Startup hiring plan till hockey stick

2 phased approach for core positions from founders to founding team. 

Startups are hard! As a founder, you must always think team (in addition to product But what you need on on day one is not what you need month 4. Here are a few essential positions that you will need to fill in the early days of your startup.

Phase 1 — You are working on something worth the world’s time

Goal

This phase is about proving problem exists and people appreciate the solution you have in mind. Prove that the problem exists — there is space for success. Prove that the solution/ product you have in mind fixes the problem

Key tasks

Product design

1. Design the user-interface. In consumer Internet, a lot of solving the problem is about user experience as well (see uber app, or pinterest). It doesn’t have to be that awesome, but definitely intuitive enough.
2. You need to do some user interaction in this phase, too. The goal is not growth, but user testing.

Product development

1. Right from day 1, you need someone to build and maintain your product version 1 (any one of website, back end infra, mobile game).
2. The tasks include the obvious — project design and programming.

Business Development

1. All things non product but incredibly important — This can vary but all startups have non technical tasks that are core to the product. Lets see a an example for ecommerce startups.
2. Lets take an example of ecommerce startups — procure merchandizing partnerships. You can tie up with small retailers, wholesalers, or directly with the large manufacturers. Or be scrappy — scrape listings (somehow), run to the nearby stores and ship the product after getting orders!

Team for phase 1

1. Ideal team — 1 tech and 1 bd guy: Tech does product design and dev, BD does all things business
2. 2. 1 guy does it all: It is not impossible for one guy to oversee everything at this stage but he should be sufficiently skilled and be ready to burn the midnight oil.
3. Teams without tech guys: You can start an online business company without tech skills but it will be hard. Be prepared for that. Find a brilliant programmer — don’t go with the first one you find in your budget. Meet more than 15-20. This will have a side benefit. You will start understanding tech — you will need to reach that point soon.

At the end of phase one, go to users and observe their interactions. It will help you understand how well your product suits their needs and come back with actionable ideas regarding improvement and expansion.

Phase 2 — Get that growth — be desperate for hockey stick!

Target for Phase 2 — Try to get to the uptick start, at about 1/3rd on x-axis

Goal

Build a consumer base and user growth. Try to get to the uptick of a hockey stick.

Key tasks

Make product kick-ass

1. Expand definition of a product to include both large screen and mobile. If you are not a mobile specific product, you may avoid an app in some cases.
2. But you definitely need to be responsive.
3. Have an incredible UI.

Get real on BD

1. You probably went scrappy on procuring content/merchandise.
2. Get real partnerships. You have something to show now — the existing old school businesses feel more comfortable taking a chance on you, now.
3. Hiring — all the tech, marketing and BD positions, need an aggressive hiring process. This is something everyone pitches in for referrals and interviewing. But the process should be run by the non-product guys.

Get all the evangelism you can get

1. It’s the time to get the word out there.
2. You need all friends and family
3. Reach out to local bloggers — there are several out there. The benchmark is not TechCrunch. There are several amazing blogs, hundreds, that can be helpful. Ever user counts.
4. Don’t underestimate this task. It takes a lot of effort to find people who can evangelize and convince them of your mission.

Team for phase 2

Product

1. Expect a team structure of 3-4 folks.
2. Dev: Kick ass mobile developer (especially if your product needs a mobile app)
3. UI designer: Somebody constantly designing and testing the user experiences. Makes a big difference. Don’t need full-time if existing dev guys are really good at it.
4. Full-time backend: You probably scraped through with something not robust enough in Phase 1. Its time to have someone just for backend now.
5. Any one of these guys is also expected to make sure the site is designed to be SEO friendly.

Marketing

1. 1 person full-time on marketing
2. Definitely need someone who reaches out to bloggers
3. Blogs also key to getting SEO.

Business Development

1. Two people going all out on business tasks
2. Taking the ecommerce example from above, its important to go full-on with merchandising for our ecommerce startup.
3. One of these two will also keep the hiring process running
4. Manage all outsourced activities — accounting, HR, etc.

Outsource: Accounting, HR (process-only), blogging, etc

1. Consider offering part-time positions or freelancing if you have budget constraints.
2. Don’t bother much with full-time accounting — No revenues to take care off. Outsource this.
3. Engage an HR firm to help as well. This is a task that should be run both in-house and outsourced.

By: Anita Yadav and Vipul Aggarwal, HR guys at tgsb