The Early Stages Episode #2: How to pick and choose your teammates
„Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.“
These are the famous words of basketball superstar Michael Jordan. Anyone who has seen the popular Netflix series “The Last Dance” or followed Jordan’s career knows that he had to learn this lesson the hard way. Yet the insight is so universal that it applies not only to basketball but any kind of teamwork. And it applies, especially to founders.
Statistics suggest that almost one in four failed startups cites the wrong team as the reason for failure. So, finding the people that best fit your company is crucial when founding your own business. But what do you need to look for in a co-founder? How do you hire the best people in core functions? And is it a good idea to start a company with a close friend?
Our podcast series “The Early Stages” walks you through the “Startup Journey” in six episodes — from founding to funding and growing your startup. In each episode, host Julia comes together with founders and an APX expert to discuss one stage in the process of building a company, sharing their personal experiences, learnings and advice for other up-and-coming entrepreneurs.
In the second episode of our podcast series „The Early Stages“, our host Julia meets Lukas Rintelen, Co-Founder of RecTag, Kris Laumann, Co-Founder of Dilecy, and Jörg Rheinboldt, who is one of the founding managing directors of APX. They discuss the challenges of finding the right teammates and share the strategies they use. No matter what idea you have and in which area you want to start up — answering this question will determine your future success: With whom do you want to start your business?
Founding with friends — a good or bad idea?
Lukas met his co-founder Florian Polak while working for another company. They collaborated in a team and therefore knew their skills and personalities — but as colleagues, not as friends. “We had a good vibe,” says Lukas „I knew I can work with him“. In the course of jointly founding the content-based discovery platform RecTag together, they became friends — and still are.
First the friendship, then the company. That is the story of Kris and his co-founder Benedict Gondolph. They have been in the same class since the 5th grade. As childhood friends, they went skiing together, and now they run Dilecy, a start-up that helps you exercise your rights in data protection.
An important strategy: allocating roles
As you may have already thought, there is no definitive answer to whether friendship and business go well together. But: „Hiring friends should always be considered very well“, says Jörg, who founded his first company Denkwerk in 1994 and has seen countless start-ups come and go. There might be a situation where you have to decide whether to keep a friend or let the company grow.
A strategy that both Kris and Lukas highly recommend: a clear allocation of roles, depending on strengths and weaknesses. “It reduced the chaos, the tasks were clear,” says Lukas. A side effect: as the company grows, you notice which skills are missing — and where help is needed. That is the point at which you start looking for new colleagues.
What to look for in new colleagues — and where to find them
„Back then we had two rules“, remembers Jörg. „On the one hand, we would consider our team like a basket full of apples, and we were very careful not to throw a bad apple in it“, he says. „The other rule is that we always tried to hire people who could do things better than we could ourselves.“ Lukas and his co-founder were able to prepare for this since they are not programmers themselves. Nevertheless, they looked very carefully at who they brought on board to maintain the team’s chemistry.
This process takes time, which a young company sometimes does not have if it does not want to lose its momentum. Kris’ advice: hire freelancers to keep up the speed. „I would recommend that you scrape the money together somehow and rather pay a freelancer than take someone on board whom you are not fully convinced of as a founding member,“ he says. „The best way to find people is through your network.“
There are many very good networking events for founders in Berlin, says Jörg, where you can find talented people. Some of them are organized by APX. So if you want to expand your network with exciting people from the startup scene, join us for one of the next editions and hopefully find the co-founder of your dreams.
And to learn more from Jörg, Lukas and Kris check out the full episode and stay tuned for the ones to come.
“The Early Stages” is available on all common podcast platforms. We hope you enjoy it! Follow APX on social media and Bear Radio on LinkedIn.
About APX:
APX is Europe’s leading pre-seed VC and accelerator program for very early-stage startups. Based in Berlin, we invest across industries in great teams building digital startups — often as their first investor — and support each team with EUR 50K, access to an extensive network, and a tailor-made growth program to secure follow-on financing. Send us your pitch deck today.
