How To Split ROLES In A Startup Team
Interview Series for The PROJECT Framework
The PROJECT Framework is a workshop format, crafted to convert your ideas into thriving projects, either as an entrepreneurial or intrapreneurial journey.
Today’s guests are Dorothea Haider and Cecilia Chiolerio, who are the two co-founders of TWOSTAY. We discuss together ROLES, as the R in the PR.OJECT acronym.
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Raya: What was your first conscious step into entrepreneurship?
Dorothea: My first step into entrepreneurship was not conscious at all. I was living in Chile and working for the UN. Then, a friend of a friend offered me to join a project, which was essentially a startup. It was my first encounter with founding and growing a business. Before that, I was more on the side of sustainability and science.
Cecilia: I was not even 18 when I joined a startup which my father created in the sphere of sustainable furniture. I learned a lot!
Raya: Is it rightful to say that TWOSTAY is not a coworking concept, but rather a story stemming from your passion for sustainability, circular economy, and the power of community? How was the idea ignited?
Cecilia: TWOSTAY is a platform that enables entrepreneurial people to build their community and grow their own coworking space in underused-during-the-day places like restaurants and bars.
It took us a long way to shape this concept. With iteration and lots of customers’ feedback, we hit several walls but finally reached this idea. Initially, we more thought of a market place for finding your workspace solution, and this was simply not required by our audience. Then, we realised that if we are the only ones doing it, it simply cannot scale. So, we empowered our community.
Dorothea: Cecilia has been researching a lot about the #newwork movement. We believe that in the future everyone will be working on that particular project that gives them purpose. As I’ve always been into sustainability, the reuse of spaces is a topic that triggers me a lot.
Now, we have a concept in which the community itself takes care of further nurturing the workspaces and the growth.
Raya: The team behind each successful startup is an essential ingredient. How did you two meet & decide to work together?
Cecilia: I started TWOSTAY alone with a different idea at the beginning with which I applied into an accelerator program. Dorothea was among my mentors. After the end of the program, Dorothea came to me and expressed her wish to continue working together. We started with a test phase which proved successful, and here we are almost two years later.
Raya: Dorothea, you used to be a startup consultant. What advice did you give to founders about splitting roles and responsibilities into their teams? What would you tell them now?
Dorothea: It is very different from being a founder. The responsibilities and the diversity of tasks are immense, from accounting to many day-to-day topics.
I used to advise startups to create a team which is diverse and must have a CTO. Now with Cecilia, I find that on paper and CV, our profiles seems quite similar or overlapping, and none of us is the actual CTO. Nevertheless, in reality, our competencies are very complementary. So, I would not be so strict right now, if advising startups.
Raya: For most investors, the team behind the startup is the most critical investment criteria. Why is that? How essential is the team behind the startup for its success in your experience?
Cecilia: When you a startup founder, there are many downs along the way. So, it is essential that even if the idea does not seems superbly elaborate, and you need great people behind it who would know how to execute and to persist, no matter the difficulties.
Raya: Founders often need to be the jack of all trades. They need to be good at wearing several hats and solving a lot of different problems. How many and which hats do you have?
Dorothea: I can’t even count! Being a founder is a thing for flexible people. You should be able to address the investors with the confidence that you are in charge. When it comes to customer experience, you cannot manage customers as numbers, so lots of empathy is necessary. And when it comes to the employees, we have to be the cheer-leaders who know how to keep the spirits and the motivation high.
Raya: How do you divide your roles at TWOSTAY? Is this setup relevant from the very beginning or you had to adjust on the way?
Cecilia: In working together, we understood very fast who is good at what. Today, we split our roles as ‘in front of the computer’ and ‘away from the computer’. I take care of the product, online marketing, some data, reporting, and administration. Doro is all about sales, community and marketing. But we are a small and flexible team, and all decisions are taken together.
Raya: Experience, passion or drive are not enough to make a new team thrive. What hurdles did you have to overcome and grow stronger as a team? Please share with us a challenging moment when your compatibility was tested.
Dorothea: The beginning was exciting and challenging due to my transition from being a startup consultant to joining the startup. We are both 100% committed, and to see that our values align took some time.
We have moments that we call ‘mood talks’, which I totally recommend.
Cecilia: It’s so much happening, and there are many responsibilities. So, there might be moments in which you question whether the other person gives as much as you do. Transparency in communication is essential. More important is that we also rely on each other when the motivation goes down. We lift each other. Dorothea is the person with whom I talk the most in my life. So, it should be someone with whom I’d rather spend much time in the years to come.
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If you have any questions for Dorothea and Cecilia, please leave your comment below.
If you want to sharpen your idea with The PROJECT Framework, contact me.
If you want to watch our conversation, follow @smartset.group on YouTube.
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
