Building a Startup Team for your Autonomous Corporation
As an on-demand CMO (Chief Manifestation Officer), I have been learning how to compose a team for the last ten years, and have helped over 50 business startups, including my own. My father commented that I seem to be in perpetual startup mode, so I guess that makes me an expert on this topic. When I started my first business, as an individual, I didn’t understand that for people to want to invest in you, they want to see a team. I lacked huge resources, but I had to learn how to bootstrap with others that care about social causes, such as sustainability.
Get a Cause: The only reason I am able to get people to help me grow my businesses is because I always inject a social mission, or cause, into it. My first business was growing small businesses and my current one is Zero Waste. If you get a cause, people who share that passion or care about the cause will be more apt to jump on board. I have never had a problem getting people to contribute, just in getting traction. If you put the wrong person on your team it can really mess things up, slow things down or cause a stand-still.
Get Training: When I first got my degree in communications, I did not realize how important it would be and how short I would still fall in communication with my team members. I recommend Toastmasters, Landmark Education, and NLP (neuro linguistic programming). This is just the tip of the iceberg. The most economical way to empower yourself, is to get leadership training from podcasts and on YouTube from masters for free at home. I will include a few examples in at the end.
Have a Legal Structure for Crediting Work: This is a rough road and difficult to accomplish, but others have been here before us and have paved the way, somewhat. Do research on a vesting cliff. Your team will get paid gradually over time rather than promising things up front and running the risk of them not doing any of the work and jumping ship. Another team structure option I’ve used is SlicingPie by Mike Moyer. This gives me the ability to give people credit for their time and money, and team members can record their efforts and work output. These are two different ways to structure your company for the long haul.
Do Your Homework: Do the things that an human resources department would do for your company. Make a job description, get resumes, check references, background checks. Give your new prospect a small job first before jumping into contracts to see if they implode on the first task. You should have performance reviews regularly and an on demand human resource employee to conduct it so your team isn’t mad at you when you need to point out what weaknesses are present. No one wants to be the bad guy, but its very possible that you could come off in that light from dishing out criticism.
Get Out of the Red Ocean: The red ocean is bloody and filled with sharks and trash. “Blue Ocean Strategy”, is a popular business book about finding a uncontested market space where you don’t need to compete. I encourage you to learn about this strategy. For example, If you design your business tech with the blockchain, or a distributed ledger, in mind, it will accomplish this market strategy. If you find an exciting and new market your team will be more passionate for the cause and may even help you gain some traction.
I can stop here because, now, you definitely have your research cut out for you.
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