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A thing or two about Startups - what to do & what to avoid

  • At the time of hiring people to join you, you've got to attract the right talent. The 'right' talent may not be the best programmer in town, and if he were the best programmer and resourceful enough to work for a startup, he'd have owned one long ago. So, don't go out looking for the best guys in your industry. Chances are you may not find them! However, your 'right' talent may actually come from that segment whose future goals are aligned with your objectives behind setting up a company! So, you've got to make sure you clarify at the beginning what your candidate's objectives are and how this experience will help him gain that extra edge over others. Technical skills aren't difficult to acquire in a large environment either, so it's got to be more than just skills. Most important is assuring the candidate that he will be given enough room to make mistakes, stumble a few times and learn from failures. Nothing beats raw experience and that's what counts! In most big organizations, projects are usually overseen by managers, leaving very little scope for errors. Here's where startups rule the roost. Don't let project- metrics dictate your actions. Grow beyond!

  • Most startups are generally founded by a group of people who lay down strategies and action plans for organizations. If you're a company with less than ten-twenty members, you've got to make sure everyone is aware of your plans. You cannot decide every plan and strategize amongst the top management, so that the rest of your team members are treated as executing agents. If there is no brainstorming within the team and most members work according to others' directions, there is very little purpose behind working with a startup. 

  • The most common myth in any organization, especially with ill-structured and tiny organizations is lack of management abilities. Most CEOs and Managers seem to run their businesses in tune with the popular phrase, "Responsibility is taken, not given" without realizing that man-management is about allocating responsibilities within a profit-based framework. If there is not enough scope for errors and profit be the only motive of your business, you cannot expect your employees to take up responsibility to only be blamed for later. If you're restricting employees with policies, guidelines and company regulations - learn to allocate and consequently, manage responsibilities that you hand out to others.

  • Finances are always limited with startups. Hence it is always important to keep your employees happy. You may not be a great paymaster, but there are other ways to attract the best talent. Keep your employees happy, don't employ harsh policies, have fun once in a while and more importantly make them feel at home. You cannot provide your employees with benefits and perks that other bigger organizations do, so don't push them to exceed beyond limits. Give them sufficient time to relax and feel good about themselves. It's as important to keep your employees happy as it is to grow. Because you grow "with" them, not "through" them.

  • In many startups, there tend to be divisions among teams. Work is usually distributed and one department may be completely unaware of what's happening elsewhere. You may be a marketing or a sales person and need not know about the technical nitty-gritty of a project. Yes, it works. But only with giant organizations. People expect to join startups so they can climb up the ladder eventually and perhaps establish a similar one by themselves. A sales person might be your next CEO, who knows! So it's important to train other members and devote quality time on spreading more awareness of your products. Trainings and Assessments are a MUST, MUST, MUST for any startup.


The list is endless. There's a lot of other things that come to my mind immediately when I think of startups. More later!
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