Startup ecosystems around the world understandably look to Silicon Valley — whether to gawk or be inspired. As access to capital gets easier regardless of geography, some of you may be considering your next entrepreneurial adventure and where to do it. Here are some personal perspectives gained after 10+ years traveling and working between the Bay Area and Tokyo. YMMV!

As an entrepreneur currently based in Tokyo who’s also lived and regularly visits the Bay Area, here’s how I see the advantages & disadvantages of being in Tokyo.

Opportunities / Advantages

It’s easier to be an attractive startup using new technology.

There’s still a large base of strong technology talent within the depths of enterprise technology companies like Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic. These environments are less amenable to allowing new technologies like Golang, Node.js or services like GitHub, Datadog, or even Slack being used in production environments. Can you imagine trying to hire top engineering talent in the Bay Area for a team using CVS for source control management (or no SCM at all)? And yet, that’s still the case with traditional tech companies in Japan. Young engineers who’ve joined the established, big-name companies to appease their risk-averse families are realizing their entrepreneur peers are zooming ahead experimenting with and adopting newer technologies that are becoming defacto processes and tools in leading technology companies. And so these young, talented Japanese engineers perk up with puppy-dog eyes when they hear the possibility of using new tools and programming languages they’ve only read about. Done right, new tech and services can be a seriously competitive edge in building the right engineering team in Tokyo.

Awesome hack-a-thon locations — from temples to onsens to remote islands.

Hack-a-thons are not only fun, they’re important functions in growing a healthy engineering team. But why is Tokyo an ideal city for them? Because there’s no other city with the combination of 100Mbps internet available on serene Zen temple grounds accessible within an hour radius from the city center. With a bit more planning you could take your team to a different island, eat some of the healthiest cuisine known to man, and hack away.

A less diverse workforce.

The irony of a broadly less diverse work environment is that those who value it have a better chance of reaping the benefits. There’s less competition for the “eccentric” — the bilingual, tech-talented, sociable, engaging entrepreneur. It’s a lot easier to stand out and be helpful if you’re able to bridge languages & cultures. If you’re a foreigner in Tokyo, you can have an edge (whether it’s sharp or dull is up to you); who cares if you’re a foreigner in the Bay Area? The wave of US-educated Chinese returning to their home-country highlights a similar point. This advantage probably has the shortest lifespan though.

Measured simply by time-commitment, the Japanese workforce is more loyal.

Obviously there are a number of factors both controllable and not that affect workforce mobility, but in general I’ve found Japanese employees to be more loyal to their existing environment. Which means it can take longer to bring a desirable candidate in, but also means you’ll generally be given a few months notice if someone decides to leave. There are fewer surprises and less scrambling from the 2-weeks (and often less!) notice common in the Bay Area. There’s a flip-side to this of course, covered under disadvantages.

Tokyo is the world’s most livable city.

Clean, safe, world-class service, friendly people, something for everyone — Tokyo is the world’s best-kept secret (for now … ;) Enough has been written about the people and culture so I’ll just say no city is perfect, but if you can navigate the language, Tokyo is close to it.

Tokyo’s density allows for 2–3x the number of meetings per day.

In Tokyo, you can have a string of 1-hour meetings with 30min. between each. Start with a power-breakfast at 8AM, your next meeting at 9:30AM, then 11:00AM, 12:30PM, 2PM, 3:30PM, 5PM, 6:30PM, 8PM (dinner meeting). That’s 9 meetings. Yes it’s possible — I’ve done it before. I don’t recommend repeating this daily, but if you’re fundraising or hustling in sales, at least it’s possible. In the Bay Area there’s a lot of driving, even when many of the VCs are on Sandhill Road. When we were fundraising our seed round back in 2010, we maxed out at 4 meetings / day. You could probably do 5–6 meetings in San Francisco city proper, but you’ll likely be frazzled and sweating towards the end. More recently thanks to Uber you don’t have the stress of finding parking every time, but the traffic can still suck and be unpredictable. Tokyo’s impeccably reliable by-the-minute public transportation means you can pack-in a string of in-person meetings like no other. And nothing replaces f2f meetings when large sums of money are involved.

World-class cuisine — ramen, sushi, yakitori, shabu shabu

Tokyo has the most number of Michelin stars for a single city. And that’s not counting the chefs who declined to be listed because of the Michelin Guide’s tourist-friendly requirements that these chefs couldn’t be bothered to comply with. According to Anthony Bourdain, if you told any chef they would have to spend the rest of their life eating all meals in one city, all chefs would choose Tokyo.

Challenges / Disadvantages

Fewer experienced angels supporting early-stage endeavors

The pool of angel investors in Tokyo is significantly smaller than in the Bay Area. In fact, the few Japanese angel investors who supported Gengo in the beginning don’t even live in Japan. There’s a decent pool of wealthy individuals working in finance who have been known to angel invest, but the expertise and empathy they bring is quite different. One of my favorite personal stories highlighting the difference between a Japanese angel and SV angel goes back 5 years ago during our seed round. At one point during the hustle, a Japanese angel investor wanted to reduce his original investment by 50%; during the same financing, a Bay Area investor we emailed to schedule a call wrote back that he was skiing, confirmed that another angel he knew was investing, and said he would commit $50K — no meeting, no call, one email exchange. We were floored.

Some logistics are not supportive (保証人、礼金、etc.)

In particular, renting offices and apartments in Tokyo as an entrepreneur is a huge, distracting pain. The upfront cost, let alone the opaque guarantor system, is very expensive for a startup. Granted, Tokyo is seeing more shared-office spaces and even new startups addressing this need, so I imagine this problem to be relatively short-lived. But when we started, I basically had to sign my life to rent our first official office — which was not a pleasant experience!

The workforce is still too risk-averse

This is also changing somewhat, but mostly among the younger, less experienced demographic who are engaging with the riskier startup ecosystem. As we’ve grown the Gengo team in Tokyo, we’ve had to convince not just the desirable candidate but their family as well — and not just the spouse, but the parents of an employee too! We created a special pitch-deck just for the occasion :)

Underdeveloped startup career mobility

With the volume of startups in the Bay Area, one could conceivably have a pretty good career hopping from venture to venture every 2–4 years with a decent retirement waiting at the end. Given a 40-year employment period, that’s 10–20 startups. Putting aside all other variables (changing skill-sets, technology trends, etc.), if you’re financially responsible and even if none of the 15 startups is a unicorn, at least one is bound to have a decent enough exit to pad a good nest-egg. Unfortunately in Tokyo there just aren’t enough startups at various stages to make such a “startup-hopping career” possible — at least yet. I’m already observing a demographic who are on their second or third viable startup so it’s just a matter of time — maybe 5–10 more years?

Less serendipitous physical environment

Take a stroll down University Avenue in Palo Alto on any given afternoon and you’re bound to see a face you’ve seen somewhere before but can’t quite remember where. After a few minutes you realize — “Oh shit, was that the founder of Airbnb?” Or how about either of the Google founders? Maybe Paul Graham? In the Bay Area you have a much better chance of spotting a member of the tech world elite, but in Tokyo? I once heard Masayoshi-son rented out an entire restaurant just to have dinner alone without fear of being accosted.

Fewer ‘niche’ meet-ups (but getting better!)

The meet-up and events scene in Tokyo is infinitely better now than 5 years ago; but 5 years ago the Bay Area was already doing niche meet-ups — like one for crowdsourcing where at least 50 people showed up, in 2010! As soon as a new technology or platform or programming language or business model or startup role (think “growth hacker”) gets traction, you can bet there’ll be a meet-up for it next week with at least 30 people attending. In Tokyo, it takes quite a bit longer before a similar gathering takes shape — and usually only because it’s been running in the Bay Area for at least 6 months.

So there you have it, some perspectives on what’s great — and what needs improvement — in Tokyo’s startup ecosystem compared to the Bay Area. I’m looking forward to reviewing this in 5 years and seeing what still holds true!

Thanks for reading this far! If you got value out of this article, it would mean a lot to me if you would click the heart-icon just below.

I’ve recently been reading disturbing news about the economic situation in Venezuela. Then I came across this post, which was a top 20 popular entry on Medium at the time. Since I don’t read Spanish, I had the original translated by Gengo and thought I’d share this authentic, local experience.

I’ve seen people cry over a book, a photo album, and obituaries in the newspaper, but today was the first time I’ve seen someone cry over a 34-page booklet with a burgundy cover that had a big “República Bolivariana de Venezuela” shield with the words “Pasaporte” and “Passport.” It wasn’t just their crying I saw. I saw them wait up to four frustrated hours until they reached the breaking point.

And finally, today, after a few very long months and a mind-numbing process, I was able to get my passport alongside a relieved group of anxious Venezuelans.

While waiting I was able to confirm that the “exit”— and not exactly Leopoldo’s — is sadly imminent. Many more people than I thought were leaving, wanted to leave, or are going to leave. The departure point for many was Maiquetía as we joked about.

In the line — which wasn’t so much a line as it was a stunned mob — you could hear many people’s escape plans and others’ desires to leave. No one was waiting to get a passport for a leisurely vacation to Aruba. Everyone spoke of the same two destinations: “peace” and “quality of life.”

On the surface, in this country right now, having a passport is, for many, like winning Kino: a trophy, a relief, good news, it’s the “go on, you’re free now” to a prisoner. As such, I saw tears and families hugging, celebrating the achievement. “Finally we can go,” they said. Exaggeration? Depends on each person.

I heard my name. It was my turn. I was up for my award. I couldn’t focus on anything else, but I felt pats on the back from the others who were cheering me on as I walked toward where a chubby desk worker with “hipster” glasses and a Venezuelan “4F” hat was seated and would finally hand over my passport. I went through it and everything was correct. I got away from the masses and took out my phone so I could take a photo of it. My family, who wasn’t there to support me, had to see it. It was one less obstacle to get reunited with them. Each and every emoticon got used.

When I was about to leave, I sat down in a patch of feelings that swirled together: happiness with blame, and frustration with nostalgia. I thought of how absurd it would be to celebrate a passport in a country where getting a break was difficult. I though of all of the students, the lines to buy food, the money I wasn’t making, my broken-down business, the insecurity, the injustice, all of the political prisoners, all of the “he who rests, loses,” the exhaustion, and the loss.

But above all I thought of my people whom I love so dearly, who have to keep going as there’s no other option. I thought of them and I was paralyzed.

At that moment I understood that when the time comes to go off toward “peace,” I’m going to need a lot more than a boarding pass and this 34-page booklet with a burgundy cover.

(This post is an English translation of an April Top 100 Medium article originally written in Russian. The post was translated using Gengo at the Standard tier. It was completed in 4 hours and 14 minutes.)

Lately, infographics have been becoming a more common feature of any blog or website. Experienced webmasters and marketing experts got the idea a long time ago: the picture is mightier than the word.

An infographic is a visual representation of data or, simply put, the art of presenting numbers related to stats, information, data, and knowledge through the figurative language of graphics.

Three things to know about infographics:

1. Over 45% of users are likely to follow a link if it leads to an infographic
2. 30% of users are likely to share an infographic, even if doesn’t contain any useful information
3. The other users are lost in space ☺

Here are 14 free tools designed to make data visualization more straightforward and convenient:

1. Hohli Builder (http://charts.hohli.com/) — An online service for creating beautiful graphs and diagrams. Judging by the name, created by our homeboys, no doubt. ☺)

2. Сreately (http://creately.com/) — A service where you can add your data to a ready-made template and get a beautiful, professional infographic. Supports 7 languages, including Russian.

3. Infogr.am (http://infogr.am/) — A simple and convenient tool for creating interactive infographics. Well worth giving it a go!

4. Piktochart (http://piktochart.com/) — Provides a number of free adjustable themes for creating your own infographics and caters for over 200,000 users worldwide. The basic version is free, an advanced subscription will cost you $29 a month.

5. Visual.ly (http://visual.ly/) — Also containing a number of free infographic themes, this service is largely a well-arranged library of infographics from around the world. A good place to visit when you need some inspiration!

6. Google Charts (https://developers.google.com/chart/) — A service that can create beautiful and easily adjustable graphs and diagrams from the data you feed it. The result can be a good basis for building a solid infographic or a stunning presentation.

7. Vizualize.me (http://vizualize.me/) — A service that can turn your LinkedIn CV into an infographic. There is a similar Russian service called Resumup.ru .

8. Google Public Data Explorer (http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory) — A service allowing you to search through open-access statistical data from across the globe. Search it, grab it, make an infographic.

9. Wordle (http://www.wordle.net/) — A pretty old, but nonetheless fully functional service for creating stunning word visualizations. Enter your text and get a “word cloud”, featuring the most frequently used words.

10. Inkscape (http://inkscape.org/en/) — A powerful graphics editor, similar to Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw. The official website also contains a link to learning resources.

11. Vizify (https://www.vizify.com/) — A new tool that can create infographics based on your Twitter data and visualize some other detailed stats from your Twitter feed, such as your most active followers, most popular tweets, and more.

12. Tagxedo (http://www.tagxedo.com/) — Turns words (such as famous speeches, news articles, slogans, themes, and even your love notes) into word clouds to visually impress your users.

13. Cacoo (https://cacoo.com/) — An online drawing tool, allowing you to create various kinds of infographics, including sitemaps, wire frames, UML (Unified Modeling Language) and online graphics. The service also offers real-time collaboration, which means several users can share ideas and work on the same diagram for a blog simultaneously.

14. Photo Stats (http://www.photostatsapp.com/) — An iPhone app which can analyze all your iPhone photos and create an infographic, showing how, when and where you took those snaps.

Last month I was asked by Sunbridge Global Ventures to kick off their Innovation Weekend global rollout as their inaugural speaker. The request included that I speak to the following two questions:

What kind of Japanese entrepreneurs can be successful in Silicon Valley?

How can Japanese entrepreneurs globalize their business, from Tokyo?

Achieving success as an entrepreneur anywhere is a challenge, so while I could understand the appeal of targeting Silicon Valley, there are enough factors to consider that are agnostic to location. Rather than suggest I had solutions to these broad, abstract questions I decided to have a bit of fun. I chose 5 qualities I felt were important as an entrepreneur, then reached back into my childhood era living in Japan and tied each quality with a bit of Japanese culture.

First, the five qualities — which are important together; see if you can spot why without scrolling down!

Ambitious /am’biSHəs/, adjective
Having or showing a strong desire and determination to succeed.

Nimble /’nimbəl/, adjective
Quick and light in movement or action; agile.

International /,inter’naSHəәnl/, adjective
Existing, occurring, or carried on between two or more nations.

Mature /məә’Choor,-’t(y)oor/, adjective
Fully developed physically; full-grown.

Experimental /ik,sperəә’men(t)l/, adjective
Based on untested ideas or techniques and not yet established or finalized.

Now, why these 5? Well, if you take the first letter of each one, you get

ANIME :)

For each quality, I reflected back on my time in Japan as a kid attending international school and selected one well-known anime or manga character who I felt exhibited the selected quality, and related a story about Gengo and how we, too, exhibited that quality. Now, as this was more a fun rather than academic exercise, you may need to use your imagination and stretch it a bit at times :) Here goes!

For ambitious, I chose Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Koen-mae Hashutsu-jo — otherwise known as Kochikame. This manga, from 1976, is about neighborhood policeman Ryo-san and his entrepreneurial, often scheming ways. In each episode, Ryo-san is attempting some new money-making scheme with which he usually achieves some level of success. But as his key motivations are money and power, each episode inevitably ends with his downfall; he gets greedy and fails, and becomes an example of caution for his readership. (Bear in mind particularly for this generation of Japanese, manga was used either as an escape or to educate on do’s and don’ts).

The important point though is that Ryo-san never ceased in seizing opportunities — he always had the courage to try something new, and this ambition is important in every entrepreneur. If Ryo-san had exhibited the other qualities I’ll share below — especially maturity — he could very well have been successful.

Let me share a story from a very early part of Gengo, when we were very ambitious. Back in 2009 we were finding it a challenge to raise capital in Japan for a seed round. I learned that Dave McClure was coming to Tokyo with his family for the winter holidays, and he graciously agreed to hear our pitch. By the end of the meeting, he wired us funds with the stipulation that we fly to the Bay Area the following month to meet with angels and VCs he would introduce. Despite never having pitched to anyone in the Bay Area nor having any idea whether we would leave with seed funding, we jumped at the opportunity and packed over 30 meetings with angels and VCs into a 10 day trip. There was hardly a moment we weren’t discussing a prior pitch meeting or planning for the next; often times my co-founder Rob would be updating the pitch-deck while I drove to the next meeting.

Fortunately the trip was a success and the rest, well, I’ll get into some more details shortly, but if there’s a lesson on ambition somewhere — it’s that sometimes there are moments where you just have to go and try something out, or you’ll just never know. Which leads me to the next quality …

For nimble, I chose Lupin III, a manga character from 1967. The backstory is that Lupin III is the grandson of the gentleman thief Arsene Lupin from Maurice Leblanc’s novels. (Incidentally, the entire Lupin ecosystem is a good example of how Japan tweaks, perfects, and capitalizes on a foreign asset.) Lupin III is a master thief, and in cahoots with him are an expert marksman named Jigen and a master swordsman named Goemon. Lupin’s love interest is Fujiko, who sometimes helps / sometimes distracts him from his mission. Lupin and his gang are always chased by Inspector Zenigata, who has made it his life’s work to arrest Lupin.

Throughout the manga and anime series, Lupin III appears very agile — he moves quickly, albeit often clumsily, putting himself in difficult situations (like in jail). But his friends always come to his rescue, and after they free him he immediately resumes his original mission, never stopping from pursuing his goal (usually some treasure). Lupin III is a very clever character, and in many episodes he deftly uses his nemesis Zenigata to his advantage, usually as a distraction.

One such example is in a movie-version of Lupin III called Castle of Cagliostro (the only Lupin series directed by Miyazaki Hayao). In this story a Count captures a princess, whom Lupin wants to save. Now, Lupin has this habit of sending a “calling card” to a perpetrator or owner of his target pursuit, with the intent of freaking out the person through a warning of his impending presence. So Lupin sends the Count his signature calling card, which we later realize was also a way to ensure Zenigata would also be present as there were some challenges in the castle that required the two enemies to actually collaborate to escape situations.

Incidentally, in doing this research I discovered that Lupin’s author Monkey Punch (aka Kazuhiko Kato) did not originally seek permission to use the Lupin name. So in a way, even the author was “nimble” ☺ Of course, if you know the Lupin series by no means am I condoning theft. The focus is on being resourceful and clever!

Let me share two stories from Gengo’s early days, when we had to be nimble. The original version of Gengo was launched from Rob’s apartment, where there was enough room for the 3 of us developing the service. We eventually wanted to hire an intern to handle community & support, which triggered the search for a larger working area. We managed to find a shared-office space called Co-lab near (the controversial) Yasukuni shrine; Co-lab had two seating options — a fixed cubicle that could fit two bodies, and a “roaming desk” area of tables. We signed up for one cubicle and 2 roaming seats, figuring we could just keep adding (or subtracting) roaming seats as needed. Well, as we hired more freelance developers and interns, we quickly grew to about 8 members, with around 3 of them part-time. Thing is, we could only afford 5 seats … so we had to discretely rotate key-cards among the non-holders. It was easy to hear people outside the secured enclosed space, so we sometimes used a ‘secret whistle’ or covert knock to let those inside know someone outside needed to be let in. Despite others (unrelated to Gengo) using the shared-office space, we nimbly got through this episode for a few months before eventually moving into a proper office.

The second story of being nimble was a period when I slept on an inflatable mattress in a spare room at my parents’ place for 8 months. This was a period when I essentially dropped any responsibility not related to developing Gengo. Shedding personal possessions down to what could fit in a single 3’x3’ box and sleeping on the floor of a spare room all in the name of reducing financial burden and as a 28 year old, required a certain level of mental nimbleness. On most days I would walk the 45 minute commute to the office, saving an additional few dollars per day. Walking to work turned out to have three essential upsides — 1) it enforced an exercise regimen during a lifestyle that was 99% sitting and coding in front of a laptop, 2) it helped save some money, and 3) it gave me time to think and solve problems — time that could easily have been usurped by other company-building needs. If there’s a lesson here on being nimble, it’s around identifying the upside of working with limited resources.

For international, I chose Captain Tsubasa — a manga from the early 1980s about a young football prodigy (that’s “soccer” for Americans) named Tsubasa Oozora. Tsubasa has a dream of winning the FIFA World Cup for Japan, and the series shows numerous incredible — often unrealistic, but still very cool — football shots on goal.

Early in the series Tsubasa meets Roberto Hongo, a Brazilian footballer who eventually comes to live with Tsubasa and his family. Another character named Taro Misaki, who traveled around Japan at a young age because of his father’s job, becomes Tsubasa’s best friend. What I like and found interesting in the Captain Tsubasa anime is that not only does Tsubasa have a global dream, he surrounds himself with people who are either international — like Roberto — or who have been exposed to different subcultures — like Taro in his adventures around remote parts of Japan.

Throughout the series, Tsubasa continues to surround himself with international players, both as teammates and competitors. For example, in the World Youth edition Tsubasa leaves Japan for Sao Paolo, Brazil, and meets talented Brazilian players like Pepe and Carlos Santana. When the AFC Youth Championships begin, Tsubasa returns to Japan and joins the national team, competing against teams from around the world including Thailand, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Sweden.

Our team at Gengo is incredibly diverse — possibly the highest ratio of nationalities per headcount you’ll find for a company in Japan, with an office in the US. Among the approximately 45 people who make up Gengo, at least 12 nationalities are represented, including US, Japan, UK, Kazakstan, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Italy, India, Australia, Philippines, Russia, and Singapore. Each and every hire is interested in different cultures and languages; some are obviously better than others at speaking a second (or third!) language, but the interest and passion for learning and trying is what’s most important to us. We have found that building an international team early in a company’s growth is a clear way to show both internally and externally (i.e. publicly) that diversity is incredibly valuable to us. A philosophy like this on company culture becomes particularly helpful when recruiting for talent.

Thanks to the Internet’s inherent global reach, an “international mindset” is now less about physical location and more about valuing diversity and having a global outlook. That said if you’ve never lived overseas, get moving ASAP!

For mature, I knew I had to go with Golgo 13, a manga from 1968 about a professional assassin who also goes by the pseudonym Duke Togo. This guy is a badass — a pro among pros. Golgo 13’s past is a mystery, but throughout the series he’s known as a guy who just gets shit done. He’s calculating and methodical, and is never known to fail a mission as a hired gun.

Okay, so he doesn’t always kill someone in every episode. In the episode “Sharp Shoot on a G-String”, which is about two rival violinists, one of them has a meltdown during a solo performance when the G string on his violin snaps and he can’t continue performing. The incident becomes global news, and he withdraws from the public. But the show must go on so his agent retains his key rival to continue in his place. This selection enrages the original violinist, who decides to hire Golgo 13 to shoot and snap the same G string at the rival violinist’s next performance (Golgo 13 is that good ☺. The original violinist wants his rival to endure the same meltdown and humiliation he’s undergone, and is willing to go to quite an extreme to make it happen.

Golgo 13 completes his mission successfully, snapping the G string mid-performance. The rival violinist pauses, and a tense air fills the auditorium as everyone watches to see what happens next. To the original violinists dismay, the rival retunes his D string on stage, and completes the rest of his performance. Golgo 13 obviously knows what would ultimately satisfy his client — to cause complete and utter humiliation in the performer — but he’s done his job, so he packs up his rifle and leaves the venue. Goglo 13 doesn’t let himself get sucked into the negativity of his client; instead he keeps his cool and professionalism. He’s mature like that.

At Gengo we’ve seen our share of nonsense clearly targeted at us with the intent to humiliate and distract. Being mature as an entrepreneur means not letting the bullshit bother you. There will always be people who try to waste your time, so it’s important to recognize when that’s happening and not get sucked-in.

When we received our first serious coverage in online media, we were elated — only to read through the comments and find tons of vitriol and negative feedback about our business model. It would have been easy to take it as a setback — but instead it thickened our skin and proved to us that we were on to something, something clearly disruptive and upsetting because at the least we were reallocating value to different parties.

We’ve seen our share of trolls on other social media platforms, and as we grew we established a company policy on how to respond — maturely and professionally, no matter what. Never let yourself get sucked down to another’s level. We’ve done such a good job at this that our fans — our customers and translators — often rebut complaints, false claims, and trolling activity on our behalf!

If you focus on adding value and block out the noise — you’ll be just fine.

For the final quality — experimental — I chose Yatta-man, a relatively niche manga (at least among the ones above) from 1977. Yatta-man (or “Yatterman” according to English distributors) is about two young tinkerers, a boy named Gan-chan and his girlfriend Ai-chan. They exist to protect a magical stone called the Skull Stone from a gang of three villains called the Doronbo. To do this, they’ve modified a large rescue robot in the shape of a dog into having weapons and called it Yatta-wan. As the series progresses, Gan-chan and Ai-chan experiment and iterate on their choice of weapons by building different robots, or mechas, for special occasions and changes in environment — such as Yatta-pelican for airborne needs, Yatta-angler for underwater activities, and Yatta-bull for drilling underground.

When the Yatta-man duo encounter the Doronbo, they engage by triggering one of their mechas to deploy an army of little robots. But the Doronbo also have their own mechas that pack weapons, and usually defeat Yatta-man at the beginning of the fight with their own army of mini-robots. Gan-chan and Ai-chan again experiment and iterate on their original mini-robot army though, and ultimately defeat the Doronbo.

At Gengo, experimentation and iteration is a core part of our product development and company growth philosophy. One of our five core values is kaizen, which essentially means “improvement through iteration”. Throughout the five years we’ve been growing as a business, here are a few “experiments” we’ve done for the purposes of improving the product and how we operate:

• used 4 different video conferencing services,
• changed our total office layout twice in only 8 months,
• completely changed our online order-form UI/X 4 times,
• experimented with all-hands stand-ups to be Japanese-only

Some of these might seem trivial — but if you’ve ever worked in an environment with some history you know how cliche yet frequent the answer “well, that’s how it’s always been done” is, especially in a Japanese work environment. So we try to never let this mindset get in our way. Getting into a habit of iterating and tweaking is important as teams and environments grow because there is never one-size that’s fits all.

So that’s ANIME — my take on a Japanese, entrepreneurial way to succeed globally. Thanks for reading this far; I’d like to close with one of my favorite quotes by George Bernard Shaw:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

So go out and be unreasonable!

Thanks to Dice and my wife Sawaka for their suggestions and feedback!

If you got value out of this article, it would mean a lot to me for you to scroll down a bit farther and hit the recommend button.

5 Entrepreneurial Inspirations was originally published in Entrepreneurial I/O on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Over the past year, I have shifted from the day-to-day responsibilities as a CTO driving technical decisions to wearing a more public hat, sharing the story of our founding and the details of how we operate to captivated audiences. Despite all the interconnected goodness the Internet brings us, there are aspects of in-person communication it cannot replace — not to mention the serendipitous moments that come with being in new environments, which often lead to fantastic new opportunities. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have a knowledgable and dedicated VP of Engineering lead our engineering team of 12; this has enabled me to present at conferences, meet customers who need that extra “founder’s nudge”, and invest in strategic relationships.

A business trip should never be a waste — there’s really no excuse no matter how long or short the travel.

Although we’re now in our sixth year, it’s easy to draw a crowd (no pun intended!) who knows little to nothing about what we do and even less about how we do it. While it may seem like I get to travel a lot — I do, and I enjoy it — there’s a lot of strategy and structure that I put into each trip to make the most of it. A business trip should never be a waste — there’s really no excuse no matter how long or short the travel. For entrepreneurs entering a similar stage of their growth, I thought I’d share some strategies that have helped me save time and maximize each trip.

Anchor with a cause

There are numerous reasons for a business trip — to speak at an event, to attend a conference and learn about an industry or generate leads, to visit a satellite office, to meet a special customer. Whatever the reason or purpose of the trip, it should have an anchor that you’re excited about. Even if the purpose of a trip is more “thematic” — like fundraising or learning about a city to see if it’s worth opening a new office — I find that it helps to select a specific event as an anchor to “ground” the visit. The exercise gives your mind a concrete event to plan and look forward to. On some trips when I’m in a city for nothing else but to meet customers, I’ll pick a specific customer to look forward to and focus my planning towards them.

Pack the evenings; embrace chance meetings

These days there is no excuse to have an evening with nothing to do. Every major city has an event-management service showing what’s going on when you’re in town. So a few weeks before your trip, scour the Eventbrites, MeetUps, and Peatixs of where you’re going and pack as many evenings as possible. You might think you’ll be exhausted, and by all means be proactive about managing your energy throughout the trip — but let the opportunist in you take the lead while you travel. You never know who you’ll meet or what you’ll learn.

…while traveling on business you’re not only an ambassador of your company to the public, but a window to the outside ecosystem for your internal team too.

A few weeks ago when I was in New York city to meet current and potential customers, I attended a monthly technology meet-up. Over 800 entrepreneurs, technologists, and startup enthusiasts made up the audience — but most coincidentally, I watched another translation service present their business to the audience and recorded them fielding questions so I could share with my team. I believe it’s important to know how other companies in your industry present themselves — their vernacular, their style, their approach; at least don’t be oblivious to them! And capturing these observations is important — while traveling on business you’re not only an ambassador of your company to the public, but a window to the outside ecosystem for your internal team too.

Manage your face-time

Sometimes a string of evenings with crowds of people can be exhausting, and you’d rather spend time with individuals. For every major city I visit often, I maintain a list of names I should spend time with — whether over coffee, dinner or, if I’m lucky, a weekend. Some are friends from previous walks of life like college, others became friends after starting as business acquaintances. Still others are people I met in Tokyo, and who I wish to see in their local environment. I try to meet as many on the list as possible, and I cycle through it evenly as best I can — i.e. to meet everyone at least once before meeting the same person again.
Being somewhat strategic to this approach is important — it helps to keep a level of breadth to discussions so that everything is not just business during the trip. You’ll be amazed at not only how small the world is, but what new opportunities arise from these encounters — anyone worth spending time with has another friend who’ll be in your neighborhood and is worth getting to know too.

Nurture the opportunist in you

By taking a strategic approach to “face-time” during business trips, you’re mentally preparing yourself for new opportunities. I’m reminded of Woody Allen’s quip — “80% of success is just showing up”; it never ceases to amaze me how in-person interactions that could never be replaced by a Skype-call, can flourish.
During one of the DEW conference sessions in Los Angeles earlier this year, one panelist was from DramaFever. I approached him after the session and learned that he had not only heard of Gengo before, but wanted me to meet his product team to discuss how we can help their global expansion. It just so turned out that I was going to be in their home city of New York in two weeks! If I hadn’t had the open mind to approach him afterwards, I definitely would not have met their team in the best way — in person.

It’s incredibly satisfying when you exit a meeting with a new customer, especially after having accepted the opportunity to meet with initial reservations.

At the same DEW conference, one of the sponsors had a booth featuring a service I found interesting but didn’t think would have much potential as a business customer for Gengo. Still, I was cordial when one of their BD employees approached me. I took the chance to share what we do, gave my business card and didn’t think much else except to mention that I sometimes make it to the Bay Area for meetings.
A few weeks later I found myself in this potential customer’s brand new office, learning that their services have diversified and that they need our solutions to grow globally. It’s incredibly satisfying when you exit a meeting with a new customer, especially after having accepted the opportunity to meet with initial reservations.

Get used to repetition

One aspect of business travel that may take some getting used to is how often you must repeat your story; that’s just the result of meeting so many new people. It may seem exhausting or even annoying at times, but find ways to spice up your pitch. Even better, have a list of regular questions you ask various audiences and see what patterns you spot.

Bonus

Finally, a hat-tip to one of my colleagues: loyalty programs — especially in the travel industry — are worth spending time planning around. Each component of travel — the hotel, the car rental, the airline — has their competing brands with various loyalty programs so I won’t get into which to choose, but the benefits of sticking with one really come out when you’re in a bind. Needing to change a room, car, or flight becomes a much better experience when the representative sees you’ve been a loyal customer.
One caution though: Expedia used to be a favorite for booking trips because everything is consolidated, and their iOS app is actually great with reminders and flight-change updates. But Expedia often “intercepts” your relationship with say a hotel brand, so if you ever need to change a room or complain, the hotel won’t always see your loyalty. If possible, book directly with the brand. These days the top brands now have a usable online experience.

Thanks for reading this far! If you got value out of this article, it would mean a lot to me for you to scroll down a bit farther and hit the recommend button. Safe travels!

この記事の元の英文はこちらです。

私がGengoを始めた時 (社名を変更する前は“myGengo”という名前でした)、目標のひとつに掲げていたのはシリコンバレーの要素を少しばかり東京に持ち込むことでした。東京の暮らしは非常に快適だと感じます ─ まさに24時間眠らない街として、世界で最も安全といえるでしょう。しかしながら、雇用のエコシステムをみると、活力に溢れた若い意欲的な人材 (ただし成熟さに欠けることはありますが) を支え、経済的価値を創出する仕組みにはなっていません。

日本の仕事環境は手続きと惰性に阻まれた大企業のようです。何を始めるにしても、多大なコンセンサスと事務手続きを要し、利害関係のために変化を支持しない「シニアマネージャー」の数が多すぎるのです。手続きと惰性もほどほどなら利点があります。ただし何にでも当てはまることですが、何事もやり過ぎは破壊をもたらします。私はGengoを創業する以前、東京の雇用環境全般に苛立ちを覚えていました。ソニーでは正社員として様々な職務を経験し、日本郵便など様々な日本企業との仕事を経て、私の認識は形成されたのです。しかし、米国に渡る準備はまだできていませんでした。この状況に苛立ちを感じているのは、自分ひとりではないだろうとわかっていました。起業家精神とは短い間の中で改善を繰り返すことだが、これを日本の経済のエコシステムが支援してくれないと思う。この認識の上に、大学時代にインターンとして米国企業で働いた有意義な経験を活かし、自分に何ができるのか考えました。そして思いつきました。「シリコンバレーの要素を、少しでも東京に持ち込んでみてはどうか」と。

「シリコンバレー」の定義は人それぞれですが、私はこう考えます:

シリコンバレーとは、次のような考えを信奉する姿勢のことです。テクノロジーの進歩はいかなるマイナス面にも勝るということ。テクノロジーの進歩は価値を生み出すとともに、生活を改善するということ。その過程で生じる失敗は、さらなるリスクをとることを可能にする基盤を強化するということ。

これは、特にシリコンバレーに限ったことではありませんね。重要なのは、この理念をどのような形で示すかです。それは実行することです。シリコンバレーのエコシステムでは、探究し、試行し、リスクをとることを焦点を定めてすばやく繰り返すことが奨励されています。私はシリコンバレーとは姿勢であり、実行力であると信じていたので、同様のものを東京で生み出すにあたり物理的な障害はないと考えました。大変なことは、このエコシステムに励まされ恩恵を受けるチームを育成することでしょう。また、働くことに対する西欧的な姿勢を、日本の環境に融合させることが重要でしたから、成功を収めるためには文化的多様性が不可欠です。

国際的なチームをまとめようとした楽天は数年前、世間の注目を集めました。CEOの三木谷氏は、2012年半ばまでに社内公用語を英語にすると発表しました。その発表から4年近くが経過しますが、楽天がこの取り組みを成功とみなしているのか、私にはわかりません。私が言えることは、いくつもの会議に出席しましたが、その90%は日本語で行われていたということです。英語メディアでは、楽天の取り組みについて懐疑的な記事を多数目にしました。「社内完全英語化」の楽天が解決を目指す問題は、言語ではなく、むしろ価値の創造を阻むビジネス慣行や姿勢であるという論調でした。つまり、注視することは、文化的リスクへの嫌悪、コンセンサスを重視した意思決定、成功に対する指標として前例にとらわれることです。これらは日本の企業環境の発展を妨げる問題の数例に過ぎず、言語とは無関係のことですね。

さあ、あなたが日本の起業家で、文化的多様性が競争力を強めると考え、国際的なチームを築くことを望むのであれば、以下のようなトピックを考えてみるとよいでしょう。

• 国際的なチームを築くことは、英語の使用を全社員に課すことではありません。外国人を採用すればよいわけでもありません。日本に住むことに興味を持っている外国人のほとんどは、日本人の同僚の英語力向上に時間を割きたいとは思っていません。それどころか、自分の日本語力を高めたいと考えています。社内でメインとなる言語をひとつ選び、それを支援するための基盤を築きましょう。Gengoの場合、社内コミュニケーションに使用するのは英語です。英語力の向上を希望する社員は、最初の6カ月間、無料の英語レッスンを受けることができます。レッスン費用は会社が負担します。弊社は日本にあるため、日本語力の向上を目指す人にも同じ福利厚生が適用されます。これにより、社員が「語学の先生」としての役割を担う必要がなくなります。
• 国際的なチームとはつまり、意見の多様性を意味します。違いを受け入れましょう。ひとつにまとまった一貫性のある環境には利点がありますが、外部の問題解決という点においてはそうではありません。人、文化、考えの多様性は、競合他社に対する優位性を与えてくれます。会社を生命体と考えると、この戦略は理にかなっていることがわかります。生物学では、より多様な遺伝子プールを持つ種は、生き残る確立が高いとされています。多様性に劣る種の場合、ひとつの病気で絶滅してしまう可能性が非常に高いのです。Gengoの戦略では、多様性を求めて人材の採用を行なっています。社員数が50人に満たない会社でありながら、国籍は12カ国を超えています。
• チームの多様性を受け入れ、人と違うことを奨励するには、すべての人が輝ける機会を与えると良いでしょう。個人の業績を認めたり、社内や公の場でプレゼンの機会を与えることで、それが可能になります。Gengoではどちらも行なっています。社員投票により「最も能力を向上させたGengon（Gengo社員）」や「Gengoの価値を最も示した人」を選出しています。また、開発チームはテクノロジー関連のイベントを開催し、英語が母国語ではない社員は英語で、日本語が母国語ではない社員は日本語でプレゼンを行う機会を作っています。
• 何事にも初めての時があり、最初というだけで勝利につながることもあります。日本の雇用環境で私が経験したように、残念ながら前例がないために良いアイデアが抑え込まれることはよくあることです。最初であることは、過去の裏付けがなく失敗の確率が高いように思えるため、最初になることに過剰なほどの恐怖心を持っています。「ほかに誰もやったことがないので、上手くいくはずがない」というように。そのような考えに対しては、私はいつも「簡単にできることだったら、みんなやってるよ!」と思うのです。Gengoでは、最初の存在になりたいと思っています。500 Startups やAtomicoから初期の資金を調達した日本初の会社になり、自由にアクセスできるパブリックなRESTベースの人力翻訳APIを持ち、Cuban Council (弊社やその他の素晴らしい企業のリブランドを担った) の日本初の顧客企業になりました。

いつでも楽しむことを忘れずに!

競争力のある多様性を求めてこれらのアイデアを実行に移すなかで、一番大事な要素は楽しむことです! いつでもどこでもユーモアを交え、多様な言語を楽しみ、チームとして文化に対する興味を際立たせましょう。

それぞれの多様性に対し、心からの興味や感激を示すことができないのであれば、企業文化の存続は困難でしょう。

最後にもう一点興味深いアドバイスをしよう。積極的にバランスを確立することが求められる時があるかもしれません。その場合は、例えば、4、5人のノンネイティブスピーカーにつき、真のバイリンガルを最低1人を組み込むと、好環境が生まれることがわかりました。バイリンガルの人は静かな橋渡し役のようなもので、集団の中で社内の使用言語で思うように意思を伝えられない人にとって、気持ちのはけ口になる働きをします。重要なことは、このバイリンガルの人が知らず知らずのうちに、必要に応じて通訳のような役割を担っていることです。静かな橋渡し役を期待されていることを感じさせてもいけませんし、その役目に多くの時間を取られすぎてもいけません。

ここまでお読みいただき、ありがとうございました。この記事を役に立つと感じていただけましたら、このうえない喜びです。以下の“recommend”ボタンでお友だちにも勧めていただけますと幸いです。

お礼：翻訳はgengo.comを通し、Diceとさわかが添削してくれました。

国際的なチームの構築 was originally published in Startups in Japanese — 日本語 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This is an English version of an article intended for a Japanese audience. The Japanese translation will be available soon.

When we started Gengo (we were originally called “myGengo” until we rebranded), one of my goals was to bring a little piece of Silicon Valley to Tokyo. Living here is very comfortable—Tokyo is possibly the safest truly 24-hour city in the world—but the employment ecosystem does not support young, ambitious personalities who have the energy (but often lack the maturity) to create economic value. Instead, the Japanese work environment is like a large company hindered by process and inertia—too much consensus and paperwork is needed to get anything started, and there are too many “senior managers” with vested interests in not supporting change. Process and inertia have their merits in moderation, but like anything else, too much of anything can be destructive.

Before launching Gengo, I was frustrated with the general employment environment in Tokyo. My perceptions had been formed after various positions within Sony as a seisha-in (“full-time employee”) and after having worked with various large Japanese entities, including the Japan Post. But I wasn’t ready to move to the United States. I knew I couldn’t be the only one frustrated by this situation. I thought about what I could do to build on this perception that the economic ecosystem was unsupportive of hyper-iterative entrepreneurship and to take advantage of the positive experiences I had had while working as an intern at American companies when I was a college student. So I figured, “Why not bring a piece of Silicon Valley to Tokyo?”

Everyone has his or her own definition of “Silicon Valley”; here’s one of mine:

Silicon Valley is an attitude that espouses the idea that advancements in technology outweigh any downsides, that these advancements create value and improve our lives, and that failures encountered during this pursuit only strengthen the foundation on which further risks can be taken.

Doesn’t sound unique to Silicon Valley, right? The key is in the way this philosophy manifests itself—the execution. Silicon Valley has become an ecosystem that encourages exploration, experimentation, and risk taking in focused and fast iterations. Because I believed that Silicon Valley was an attitude and execution, I reasoned that there was no physical barrier to creating something similar in Tokyo. The challenge would be in growing a team that would also encourage and benefit from this ecosystem. And because this was about merging a more Western attitude towards work within a Japanese environment, cultural diversity would play an integral role in achieving success.

Integrating an International Team

Rakuten made headlines in 2010 when CEO Mikitani announced he would require all employees to conduct business in English by mid-2012. After nearly four years since the announcement I don’t know whether Rakuten considers the campaign a success, but I will say I’ve been in a handful of meetings, and 90 percent of them were conducted in Japanese. I’ve read much skepticism about the Rakuten endeavor in the English-language media, mostly highlighting how the business issues Rakuten is hoping to solve with “Englishnization” are not really about language but rather about business practices and attitudes that hamper value creation. Cultural risk aversion, consensus-driven decision making, belief in past precedent as an indicator of success—these are just a few of the issues that constrict progress in a Japanese corporate environment and that have nothing to do with language.

So, if you’re a Japanese entrepreneur who believes cultural diversity strengthens your competitive advantage and wants to build an international team, here are some topics I suggest thinking about.

• Building an international team does not entail forcing English on all employees. It also doesn’t just mean you hire foreigners. Most foreigners interested in living in Japan don’t want to spend time improving a Japanese colleagues’ English—if anything, these foreign employees want to improve their own Japanese! Pick a main language for the company and build a foundation to support it. At Gengo, English is our main internal language of communication; anyone who wants to improve his or her English receives free lessons for the first six months of their employment that are paid for by the company. And since we’re in Japan, the same benefits apply to anyone who wants to improve his or her Japanese. This removes any expectation that employees serve as “language teachers.”
• An international team by definition means a diversity of opinion. Embrace these differences. There are benefits to an environment that is united and consistent, but a team focused on solving external business problems is not one of them. The diversity—in people, culture, and ideas—is what gives you the advantage over your competition. If you believe a company is like an organism, this strategy makes sense. In biology, there’s an understanding that a species with a more diverse gene pool has a higher likelihood to survive because the risks of a single disease wiping out a less genetically diverse species are so high. At Gengo, our strategy has been to hire for diversity, and we’ve now built a team comprising over twelve nationalities in a company with fewer than fifty employees.
• Another way to embrace diversity and to show the team that differences are encouraged is by giving everyone opportunities to shine. You can do this by recognizing individual accomplishments or by giving team members the chance to present, internally or publicly. At Gengo, we’ve done both: we’ve had employees vote for who they felt was the “Most improved Gengon” or the “Best exhibitor of Gengo’s values.” Our engineering team has also held technology presentation events, giving our non-native English speakers an opportunity to present in English and our non-native Japanese speakers a chance to present in Japanese.
• There is always a first time, and sometimes, being first is all it takes to win. Unfortunately, good ideas are all too often stunted because there is no precedent, which is especially true in my experience working in Japanese environments. There is too much fear of being the first, as being first means being unproven and therefore the likelihood to fail seems so high. It is as if people are thinking, “Nobody else has ever done it, so it must not be possible.” My usual response to that thinking is “If it were easy, everyone would be doing it!” At Gengo, we like to be first—first to raise capital as a Japanese company from some of our earlier investors 500Startups and Atomico, first to have an openly accessible, public, REST-based human-translation API, and first Japanese client for Cuban Council (which did our rebrand and those of other great companies, too).

Always Have Fun!

Just remember while executing any of these ideas for the sake of competitive diversity that the most important factor is to have fun: add humor when and where you can, have fun with languages, and as a team, highlight your curiosity about culture.

If you can’t show genuine interest and excitement about individual diversity, there is little chance the company culture will sustain itself.

As a bonus tip, there may be times when a balance needs to be proactively established. For example, I have found that having at least one truly bilingual speaker per four to five non-native speakers helps keep the environment humming. A bilingual person is like a silent ambassador and serves as an outlet for those struggling to express themselves in the company’s primary language in a group setting. The key is to make sure the bilingual person doesn’t even realize he or she is functioning as an interpreter when needed; this person should never feel as though he or she is expected to be or is spending too much time as a silent ambassador.

Thanks for reading this far! If you found any value in this article, it would mean a great deal to me if you shared it with your friends—just hit the “recommend” button below.

في حفل “التكنولوجيا والشركات الناشئة” الأخير، كانت هناك سيدة أعمال تتذمر بشأن كفاحها في العثور على مدير فني عام. وفي النهاية طرحت علي سؤالًا بريئًا جعلني أسترجع أحداث الماضي وأدرك إلى أي مدى نضجنا في شركتنا البادئة. كان سؤالها ببساطة،

“هل ينبغي علي توظيف مطور حر؟”

في كثير من الأحيان عندما يطلب الآخرون نصيحتي، لا يسعني إلا أن أتذكر المقولة الشائعة (والمثيرة للسخرية إلى حد ما) “النصيحة = خبرة محدودة + تبسيط مفرط”. لذلك استهللت ردي المرتقب بكلمة مشابهة للحذر ثم شرحت كيف تطور فريقنا الهندسي وتفكك ثم تولد من جديد على مدى الأربع سنوات الماضية. وكما هو الحال مع أي شركة صغيرة متنامية، فلا توجد وسيلة صحيحة واحدة لتطوير الفريق الهندسي؛ حيث أنها قد تستغرق بالنسبة إلى البعض من أمثالي بضعة محاولات. إلا أني وصلت إلى اعتقاد بأن نجاح تطور أي فريق يعتمد بشكل كبير على التوازن بين الثقافة التي يرغب المؤسسون في نشرها والعوامل البيئية التي يكون من الصعب غالبًا التحكم فيها. هنا يكمن التحدي.
شجعني هذا التبادل الموجز للآراء مع سيدة الأعمال الشابة على كتابة أفكاري بمزيد من التفاصيل على أمل أن يكون لدى أي رجل أعمال آخر أو سيدة أعمال أخرى نقطة قياس أخرى في ترسانة “خبراته” للاستفادة منها. وسوف أشارك هذه الأفكار في شكل درسين ينبغي وضعهما في الاعتبار عند توظيف وتنشئة وتطوير أي فريق هندسي، كما سأشارككم سرًا صغيرًا (والذي لن يصيح سرًا للغاية بعد الآن!) بشأن استراتيجية التوظيف التي قدمت لنا خدمات جليلة.

1. تعلم كيفية التعبير عن نقاط قوة البيئة المحيطة بك

يلعب المؤسسون دورًا فعّالا في بيع القصة والرؤية مقابل أن يكون لديهم شركة، فأنت ترغب في أن يقوم المهندسون الأوائل القليلين غير المؤسسين بشراء الرؤية كما هي. لكنني اكتشفت أيضًا أنه عندما يصبح فريق المهندسين حوالي 3 أعضاء أو أكثر، فإن القدرة على التعبير عن الثقافة هي ما يمكنها صنع الفرق في نهاية أي فريق. توجد بعض الاسئلة التي ينبغي عليك طرحها بشأن فريقك الهندسي من الشباب — “ما الذي يجعل ثقافة فريقي الهندسي مميزة جدًا وتستحق الانضمام إليها؟”، “ كيف تختلف بيئتي عن العمل في بيئات أخرى محفزة ذهنيًا وقائمة على التكنولوجيا مثل Facebook أو Google ؟”
عندما طرحت على نفسي هذه الأسئلة، كانت الإجابات تبرز بسهولة لحسن الحظ. نحن نتواجد في طوكيو، اليابان حيث يوجد عدد قليل من بيئات الهندسة التي تتحدث الإنجليزية والتي تعمل بعقلية “وادي السيليكون”، وبالنسبة إلى أي مهندس معتاد على بيئة الشركات اليابانية التقليدية، كان من المثير سماع الأزياء لا تهم (فقط ارتدي ثيابًا!)، والساعات لا تهم “فقط قم بذلك!”، ونحن جميعًا زملاء (فلتتحدانا إذا كنت تعترض)*. كما أننا من أوائل من اعتمدوا على التكنولوجيا — لغات البرمجة، أطر العمل، أدوات البنية الأساسية، إلخ — ونعمل بوعي لصد أي إجراء روتيني قد يعيق الإنتاجية الهندسية. على سبيل المثال، فإن توفير خادم AWS لإطلاق شيء في جولانج لاختبار أي فكرة لا ينبغي أن يحتاج إلى أي أوراق (بالرغم من التكاليف، الأمان المحتمل، إلخ). لكن ربما يكون الجانب الأكثر إثارة وتميزًا في فريقنا الهندسي هو التنوع الثقافي — فالفريق نفسه مثال لما تهدف الشركة إلى تحقيقه على الصعيد العالمي. فمن أصل عشرة أفراد في الفريق الهندسي، يتم تمثيل ثماني ثقافات مختلفة — اليابانية والروسية والأمريكية والبريطانية والهندية والإيطالية والجنوب أفريقية والسعودية. يبدو الفريق مثل الأمم المتحدة المصغرة ولكن في وسط طوكيو. نحن نقدر التنوع الثقافي بشدة وأود دائمًا أن أذكر كيف نتعايش معه.

2. قم بتشكيل فريقك بشكل استباقي (والمعروف باسم لا تتوقف أبدًا عن التعيين)

يوافق المؤسسون عامة على أهمية تدريب أوائل أعضاء الفريق ليكونوا “متعددي المواهب والمهارات” — ولا تختلف الهندسة في ذلك. يعد العمل مع المهندس الشامل في البداية مهمًا لأنه يكرر التأكيد على التطور، وكما هو الحال مع أي كائن متنامي أو أي عملية متنامية، يكون هناك حاجة للرعاية والتوجيهات وذلك لتحقيق أفضل نتيجة، الأمر الذي يتطلب يد سباقة في تشكيل الفريق. يوجد عدة جوانب ينبغي النظر فيها — عامل الناقل، توازن المهارات الصحيحة والنطاق الصحيح للخبرة والنضج، إلخ. قد يبدو الأمر مثل الشعوذة، فبينما تتطور العملية يمكنك أن ترى فرصًا للتوظيف إما “للعمق” أو الخبرة. وعلى الرغم من ذلك فأنا أرى أنه من الأفضل تأجيل تعيين الخبراء لأطول فترة ممكنة. فالخبراء ربما يقيدون قدرة الفريق على المناورة والتي يمكن أن تكون ضرورية في المراحل المبكرة من تطور الشركة. فإذا قمت بتعيين خبير، انتبه جيدًا لئلا تتشابك أي مهارة من مهاراته مع غيره من أعضاء الفريق، فأنت لا ترغب في التصادم بشأن الاختلافات الموجودة في “رأي الخبير” ولا ترغب كذلك في موقف تجد فيه “عدد كبير جدًا من الطهاة في المطبخ” — فهذه هي الوصفات التي تؤدي إلى حدوث الكوارث. إذا كيف يمكنك الحفاظ على تشكيل الفريق؟ لا تتوقف أبدًا عن التعيين، أنا لا أشير إلى المرحلة النهائية الخاصة بتوقيع عقد العمل والتحمس بإنضمام العضو الجديد — هذا هو “المقصد” إذا صح التعبير — أنا أشير إلى عملية التعيين كرحلة، والمكون الرئيسي لهذه الرحلة هو الخطة — القائمة والشبكة التي تضم المرشحين والتي تستخرج منها موهبة جديدة، لم يتم التحقق منها على نحو دقيق، ربما تكون مرشحًا قويًا للانضمام إلى الفريق. أدركنا في مرحلة ما من تطورنا أن فريق الهندسة لدينا يميل بشكل كبير نحو عدم تمثيل المهندس الياباني (من بين إجمالي 4 مهندسين أثناء هذه المرحلة في تطورنا، لم يكن هناك إلا مهندس واحد نص ياباني!). لذلك قمنا بزيادة جهودنا للوصول إلى المجتمع الهندسي الياباني المحلي، وكانت بعض الخطوات واضحة — إعداد قوائم الوظائف باللغة اليابانية، ووضعها على لوحات الوظائف الخاصة باليابانيين فقط، وحضور اللقاءات التي تستهدف المطورين اليابانيين. وتوجد خطوات كانت “أمريكية” للغاية في نهجها — رسائل البريد الباردة وشاشات الهاتف الأولية ودعوات للخروج وتناول الشراب مع الفريق. ساعد هذا النهج المجتمع في خلق مجموعة قوية من المرشحين الذين استطعنا أن نطور فريقنا بشكل مطرد بهم. وفي الواقع فقد خلفت هذه المناهج المجتمعة عامل تصفية ضمن لنا تناسب المرشحين المقبولين مع ثقافة شركتنا.
هناك إدراك آخر أود مشاركته في ظل هذا الموضوع الخاص بتشكيل الفريق وهو أنه أثناء تطور الفريق، لا يجب أن يكون كل فرد أو مهارة بالضرورة مناسبة لكل مرحلة من ذلك التطور. يتمتع العديد من الأشخاص بنوع محدد من مراحل الشركات — سواء كان “وضع التمهيد” أو مرحلة “الشركة الصغيرة” ما بين 15 إلى 150 شخصًا، أو مرحلة “الشركة الكبيرة” التي يزيد عدد أفرادها عن 1,000. وإذا كان لدى أحد أعضاء الفريق بشكل خاص تاريخ من العمل في أوضاع التمهيد فقط، من المهم أن تكون صريحًا وعمليًا بشأن ما إذا كان كل شخص يتطور بالفعل مع الفريق أم لا. لقد فشلت مرة واحدة في إدراك هذا العائق لتطور الفريق، وقد كان درسًا مؤلمًا لكنه كان مهمًا.

3. السر — هو Github

إذا كنت تقوم بتوظيف المهندسين، يعد Github موردًا عظيمًا لذلك. إن إمكانية التصفية بعامل الموقع (مثل “كولورادو”) وعامل اللغة (مثل “روبي”) تساعد في تحديد المجموعة الأولية التي ينبغي التفكير فيها. عندما كنا نسعى لتطوير فريقنا، بدأت بحوالي 400 علامة تبويب Chrome، كلا منها نتيجة لبحث ما، ثم أغلقت على الفور علامات التبويب التي تحتوي على حسابات ليس لديها مخزون شخصي (مما يشير إلى قلة النشاط)، كما قمت بإزالة الحسابات التي لديها مخزون يشبه البرنامج التعليمي فقط (مما يشير إلى نقص الخبرة)، وقد قلل هذا من المجموعة لتصبح 250 تقريبًا. قمت بعد ذلك باختيار مخزون أو اثنان أثارا اهتمامي وقمت بفحص الأسلوب والمحتوى والصعوبة — وإن كانت خطوة ذاتية، إلا أنه بسبب هذه الخطوة استطاع أحد المطورين ذوي الخبرة أن يلفت انتباهي. إذا كان هناك معلومات اتصال، أرسل بريد إلكتروني مختصر أقدم فيه نفسي وما نقوم به وما أثار اهتمامي في الملف الشخصي لهذا المطور على Github، وطلب إجراء مكالمة هاتفية تستغرق 30 دقيقة. من كل هذا، كان معدل استجابة البريد الإلكتروني يتراوح بين 25-30%، كان 40% منها رفض لطيف. كانت الاستجابات الأخرى تظهر جميعها في شاشة هاتف واحدة على الأقل، وبدا أنها عملية شاقة لكن إذا كنت تستمتع بمقابلة أشخاصًا جدد مثلما أفعل، فقد كان الأمر يستحق كل هذا العناء. إذا وصلت في قراءتك إلى هذا الجزء، آمل أن تكون قد وجدت شيئًا قيمًا يفيدك في تشكيل فريقك. قد يكون الطريق صعبًا لكن النتائج ستكون مجزية!

“Será que eu devia contratar um desenvolvedor freelancer?”

Quase sempre que me pedem conselhos, não consigo deixar de lembrar aquela (um tanto irônica) máxima: “conselhos = experiência limitada + simplismo exacerbado”. Portanto, precedi minha resposta com um alerta nessa linha e, em seguida, expliquei como a nossa equipe de engenharia cresceu, se desintegrou e então renasceu ao longo dos quatro últimos anos. Como acontece com qualquer companhia jovem em expansão, não existe um único e certeiro modo de cultivar uma equipe de engenharia; para alguns, como foi o meu caso, pode levar algumas tentativas. Mas passei a acreditar que o sucesso de cultivar qualquer equipe deve-se significativamente ao equilíbrio entre a cultura que os fundadores querem estabelecer e os fatores ambientais, estes quais costumam ser menos controláveis. Daí o desafio. O breve intercâmbio com a jovem empreendedora me encorajou a botar no papel meus pensamentos, em mais detalhes, na esperança de que algum outro empreendedor ou empreendedora tenha mais uma fonte de dados em seu arsenal de “experiências” para se basear. Compartilho aqui estes pensamentos na forma de dois ensinamentos a se ter em mente no momento de recrutar, nutrir e expandir uma equipe de engenharia. Compartilho também um segredo (que em breve já não será tão secreto) de uma estratégia de recrutamento que deu certo pra nós. 1. Aprenda a articular os pontos fortes do seu ambiente Os fundadores são de vital importância para vender a história e a visão de uma companhia. É ideal que os primeiros engenheiros não fundadores “vistam a camisa” dessa visão. Mas descobri também que, quando a equipe de engenharia alcança o patamar de três ou mais membros, a capacidade de articulação da cultura pode fazer toda a diferença na escolha do próximo colega de equipe. Algumas perguntas introspectivas que você deveria estar fazendo sobre a sua jovem equipe de engenharia:

“Qual aspecto da minha equipe de engenharia torna a sua cultura tão especial e faz com que valha a pena entrar nela?”

“Qual a diferença entre o meu ambiente e outros ambientes de trabalho intelectualmente estimulantes, movidos a tecnologia, como Facebook e Google?”

Quando eu me fiz essas perguntas, felizmente, as respostas vieram fácil. Estamos em Tóquio, Japão, onde existem poucos ambientes anglófonos de engenharia administrados com uma mentalidade “à la Silicon Valley”. Para um engenheiro acostumado a um ambiente corporativo tradicional japonês, era empolgante ouvir que o estilo da roupa não importa (Só não tire a roupa!), que os horários não importam (Só faça o serviço!), e que somos todos iguais (Se não concorda, se oponha!)*. Também somos adeptos a novas tecnologias — linguagens de programação, “frameworks”, ferramentas de infraestrutura etc. — e conscientemente trabalhamos para pôr em xeque qualquer burocracia que possa atrapalhar a produtividade da engenharia. Por exemplo, providenciar um servidor AWS pra rodar algo em Golang a fim de testar uma ideia não deveria necessitar nenhuma papelada (embora tenha seus custos, segurança em potencial etc.)
Mas talvez o aspecto mais único e empolgante da nossa equipe de engenharia seja a diversidade cultural — a equipe em si é um exemplo do que nossa companhia visa trazer globalmente. Entre os dez integrantes da equipe de engenharia, oito diferentes culturas estão representadas: japonesa, russa, norte-americana, britânica, indiana, italiana, sul-africana e saudita. É como uma mini-ONU no meio de Tóquio. Valorizamos fortemente a a diversidade cultural, e eu faço questão de mencionar como nós a vivenciamos.
2. Molde a equipe proativamente (vulgo “nunca pare de contratar”)
Fundadores em geral concordam que é importante os primeiros membros de uma equipe serem “pau pra toda obra” — e a engenharia não foge à regra. Trabalhar com engenheiros altamente versáteis é importante no começo, para avançar rapidamente com o desenvolvimento. E, como ocorre com qualquer organismo ou operação em crescimento, estímulo e orientação são necessários para produzir o melhor resultado, o que exige ter mão proativa para moldar uma equipe. Há muitos aspectos a se considerar: o “fator ônibus”, possuir o equilíbrio correto das habilidades, a faixa ideal de experiência e maturidade etc. A sensação pode ser de um grande malabarismo. E, conforme uma operação cresce, você pode enxergar oportunidades de contratar pela profundidade de conhecimento, ou “expertise”. No entanto, penso que é melhor esperar o máximo possível antes de contratar “experts”. Os experts podem restringir a capacidade de manobra de uma equipe, a qual pode ser essencial nos estágios iniciais do crescimento de uma companhia. Se for de fato contratar um expert, esteja extra-atento a quaisquer habilidades que se sobreponham às dos outros colegas de equipe. Você não vai querer ficar pisando em ovos para contornar as diferenças nas opiniões de “peritos no assunto”, ou uma situação com “muitos chefs na mesma cozinha” — receitas para um desastre.
E então, como se molda constantemente uma equipe? Nunca se para de contratar. Não me refiro ao estágio final de assinar um contrato de emprego e ficar empolgado com o novo integrante que está chegando — essa é a “finalidade”, por assim dizer. Me refiro à jornada de contratar. E um componente-chave nessa jornada é a “pipeline” — a rede e a lista de candidatos de onde você pega os novos talentos, idealmente já mais ou menos selecionados, que podem ser fortes candidatos a entrar pro time.
Num certo momento do nosso crescimento, percebemos que a nossa equipe de engenharia estava ficando muito inclinada a não representar o engenheiro japonês (de quatro engenheiros que haviam no total durante um determinado estágio do nosso crescimento, apenas um era metade japonês!) Então, aumentamos nossos esforços para atingir a comunidade local japonesa de engenharia. Alguns passos foram óbvios — preparar anúncios de emprego em japonês, colocá-los em listas de empregos para japoneses somente, comparecer a encontros voltados a desenvolvedores japoneses. Outros passos talvez tenham tido uma abordagem bastante “norte-americana” — e-mails inesperados, triagem por telefone e convites para visitar e tomar um drinque com a equipe. Essa abordagem combinada ajudou a construir uma reserva de fortes candidatos a partir da qual fomos capazes de expandir constantemente a nossa equipe. Inclusive, essas abordagens combinadas criaram um filtro que nos garantiu que os candidatos receptivos a elas eram mais suscetíveis a se encaixar na cultura da nossa companhia.
Uma outra descoberta que eu gostaria de compartilhar, ainda no tópico da moldagem de uma equipe é que, conforme as equipes crescem, nem todo indivíduo ou habilidade será necessariamente adequado para todos os estágios desse crescimento. Muitas pessoas gostam mais de um tipo específico de estágio numa companhia — seja o “modo bootstrap”, ou seja, a iniciativa; seja a fase “pequena empresa”, de 50 a 150 integrantes; ou seja o estágio de “grande companhia”, com mais de mil. Principalmente quando um membro de equipe possui um histórico de trabalhar apenas em bootstrap, é importante ter sinceridade e praticidade para determinar se cada pessoa realmente está crescendo junto com a equipe. Eu falhei uma vez por não estar ciente dessa barreira ao crescimento da equipe, e foi uma lição dolorosa, porém importante.
3. O segredo — é o Github
Se você estiver contratando engenheiros, o Github é um ótimo recurso. A capacidade de filtrar por localidade (por exemplo, “Colorado”) e idioma (por exemplo, “Ruby”) ajuda a identificar um conjunto inicial de candidatos a se considerar. Quando buscávamos expandir a equipe, eu começava com cerca de 400 guias abertas no Chrome: cada uma um resultado de pesquisa. Então, fechava imediatamente as guias das contas que não tinham repositórios pessoais (o que indica falta de atividade). Também removia as contas que tinham apenas repositórios do tipo “tutorial” (indica falta de experiência). Isso normalmente reduz o conjunto para cerca de 250. Então, eu escolho um repositório ou outro que pareça interessante e analiso o código para verificar estilo, conteúdo e dificuldade — embora seja um passo bastante subjetivo, este desenvolvedor experiente “tomou gosto pela coisa”. Se houver informações para contato, envio um breve e-mail me apresentando, explicando o que fazemos, o que me interessou no perfil do Github daquele desenvolvedor, e pedindo permissão para um telefonema de 30 min.
De tudo isso, a taxa de resposta ao e-mail ficou numa média de 25 a 30%, dos quais cerca de 40% eram mensagens recusando educadamente. Todas as outras respostas levaram pelo menos a uma triagem por telefone. Pode parecer um processo árduo, mas se, assim como eu, você gosta de conhecer pessoas, vale muito a pena.
Se você leu até aqui, espero que tenha encontrado algo de valor para você, no sentido de construir a sua equipe. O caminho pode ser desafiador, mas os resultados recompensarão!

“Apakah saya perlu mempekerjakan pengembang paruh waktu?”

Sering kali ketika seseorang meminta nasihat, saya teringat akan peribahasa umum (yang cukup ironis) “nasihat = sedikit pengalaman + terlalu menyederhanakan masalah.” Jadi, saya mengawali jawaban yang berikutnya dengan kata-kata peringatan, kemudian diikuti dengan penjelasan bagaimana tim teknisi kami berkembang, terpecah-belah, lalu lahir kembali setelah mendapatkan pelatihan selama 4 tahun. Demikian halnya dengan perusahaan yang masih muda dan berkembang, tidak ada satu pun cara yang tepat untuk mengembangkan tim teknisi; bagi sebagian orang seperti saya, mungkin melakukan beberapa percobaan. Namun akhirnya saya percaya bahwa kesuksesan perkembangan tim sangat bergantung pada keseimbangan antara kultur yang ingin dibangun oleh pendiri perusahaan dengan faktor lingkungan yang sering kali agak sulit dikendalikan. Namun itulah tantangannya.

Setelah bertukar laporan singkat dengan seorang pengusaha muda, saya terdorong untuk menuliskan pemikiran saya secara lebih mendetil, dengan harapan ketika menghadapi pengusaha lainnya saya telah mempunyai poin data yang dapat diambil dari segudang “pengalaman”mereka. Saya akan membagikan pemikiran ini sebagai 2 pelajaran yang perlu diingat saat merekrut, mengasuh, dan mengembangkan tim teknisi. Saya juga membagikan sebuah rahasia kecil (yang sebentar lagi akan menjadi rahasia umum!) mengenai strategi rekrutmen yang baik.

1. Pelajari cara mengartikulasikan kekuatan lingkungan Anda

Pendiri perusahaan menjadi bagian terpenting dalam menjual kisah dan visi perusahaan. Anda akan menginginkan beberapa teknisi bukan pendiri untuk “membeli” visi ini. Namun saya juga mendapati bahwa ketika tim teknisi memiliki 3 anggota atau lebih akan terjadi perbedaan dalam mengartikulasikan kultur perusahaan yang akan membuat perbedaan dalam menentukan rekan kerja berikutnya. Ada beberapa pertanyaan introspeksi yang perlu Anda tanyakan kepada tim teknisi muda Anda —

“Kultur apa yang membuat tim saya menjadi spesial dan membuat orang lain pantas untuk bergabung dengan tim ini?”

“Seberapa berbeda lingkungan kerja saya dengan lingkungan kerja lainnya yang mampu merangsang intelektualitas dan berteknologi tinggi seperti Facebook atau Google?”

Untung saja, ketika saya menanyakan pertanyaan-pertanyaan tadi ke diri sendiri, jawaban muncul dengan mudah. Kami berada di Tokyo, Jepang, dengan sedikit teknisi yang mampu berbahasa Inggris dengan pola pikir “Silicon Valley”. Bagi seorang teknisi yang telah terbiasa dengan lingkungan kerja perusahaan Jepang tradisional, sangat menyenangkan mendengar bahwa pakaian tidaklah penting (yang penting berpakaian!), jam kerja tidaklah penting (yang penting tugas selesai!), dan kita semua adalah sebanding (tantanglah jika Anda tidak sependapat!)*. Kami juga pengadopsi awal dari teknologi — bahasa pemrograman, kerangka kerja, perkakas infrastruktur, dll. — kami sengaja bekerja untuk memangkas birokrasi-birokrasi yang dapat menghambat produktivitas teknisi. Sebagai contoh, penyediaan server AWS untuk pengujian ide dengan meluncurkan sesuatu dalam bahasa Golang seharusnya tidak lagi memerlukan pekerjaan tulis-menulis (dengan mengesampingkan biaya, potensi keamanan, dll.).

Namun mungkin aspek yang paling menarik dan unik dari tim teknisi kami adalah keberagaman kulturnya — tim ini sendiri merupakan contoh dari apa yang ingin dicapai oleh perusahaan kami, secara global. Sepuluh individu yang ada di dalam tim teknisi ini mewakili delapan kultur — Jepang, Rusia, Amerika, Inggris, India, Italia, Afrika Selatan, dan Arab Saudi. Tim ini seperti PBB mini yang berada di tengah-tengah Tokyo. Kami mengapresiasi tinggi keragaman kultural, dan saya akan selalu mengatakan betapa nikmat menjalaninya.

2. Proaktif dalam membentuk tim Anda (dengan kata lain, Teruslah merekrut)

Pada umumnya para pendiri perusahaan mengakui pentingnya memiliki anggota tim awal untuk berperan sebagai “orang yang serba bisa” — dan bidang teknik pun sama. Bekerja dengan banyak teknisi di awal penting untuk proses iterasi yang cepat selama pengembangan. Dengan semakin berkembangnya organisme atau operasi, pemeliharaan dan bimbingan sangat diperlukan untuk menelurkan hasil yang terbaik, dan tentunya memerlukan sosok yang proaktif dalam mengasuh tim. Ada banyak aspek yang perlu dipertimbangkan — Faktor Bus, mempunyai tim dengan kemampuan yang tepat dan berimbang, spektrum pengalaman dan kedewasaan yang tepat, dll. Hal ini mungkin dirasa membutuhkan banyak pengarahan. Seiring dengan berkembangnya cara kerja tim, Anda mungkin merasa perlu mempekerjakan tenaga ahli. Namun demikian, saya yakin mempekerjakan tenaga ahli selama mungkin adalah pilihan terbaik. Tenaga ahli mungkin dapat membatasi kemampuan manuver tim, yang mungkin diperlukan pada tahap-tahap awal pertumbuhan perusahaan. Jika jadi mempekerjakan tenaga ahli, Anda harus sangat sadar akan adanya ketimpangan kemampuan dengan anggota tim lain. Anda pasti tidak ingin perbedaan pada “pendapat ahli” ataupun situasi “terlalu banyak koki di dapur” dibesar-besarkan — hal ini merupakan pemicu kehancuran.
Jadi, bagaimana cara untuk terus mengasuh tim Anda? Teruslah melakukan rekrutmen. Saya tidak mengacu pada tahap akhir penandatanganan kontrak dan bergembira atas bergabungnya anggota baru — itulah “tujuan” Anda. Saya mengacu untuk menjadikan rekrutmen sebagai sebuah perjalanan. Komponen utama dari perjalanan itu adalah saluran — daftar nama dan jaringan kandidat yang Anda ambil dari talenta baru itu, idealnya adalah veteran bebas tugas, yang bisa menjadi kandidat kuat untuk bergabung dengan tim Anda.

Di satu titik pada pertumbuhan perusahaan kami, kami menyadari bahwa tim teknisi kami menjadi berat sebelah dengan kecenderungan tidak merepresentasikan teknisi Jepang (dari total 4 teknisi pada suatu taraf pertumbuhan kami, hanya 1 orang yang blasteran Jepang!). Jadi kami berusaha lebih keras lagi untuk menggapai komunitas teknisi lokal Jepang. Beberapa langkah yang diambil sangat jelas — mempersiapkan daftar pekerjaan dalam Bahasa Jepang, menempatkannya di papan iklan khusus berbahasa Jepang, dan menghadiri pertemuan dengan pengembang-pengembang Jepang yang ditargetkan. Langkah-langkah lainnya mungkin terasa sangat “Amerika” dalam pendekatan-pendekatan yang dilakukan — cold email, layar telepon inisial, serta undangan untuk mengunjungi dan minum bersama mereka. Pendekatan campuran seperti ini akan membantu dalam membentuk sekumpulan kandidat kuat yang dapat kita manfaatkan untuk mengembangkan tim secara terus-menerus. Nyatanya, pendekatan campuran ini menciptakan filter yang memastikan bahwa kandidat yang bersedia bekerja akan cocok dengan kultur perusahaan kami.

Satu lagi realisasi yang ingin saya bagikan pada tema pengasuhan tim ini adalah saat tim tumbuh, setiap orang atau kemampuan harus dicocokkan dengan tahapan-tahapan pertumbuhan. Masing-masing orang menikmati tahapan tertentu di dalam masa pertumbuhan — “model bootstrap”, tahapan “perusahaan kecil” dari 50 menjadi 150 karyawan, atau tahapan “perusahaan besar” dengan 1000+ karyawan. Terutama ketika seorang anggota tim hanya mempunyai riwayat pekerjaan dalam model bootstrap perlu mendapatkan perlakuan yang jujur dan praktis apakah setiap orang benar-benar berkembang di dalam tim itu. Saya pernah gagal menyadari rintangan perkembangan tim ini. Menyakitkan namun menjadi sebuah pelajaran yang berharga.

3. Rahasianya adalah — Github

Jika Anda sedang merekrut teknisi, Github bisa menjadi sumber yang sangat bagus. Kemampuannya dalam memfilter berdasar lokasi (contoh “Colorado”) dan bahasa (contoh “Ruby”) sangat membantu dalam mengidentifikasi kelompok pertama yang akan dipertimbangkan. Ketika kami akan mengembangkan tim, saya memulai dengan membuka sekitar 400 tabulasi Chrome, masing-masing berisi hasil pencarian. Kemudian saya segera menutup tabulasi yang menampilkan akun tanpa repositori (menunjukkan kurangnya aktivitas). Saya juga membuang akun yang hanya memiliki repositori serupa tutorial (menunjukkan kurangnya pengalaman). Cara ini sering mengurangi kelompok kandidat hingga 250 orang. Kemudian saya memilih satu atau dua repositori yang menarik, dan memindai kode untuk gaya, isi, tingkat kesulitan — meskipun langkah ini subyektif, salah satu pengembang yang berpengalaman telah mengembangkan “saluran” untuk itu. Jika terdapat informasi kontak, saya mengirim surel singkat yang berisi perkenalan diri, apa yang kami lakukan, apa yang membuat saya tertarik pada profil pengembang Github, dan permintaan panggilan telepon selama 30 menit.

Dari semua itu, rata-rata sekitar 25-30% dari surel saya mendapat balasan, yang 40% di antaranya berupa penolakan halus. Paling tidak, jawaban-jawaban lainnya berlanjut pada panggilan telepon. Proses ini tampak sulit — namun jika Anda suka bertemu dengan orang-orang baru seperti saya, cara ini sangat layak dilakukan.

Jika membaca sampai sejauh ini, saya harap Anda telah menemukan sesuatu yang berharga untuk membangun tim Anda. Prosesnya mungkin menantang, namun sesuai dengan hasil yang didapat!