The Value of Perspectives
Getting a startup off the ground is hard work.
And rightfully so.
Building something new takes guts, creativity, and most of all, lots and lots of hard work.
At Paperfold, we’ve taken on email — a pretty hot topic in tech right now, to say the least. Because we’ve all been using email for over 30 years now, it’s a staple that’s completely embedded in our use of anything else on the Internet. And yet while tech has been evolving, email hasn’t changed very much.
Then, to truly change email, we realised that not only would we have to make a product that’s different, our team’s make up would have to be different as well.
We tried to keep this in mind as we grew this year. So, while we have the traditional skills of dev, business operations, and strategy on our team, we also chose a papercraft artist as our second hire.
Working in small teams of a few people, early stage startups already create opportunities for interesting team dynamics. But we’ve found this to be especially true when the team is diverse and is representative of a variety of skills and interests.
Diversity is important in every organisation, but we’re finding that it can have some unique (and awesome) added benefits at startups.
- It brings new dimension to what you can create.
Our diverse backgrounds help us see the same problem in completely different ways. As users, based on our differing backgrounds and personalities, we each have certain expectations of tech, that we can then incorporate into the product.
Everyone wants a product that’s nice to use. But in having a diverse team, each person’s focus is different. An operations person will focus on how things run and in making sure the product is efficient. An artist, on the other hand, might expect more life from technology, on top of just efficiency. Like graphics that have emotive characteristics, or fun surprises in experience that make the product more interesting and complex.
This becomes key when a product, like an email app, is expected to be used by many different types of people. With a diverse team, not only are you able to have this expectation from the get go, but there also exists the ability to create these rich experiences by incorporating the contrasting perspectives into the design process.
2. It brings speed and consensus to decision making.
Having multiple perspective creates more solutions to problems. But since each of us brings to the table a different perspective, there is no pulling to one side.
We typically reach a consensus by first hearing everyone’s perspective, and then with this diverse set of information we collectively decide which solution is the best. We find that this gives depth to decision making, while also making it simpler to decide which suggestion is best since perspectives are evenly weighted.
3. It creates a broad range of focus.
Because we all have different ideas and interests, our focus on what’s most important is also broad. We each know the value that we bring to the team and what we should take on next.
This comes in handy when problem solving. A few weeks ago we were given the opportunity to set up a booth at Apps World, a major apps conference happening in London, with attendees coming from around the world. The idea — create an exhibitor area on a double decker bus. Having a broad focus, we also realised this was not only an opportunity to have people see the app, but to get an experience as well.
Together, we created what we called ‘The Paperfold Experience’. As attendees came onto the bus, they navigated through a set of areas that each created a scene, and that combined showed what Paperfold was all about. More on that experience here.
Making hiring decisions is tough. The people you hire shape your culture, and help to build whatever you’re looking to create. By making the team diverse in its skills, problems can be solved in unexpected ways, decisions can be made quickly and concisely, and the team can positively broaden the company’s focus.
As George Kemble, the co-founder and executive director of Stanford’s dschool has said, “Make the human element as important as the technical and business elements.” As a tech product, and as a team, this is what we’re looking to do.
In making your next hire, would you consider hiring an artist over a growth hacker?
We’d love to hear what you think.
Paperfold is an email app coming soon to iPad. Find us on Twitter, and learn more about the app at www.paperfold.me
