Shawn W.’s Post

A lean, high-impact team can fuel startup success. (How to get early-stage hires right) This 3-step checklist ensures you're on track: 1. Take extra care in vetting potential hires 2. Confirm alignment with your strategic goals 3. Ensure compatibility with team dynamics Being meticulous in your hiring process is essential. It will set your startup on a path for sustainable growth. PS. DM me if you're looking to get quality talent on board fast in Q2. We are experts at finding the best strategy, engineering, design, product, and GTM talent.

The 3 most common mistakes startups make when hiring: 👉🏼 They hire people with experience from big corporations. 👉🏼 They hire individuals whose skills are too junior for the company's needs. 👉🏼 They hire too many people too soon. Here’s what you should do instead: ↪ Hire people who have startup experience and have done it before. Ideally, look for those who have successfully taken a startup of a similar stage to the next level. This way, they will know the majority of the traps to avoid and the best paths to take. ↪ Hire people with the experience you need at the moment. Unless you have the time to train them and help them grow, hiring junior individuals can actually add more work to your plate. Evaluate your resources accurately. ↪ Plan your goals in advance and constantly evaluate the team efforts needed. It might be nice to tell your neighbor Steve that you have a 30-person company, but having a certain number of employees should never be a goal in itself. To avoid being overstaffed or understaffed, consistently map out your next three hires. What other mistakes have you noticed startups making or have made yourself?

It’s the age of the lean startups, Where the battle isn’t over headcount, valuation, and big office spaces, But over PMF, cleverness, and patience. I’m incredibly blessed to be speaking with a variety of SaaS startups and founders. Especially two founder teams I engage with impress me right now; they've got money in the bank - they could easily have scaled the operation. Instead, they: - Stay lean - Target a very specific niche - Consistently talk to the market for feedback - Upskill themselves to nail the basics before hiring for it No expensive hires or bloated tech stack - just continuous curiosity while staying agile. Waiting to hit some key objectives before hiring commercially. Is it only the newcomers then? Not really, I see classic venture cases downscaling their commercial teams too - in many cases, their results aren’t impacted much, sometimes they even prove to be better. In this age, even small teams can create immense attention and interest, and use clear and proven processes to turn it into revenue. For example - a small team a client and I established just 4 months ago has already contributed $51,000 in MRR. Because the team is talented, hard-working, and we were ready for them. P.S. Are you thinking about bringing in your first commercial hire(s)? In this month's newsletter, I’ll help you answer who to hire, when, and what objectives they should be measured against. I’ll send it out on Thursday - join right here: https://lnkd.in/gpzNHt8b

🎞 A scenario: You are a founder of an early-stage startup. You have some customers, you have an MVP(-ish), you’ve sold the product with a promise of two things: 1. The roadmap (significant product improvements) 2. Hands-on support and access to the founding team 👩🚒 And now, the customer support requests are too much, you feel like you are constantly fighting fire with fire, some customers are inactive, a couple others maybe already churned. You’d rather not hire yet because your MRR is too low. What can you do? - Figure out what you can automate. Examples: a help center, an onboarding process, explainer videos, a way to handle feature requests - See who can help set this up. We help our clients get set up with everything they need so either the founders or a junior hire can take over. 🕺 Essentially, we do all the work you don’t have time for: the strategic thinking, the creation of materials and processes, all of it. So you can go from 0 to 1 as fast as possible. DM if you'd like to know more (the first conversation is free)

Your start-up's success hinges on your team. Especially that first engineering hire. Here's a contrarian thought: Forget about the technical skills. Yes, you read it right. They can be learned, improved, honed. Focus on their problem-solving abilities. Their approach to failure. Their resilience. Their never-give-up attitude. The first engineer at your #startup is not merely a coder. They are a pioneer. They will shape the culture and foundation of your start-up. Tip: During the interview, present real challenges your start-up is already facing. See how they respond. Remember, a great engineer builds systems. A phenomenal one solves problems. Choose wisely!

Here is something I have heard a lot in the last couple of weeks.... 📰 "I am not hiring but to be honest with you, but you might be able to help me anyway as I think it is time to consider leaving myself." 😪 The obvious question ---- Why? 🤔 "It just feels like I have done what we set out to do with the product/project which was the reason I joined. It feels a bit stagnant at the moment with no budgets released to grow or plans to innovate and move forward with something else. Just not exciting enough and kinda surplus to requirements." Baffles me how companies can just have this mentality of having some extremely successful/talented people just fade away and allow it to happen whilst other companies catch up to them - and these aren't small start up/scale up companies I am speaking to by the way! 🤒 🤯

How to choose the right team in a startup: 1. Define Your Needs: Identify the skills and roles required for your startup. 2. Look for Passion: Find individuals passionate about your mission and vision. 3. Skillset: Ensure team members have the necessary skills and expertise. 4. Cultural Fit: Choose team members who align with your startup's culture and values. 5. Adaptability: Select individuals who are flexible and adaptable in a fast-paced environment. 6. Strong Work Ethic: Look for team members with a strong work ethic and willingness to learn. 7. Team Chemistry: Consider how team members will work together and complement each other's strengths and weaknesses. Remember, building the right team is crucial to your startup's success!

2 questions to answer before joining a startup👇 I’ve spent the majority of my career in early stage startups. Beyond financial metrics, here are the two questions I always need to answer before I join. 1️⃣ Do I ACTUALLY care about the problem space? The PROBLEM space is more important than the product itself. Always get clarity on what problem the founder is truly solving and whether or not it’s something you genuinely care about. Fun fact, I was hired at Earlywork for a completely different role, for a product which ceased to exist before I even started. The thing that kept me motivated to work at Earlywork? My genuine passion for the closing the gap between career and education. It makes the high level of ambiguity associated with launching new products easier to cope with when you genuinely believe that there’s a problem to be solved. 2️⃣ Do I vibe with and believe in the team? Often times you’ll be working directly with the founders. You’ll spend more time with them in a week than your family and friends. One of the biggest things I love about working in startups is the camaraderie and genuine friendships that emerge. Beyond asking specific interview questions, always get a good sense of the team’s vibe.

As a Fractional CTO, success means getting laid off. Yes, you read it right. When my job is done, I'm out. And very happily so. Let me explain: I'm usually hired by early stage Tech Startups, which don't have: - A product - A team - Revenue and/or VC funding Several months after working with them, they already have: - A product - A team - Revenue and/or VC funding I help them go from 0 to 1! When I start working with them, there's usually the Founders and maybe a dev shop and an intern. Nothing else. These Founders use my help to assemble/manage a team of engineers to build their first MVP and land initial clients. This traction brings them revenue and funding. At that stage, the Founders want to hire a Full Time CTO, and they usually ask me to ramp up from Fractional to Full Time. There were a couple times in the past when I accepted the challenge. But most commonly, I decline the opportunity. As such, my last commitment to the client is to help hire a full time CTO and hand over my work. Some important hand over activities: - Document product - Document technology - Document team - Intro team members - Intro tech vendors - Ramp down to advisory capacity If you're a Startup Founder going through these challenges, drop me a DM.

Teams make the difference in any endeavor. For the average Tech Startup, they'll always rely on their internal teams and for us, who provide those companies with additional teams, our own people and the way we build them is the most essential. --- From relying on scooping people from Universities and training them to become seniors, to teaching them how to work with clients and stay with them through the whole process - that's what defines a good team for us. --- I'd love to hear about the way you train your teams as well. Do you take training as seriousy? Or do you use other recruitment and selection processes? Let me know in the comments below 👇 #MVP #SoftwareDevelopment