The Team, The Team, The Team

Building a strong team when fundraising

Navigating and competing in the startup industry requires resiliency, focus, and creativity. These three fundamentals are the guiding forces to ensure a successful startup, but it cannot be done alone.

“The Team, The Team, The Team” (Michigan Football).

The Team must always be emphasized; a startup company can have a brilliant idea, but without a supportive and diverse team, a startup will remain on the bench in the big game. The most crucial component a startup needs to begin its business is interest and money from VC and angel investors. Often, startups make the mistake of only discussing the product in their pitch decks, and do not include information about the company team. This is a massive blunder because investors value the product AND the entire team operating the product. If a startup lacks a solid and cohesive teamwork setting, then VC investors will be less inclined to invest. There are a few essentials to assist the success of team culture, namely patience, positivity, and commitment.

Diversity

Constructing a successful team requires more than just choosing members with the most accolades. Diversity is the backbone of a successful team. When a team resembles a melting pot, it instills a culture that is open to new ideas and offers a range of complementing strengths. This wide variety of talents throughout a team will allow a company to expand in all departments. It is essential to trust that an individual’s background and experience led them to the position they are in and believe that through their diversity, they will be able to offer different strengths to the company. Without a team with varying capabilities, a startup will never expand and grow into a thriving company. The company will also fail to provide the market with a product that is truly unique and inspiring for consumers.

Listening

In regards to teamwork, communication is a frequently discussed theme, with much emphasis on its importance to the success of the collaboration. Communication is often interpreted as only speaking clearly to others, but communication must entail listening. As a member of a team, you must be able to listen to others and be open to other ideas. Lacking the ability to listen to others will inevitably lead to a downfall in the team dynamic. If members of the team feel as though they are not being heard, then it flattens their motivation and discourages contribution to the success of the organization. If motivation throughout the team is inconsistent, then a company will not experience peak performance. Listening to one another ensures that team culture is a safe place for new ideas and for mistakes to be made. The freedom to think openly and fail safely creates an environment for ultimate success.

Trust

Do Your Job (New England Patriots), ensuring confidence throughout the team requires that each member of the team fulfills their role. Nothing more and nothing less. Each member of the team must trust that everyone will complete their job. To establish trust throughout the organization, each member must believe in their fellow teammates and should only expect them to accomplish their job. Setting expectations too high for a team member is neither fair nor productive and will only weaken the trust throughout the team culture. When constructing a fruitful team culture for a startup company, the most crucial theme to emphasize is to trust that each member will and only do their job — nothing more, nothing less.

Quote From the Book Legacy : “The key to strong peer-to-peer interaction is a high level of trust. This is trust in the sense of safe vulnerability.”

Conclusion

Its product does not merely define a company; a successful startup needs more than just its brilliant product. The team, especially the team dynamic, within the company, inevitably holds a higher stake in ensuring the success of a company. The importance of strong team culture is a component that VC investors never fail to overlook. As a startup company, if one fails to neglect the importance of influential team culture, then the company is at risk of losing investors. Constructing a diverse and committed team requires patience but will undoubtedly guide a startup company towards its pursuit of success.