Startup Diaries — II
Journey continued from the last part Startup Diaries — I
Last we discussed about the team and as I mentioned that team is the most important for any early stage startup, you must handle it with care. First thing before adding co-founders to your team is they must be having complementary skillset. During the initial days while starting up many people suggested me that, only partner with the people whom you know since long, I tried that by adding my friends as a co-founders. Friends are one of the most useful people in life but when it comes down to business nobody is friend or I would better say everybody behaves accordingly, if they want any favor from you they will surely be your friend but when you want them to do something they suddenly starts behaving like a professional. In business, these sudden changes of transformation of a friend into business partner and vice-versa will surely happen according to the condition. If everything is going smooth they will better choose to be a friend but when it starts to loosing out and your startup falls in critical situation, they will choose to be a business partner. According to me, I would better choose to be a business partner in all the conditions and that really helps while dealing with the issues as there should not be any emotions/feeling while doing business.
It is but natural that if I am having an idea for startup I would go to one of my friend to share. He’d surely show interest and then my confidence level will go up. It’s very obvious reaction. Then your discussions will make you millionare in dreams and you will really feel like starting up today, launching the product tomorrow and getting into fortune500 the day after. Now please come back to earth and start thinking practically. First see that your friend with whom you’re thinking of starting up, is he really excited to support in all the situation during the journey? If you’re thinking that you are going to leave your job to work for the fulltime, will he join you for that? You are ready to give all your time for your startup and you are ready to do all kinds of work for your startup whether its relevant to your domain or not, will he do the same for the startup? Is he ready to take the ownership of the startup in all the conditions? Becasue when there’s a critical situaiton, sometimes people who you think are your co-founders will separate themselves from the startup and won’t be ready to take the ownership of the failure. Beaware from these kind of attitudes and separate yourself by not getting into these kind of partnership.
When the discussion is about having equal rights or simple equity everything should be equal. If you’re not expecting salary then nobody should expect it. The better way to handle this is to define KRAs i.e. Key Responsibilities Area from the beginning. Sometimes it’ll happen that if you are good at so many things, you have to do all the work whether its in your KRA or not. People will say that you’re really good at it and I’m not so it’ll be better if you do it in your style. If you are good at non-technical stuffs so better your partner cum friend having techical skills should handle only technical work. But when we say handling, its about taking responsibility of work or in startup we can better say taking ownership of. When you share ownership of something to anyone he’ll definitely feel proud and would do it at his best. It should not happen that when you leave something from your work to your partner and the outcome is not as expected though he’s doing his best, you better think of it very early about his candidature/partnership or his position as a co-founder. If you allow that to continue that will harm your startup in the later time when its really required for someone to take care of technical stuff when you as a founder will be busy with other non-tech stuffs.
Now, its time to think about the money required to make a POC or prototype. Are you having money or you might need help from someone? In this case there are two options, one is to ask for the financial help from parents, relative or frineds. The other option is to find someone from your domain who can spend money on your idea and give him some percentage in equity. If he’s from your domain and also experienced he can definitely be your metor as well as finance person. But for him keep in mind the KRAs, if he wants partnership then decide the number according to his involvement, work and finance he’s going to put in. Also fix the amount how much he has to put in every month and there should not be any excuses in it and better you include these terms and conditions in your agreement/contract.
Another important aspect in selecting co-founders or partners they should be of similar age/experience group. If you’re starting up at the age of 25 your team should be of the similar age group, the benifit of this is you can have a stable and energetic team. People with higher experience, higher salary and family liabilities will harm your speed of the work. One they won’t be able to leave their high paying day job and they’ll try to convenience you for getting the work done on part time basis. Never ever include part time people in your startup and one thing is very clear they can’t be co-founders. If you want only work then better spend some money and get the work done from freelancer but don’t get into partnership with the people who’re part time dreamers. They are of different mindset where they are not ready to take any risk, their job is the most critical and busiest in the world and whatever they are thinking is the only right thing.
As a founder of the startup you have conceived a vision for everything from the logo of the product to content on the website. But people with more experience working on a top position in their day job won’t allow you to do so and obstruct your vision by putting their nose everytime. If you have already made the mistake by including him as a partner, no one will be help you and not even you won’t be able to help yourself. Always hire freelancers for the work which is secondary in your product atleast till you prepare the demo. After the demo, once you get the funding you can hire full time people and they definitely do the work you want them to do.
There’s so much I want to talk about the team and different kinds of people and cases which don’t come into our minds unless we experience it personally. But as an entrepreneur I wish I can spread my learning to all the aspiring entrepreneurs so that they can at least save themselves from the mess and concentrate on doing creative/innovative work.
Stay tuned as there’s a lot to come!! And Please like it, share it and give your valuable feedback. Thank you so much…!!
