The Founder’s Files: Starting and Keeping Your Founder’s Journey on the Right Track
A thousand-mile journey might begin with a single step, but what’s important is where each additional step in that journey takes you. Today, SAMO Technologies looks at how the founder’s journey has changed — and how it hasn’t — in 2022, and offers advice on how to navigate the journey faster and smarter with the right people who can make your ideas take flight.
Founding a startup and making it a success can be one of the most rewarding experiences of a lifetime. Whether starting your first company or your fifth, the path to that success is determined by how you meet challenges, deal with hard questions, and jibe with your team and business partners. Taken together, the decisions, achievements and relationships can be summed up in what has become known as “the founder’s journey.”
If you’re about to begin your own founder’s journey, or have hit a snag alone one you’re already on, you might be looking for ways to accelerate it without sacrificing your business’ value or making the wrong decision.
Yes, you have a killer idea, but have you thought about how you’re going to realize it? Will you be a one-person coding, human resources and marketing machine? Or do you need to build a team? The answer might not be either/or, but instead some kind of balance.
If you are farther along your founder’s journey, you probably have different challenges. You know where you need to be, but for whatever reason, can’t get there. Are you spending too much time on tasks that keep you away from dealing with more important ones? Or does your team need someone new with expertise it doesn’t have, or can’t develop in time? Many maturing startups face time management and staffing challenges like these frequently, but how they choose to face them can be consequential.
And wherever you are along your journey, you are probably wondering how recent events, like the COVID-19 pandemic and regional warfare, can affect your business. These ongoing events are consequential, but depending on your journey, may not be as big of a concern as you might think.
With that, here’s how SAMO Technologies sees today’s founder’s journey, and how we can help you make the most of yours, no matter where you are along the road.
The Journey Itself Hasn’t Changed
Today’s environment has affected how your founder’s journey may progress, but has not affected the journey itself. To put it another way, the fundamental challenges that determine a founder’s journey have not changed. Instead, how you choose to answer those challenges has. A contentious founder will continue to face the same challenges as before the pandemic and amid ongoing conflict, so it’s important to maintain focus on what matters: continuing to deliver business value.
For founders at the starting stage, these challenges deal with answering foundational quesitons about your startup. How will you build your team? What business structure is most beneficial for your business? How will its leadership and governing structure? You also must consider what your team will look like, including its structure, size, roles and how you will recruit it. Your answers to these questions will determine the trajectory of your founder’s journey.
For founders of more mature businesses, your concerns will remain focused on growing your ability to deliver your good or service. Does your small team wearing multiple hats still work? Or do you need specialists? Is the business developing as intended? How do you manage expectations from team members and business partners? As your business grows, you must consider how keep moving forward as your startup grows in size and ambition.
Building the right culture is critical. Does your team work together well? Do they respect each other? Can they talk to each other? Whether your team member is down the hallway or across an ocean, can you all depend on each other to have each other’s back?
These are tried-and-true questions that any founder has to answer along their journey.
What’s Changed Is How Fast You Can Progress Through It
But today, answering these critical questions — and advancing the founder’s journey — has become easier. Even just a decade ago, founders were at the mercy of their local market, only able to draw from the talent and expertise available locally. If you could find someone local who fit your startup’s needs, then great. Otherwise, you risked losing capital and time that could have otherwise been spent improving a product. Or worse, onbarding someone who wasn’t a good fit.
Today’s founders don’t have to accept these limitations. Instead, they can address challenges by recruiting the best and brightest people from a large and global talent pool. Having access to the expertise you need, when you need it, can help you move along the founder’s journey faster. Many founders are realizing that working with remote talent can even be easier and more affordable than before, and can be done without sacrificing team cohesion.
How to Advance Your Founder’s Journey with Remote Talent
If you’re considering adding remote talent to your team, here are some suggestions to make the process go smoothly.
- Determine what you need from a remote team member. If you don’t know, don’t be afraid to ask.
There are many talented people working remotely who can bring the specific skill you need to your startup. If you know what kind of skills you’re looking for before you start your search, you’ll save time and resources that could be applied to other parts of your business.
If you don’t exactly know what you need, then don’t be afraid to ask around. Other team members or mentors can help you get a clearer picture of your needs. Additionally, any reputable organization that connects startups with remote talent should take the time to listen to you, so that they can help you identify your needs before initiating a search.
- Introduce yourself, and discuss requirements.
Even though there are many talented remote workers out there, you should take time form a list and narrow it down a short list of candidates. Introduce yourself, and don’t be afraid to ask for resumes, salary requirements, and the time zones that will work for both of you. The more you learn about a candidate up front, the sooner you can find the right one.
Companies specializing in connecting startups with remote talent will already have this information on-hand. Their team should be able to provide a short list of candidates based on their working relationships with remote talent, which can save you time. - Evaluate your candidate.
Once you identify a good candidate, it’s time for the interview. This is the time to learn more in-depth details about your candidate’s experience, what motivates them, or even provide an exercise or small exam to test their skills. What you learn in the interview will be important as you consider whether they have a place on your team.
If you work with a company specializing in recruiting remote workers, they should already have a process in place to connect you with talent. The better ones should be willing to work with you to determine customized questions or other content to be shared with the candidate before the call, saving you even more time. - Bring them onboard!
If you like what you see and hear, it’s time to bring them onboard. But remember: because your new team member is working remotely, be sure you can onboard them correctly. This means providing them with the right forms needed for them to comply with their local tax authority. You also need to consider how you are going to compensate them, including whether or not they’re paid in their local currency, among other details.
Again, companies that help connect remote talent from across the globe with startups should be able to handle all of the paperwork and currency conversions for you.
At SAMO Technologies, we can help you bring the right remote talent to your startup at every step of the way. Our experience comes from more than a decade of working at startups at every stage of development. We have great relationships with top talent from the United States, Europe and Latin America that can help you elevate your business to the next level. We take time to learn about your startup’s needs and provide guidance on how we can help you meet them with exceptional remote team members from all over the world. We also handle the entire onboarding process so you can stay focused on running your business.
