, naming the company, and building and launching an MVP. Because they've joined before any real value has been created, there's a good chance they'll feel like a cofounder and make a serious commitment to the company, even though they didn't come up with the initial idea.

Successful founding teams frequently have an existing strong relationship between cofounders, sometimes developed over years of working together in other settings. When cofounders already know each other well, it's common for them to have worked out how to:

Function effectively as a team.
Understand each other's strengths, weaknesses, and communication styles.
Navigate difficult decisions and deal with conflict.

Therefore, a good place to start your cofounder search is in your existing network.

If you don't have a potential cofounder in your existing network, you might choose to seek out potential cofounders through networking events or online matchmaking services. Bear in mind that bringing a cofounder into your company is a little like marriage. It's generally a good idea to build a relationship with the person over a long period of time before asking them to make a long-term commitment.

Sometimes the best approach is to invite the person to work with you on a specific task, paid if necessary. Use this as an opportunity to evaluate their fit. It's generally not a good idea to offer them any equity at this point.

If you've been working on your startup for a while, and especially if you've already launched a product, the idea of bringing in a cofounder can be less straightforward. Anyone who joins as a cofounder at this point will likely face the question of whether they're genuinely a founder. You and any other original founders might be viewed as having a different status.

Late-joining cofounders are often offered a lower-equity stake than the initial founders in an attempt to reconcile the fact that they weren't involved in coming up with the idea or taking the first steps to pursue it. As a result, their level of commitment can be considerably lower. This can lead to tensions within the team.

In these situations, you might be better off hiring an employee or a contractor.

Hiring employees and contractors

In the early days of most startups, there's limited funding to pay anyone. So the founders do most, if not all, of the work.

After the company has funding, from either customer revenues or external investment, you'll be in a position to hire employees or contractors and begin scaling the company's operations.

Tip

Don't wait until you're ready to recruit to start looking for candidates. Start building a wish list of possible candidates and cultivate your relationships with them as early as possible. By staying in touch and keeping them informed about the progress you're making in your company, you'll be in a much stronger position to find and hire the right person quickly when you have the need and the funding.

Here are some pros and cons of bringing in a cofounder versus hiring employees or contractors.

	Pros	Cons
Cofounder	High level of commitment to success of the startup Might be willing to work for little or no salary Primary financial objective is to create long-term value (realized at exit)	Small talent pool to draw from (typically limited to people you know personally) Hard to get someone to make a commitment if your startup is still unproven and they're leaving a paid job Hard to remove from the company if they don't perform
Employee	Can recruit from a large talent pool and bring in specific skills Can create some incentive to stay and perform via issuing stock options Can terminate employment if they don't perform	Often not as committed as founders Might leave if they receive a better offer from another company Often need to pay a competitive salary, burning through the company's cash faster Viable only after there's a substantive ongoing need for their particular skill set
Contractor	Can engage for short periods or specific tasks, even when the startup is still unproven Can utilize freelancing platforms to hire from a large talent pool, including countries/regions that have a low cost of labor Can generally access ratings and feedback from previous clients Can scale up or down (or terminate) their time commitment as needed Good way to evaluate someone who could become an employee in the future	Likely to have less commitment than founders or employees Can be more difficult to manage, particularly if in a different country/region or time zone Need to pay, often either an hourly rate or an agreed project fee Motivation is to get the job done and get paid, rather than to create long-term value Availability and responsiveness might change if they give other projects higher priority

Task: Evaluate resourcing requirements

Briefly map out the resourcing requirements for your startup over the coming 12 months. Consider the functional roles that might need to be filled, and whether they're best filled by a contractor, an employee, or a cofounder.

Consider any candidates that you already know and assess their fit based on whether you believe they have some of the attributes that we discussed earlier.