How we have built our Team

Since we started to think about IoBuilders as company, in our minds there was a common thought…”We have all the tools to build an amazing company: networking, advisors, market knowledge, product development, technology background, seed, … BUT the pillar key for success, will be the TEAM”. .
With this in top of mind, we started to think about ways to look after our team, how to set it up, start, etc. We defined a 4 step recruiting process, our squad configuration (focusing on skills, DNA, etc). What are these steps:

Phone filter

On a quick 15–20 minutes conversation we try to check if both parts are aligned on culture, company mindset, skills and, economics

We give you a context ….you write a/your story.

On this second step. we have a video, or in presence meeting where with a given project, architecture context, you need to share with us you thoughts about…

• Tech risks you see, to decide how to tackle them, based on the priorities we identify. To decide about the overall risks, we need to think about the team skills, POC complexity, and key components too.

Technologies and architecture to be used on every single component, needs to be defined, based on the following context:

• Mobile Wallet needs to be delivered for IOS and Android.
• Usability and design is very important.
• Performance, traceability and security is key, due that real money is used, regulation etc.
• Every single event on the system, must be audited.
• All the components will be reusable, for all the ventures that will be build by IoBuilders.
• Usage of the most optimal tech, framework and language, finding the right balance team skills with the challenging
• POC vs long living / production approach, we need to find quick wins and fast lanes vs building pillars.

Team

• We need to hire a team to develop the hypothetical POC. Which skills, roles and team size, you think is needed?

Culture

The tech culture, methodologies that will be part of the DNA of the company, are going to be shaped during this project. Which is your proposal, personal point of view, to have a common sense culture, methodologies, mindset, knowing the context, business needs, and a usual venture builder operation? Some base concepts that are a must:

• Multifunctional, autonomous and business oriented teams is the base line. The business domain is the centre
• Everybody counts, and is able to propose things, and communication is key
• Listen to others before arguing. Empathy!
• Continuous improvement must be tattooed on every single member’s body :)
• We are building POC’s to test business scenarios and then based on the insights, decide if it makes sense to create a venture or not.

Technical Test

We share with you a problem, and you code it, solve it with the approach, architecture and languages of your choice. It’s key that you really reflect your thoughts shared at step 2.

Team presentation

If you reach this phase, the last step is to share some time with the Team. The minimum requirement is to make a 45–60 mins talk, about a topic you thing is relevant, highlights your experience, and shows the team that you are good fit. The purpose is that you share as much time with us, as you want, pair programming lunch, etc, to double check on both parts that we are willing to work together.

That’s all! With this process we hired our current job mates, but thats only the start…

We envisioned that as soon as we had all the team on boarded, we needed a way to align people that come from different workplaces, cultures, ages, skills, etc on vision, mision, strategy, tools, methodology, software architecture and tons of more topics. This was the baseline to define our first IoBuilders Bootcamp, a full week, in an open space format, to cover all the key topics, and whatever concept, practice a team member wanted to propose or share.

This bootcamp has been key to shape our common DNA, and we are repeating it every 3 months ( 1 day format). and once a month ( 3 hours workshop). plus our day by day communication, meeting etc, as we shared on our last blog post .

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

AFRICAN PROVERB