What I've Learned from 10 Years as a Successful Founder (Part Two)...

Below is part two of an ongoing series of raw and honest posts, designed to share stories directly from our own personal experiences of start-up success. They are a little rough around the edges but full of real world advice. In this article we focus on how to hire the right people and create the right environment to win big!

(If you want to start at the beginning you can find part one right here)

Hiring your first few people is perhaps the single biggest psychologicalchallenge for entrepreneurs contemplating the leap from salaried existence tostart up life.

Having others’ mortgages and livelihoods around your neck and theassociated risk with bringing newcomers into your little lifestyle business canbe daunting. What if something goes wrong? What if they don’t work out? How dowe manage if revenues slide because of it? These are just some of the questionsI hear on a regular basis when I coach those thinking of launching a start-upventure of their own.

You see, employing people is an inevitable part of the journey for anyentrepreneur and while millions harbour great ideas it is only those who cantruly scale that vision across teams that are truly successful.

And facing that challenge head on can become so much of an issue that itprevents many people from making the jump in the first place, designatingthousands of great business ideas to the trash can of history.

And that’s a travesty.

The Fix

Yes, employing people can be a scary proposition, and, equally, managing and leading people is often the hardest element of all, but in my experience, getting it right is not as inconsistent and difficult as it may at first appear.

The answer lies in the often-misused concept of ‘Culture’.

While many see culture as an ethereal, intangible ‘thing’ that people inbig companies talk about, in reality it’s most relevant and important, toreally early stage businesses.

And the reason for that is actually a very logical one.

The importance of forming culture early

I learned this lesson the hard way, focusing so much on top line salesgrowth during those early months, scared to death of the aforementioned issueswith paying those mortgages that I created an even more dangerous threat – poorinternal culture and a lack of shared vision.

While revenues rocketed, I could slowly begin to see those cracksforming internally with arguments and productivity producing a souringenvironment, so much so that I had to take action and remove a number of peopleto save the many. It was one of the most difficult periods in my professionalcareer and instilled a strong sense of focus on empowerment, transparency andhonesty.  Switching from driving revenuepersonally to giving those around me the tools and shared belief system to doit for, and with me. It was the breakthrough we needed to move from lifestylebusiness to a valuable, growing company.

Getting to your Why

The answer to this challenge lay in a process of externalising what itwas that I, as a founder, believed in. And to do that I asked a series ofquestions. Questions that I have since used numerous times to help our start-upsand investments avoid those same pitfalls that I experienced. They include:

• Why do youfeel so passionate about what you are doing?
• Why shouldpeople care?
• What doyou believe in, in the context of what you are doing?
• Whatproblem do you solve?
• Whatmarket, consumer or technological change have you seen that creates youropportunity, right now?

By answering these simple questions, you begin to externalise yourpurpose and why you fight so hard to grow. And in doing so your vision isshared and carried forward by everyone within the business.

Getting to your why is not easy of course and so it is best to get to itas part of a wider session on vision and so on. The statement you end up withshould:

• Be simpleand clear.
• Be actionable.
• Focused onhow you’ll contribute to others.
• Expressedin affirmative language that resonates with you.
• Encapsulateall of the qualities we just mentioned - and it should be able to do so in asingle sentence.

Here are acouple of good examples of this:

Spotify:
“To inspire human creativity by enabling a million artists to live of their art and a billion people to enjoy it and to be inspired by it.”

Apple:
“Everything we do we believe in challenging the status quo, we believe in thinking differently.”

This is not aunique process of course. It follows the acclaimed thinking of Simon Sinek andis brilliantly explained in his Ted Talk from 2014 Startwith Why.

In it heexplains that every leader andcompany know the WHAT. They can describe their products, their industry,and their competitors. Some companies also know HOW they do WHATthey do — their unique differentiators, their value proposition, and theirvalues. But few companies know or articulate their WHY — their purpose, theircause or their belief. The WHY is their reason for being. And the WHY iswhy anyone should care.

An example ofApple answering these challenges looks like this:

WHY - Everything wedo we believe in challenging the status quo, we believe in thinkingdifferently.

HOW - We makeproducts that are beautifully designed and user friendly.

WHAT - Wejust happen to make great computers. Wanna buy one?

And from myexperience, Sinek’s approach is absolutely correct and the process of capturingWhy, How and What is a critical phase to complete BEFORE you hire more thanfour or five people.

It’s possible,of course, to share your beliefs with those around you while you are stillsmall, but as you add headcount that challenge quickly becomes exponentiallymore difficult, until you find that no one can answer the questions around whyyou exist and what you stand for.

By putting inplace the framework it means you can begin communicating and telling your storyaround it to every new starter from day dot.

Addingfurther clarity

While some maystop at the Why, How and What I have also found it useful to take it a littlefurther, adding a more traditional Vision Statement on top. This is helpful forinternal communication as it succinctly captures the ‘what do we want to befamous for and where are we going’ question – a direction, if you will.

There are somebrilliant examples in thispiece by HubSpot and by taking a few minutes to read them you will see howpowerful they can be as a motivator and leadership tool as your internal teamgets bigger.

The final sprinkling of value

By now you haveyour Why, How and What’s in place and have nailed a brilliant Vision Statementas the cherry on top and be pretty pleased with yourself, but we must rememberthat the point of this exercise is ultimately to establish a framework aroundwhich your new culture can be built.

To do thatanother helpful element to add to the mix is that of (often undersold and underutilised)personal principles.

As well as establishingwhat the group view is, it is imperative that you have made clear what isexpected of an individual within that environment. And this is where they comein.

Some may claimthey have little value and their experience of such ‘rules’ was a bad one, butthis is misuse rather than lack of value.

Take those usedin my last business Zazzle. We built a team around our PHIERCE principles –Passion, Honesty, Innovation, Expertise, Respect, Creativity and Empowermentand everything we did and talked about revolved around those pillars. Eachemploy had them within their contracts and each annual personal developmentplan. Hell, they were even scored against them when it came to bonus reviews,such was their importance.

And it was thesetraits that powered our interview process too. Instead of looking at skill set,experience and academic ability we looked for people that ‘believed the same asus.’ In doing so we transformed the company, ensuring that 1+1 = 3 in terms ofgrowth and productivity.

Takeaways

Now, none ofthis is easy of course. If you are at the early stage, you are running aroundlike a headless chicken trying to do everything. But pause you must. Committingthis to paper is perhaps the best decision you’ll make it that first year.

And remember, ifyou takeaway just one thing, not just from this post but the whole What I’veLearned from 10 Years as a Successful Start Up Founder series, it is that goodadvice is useless without a cast iron commitment to CONSISTENTLY implement anduphold the behaviours and beliefs that make the business what it is.

And as a founder it is your job to ensure your vision is consistently shared and becomes part of the fibre of everything you do – from weekly catch ups to performance reviews, pitch decks and annual plan presentations. And that’s before you even start the day job of building a successful money-making machine!

You can check out Part One of the What I’ve Learned from 10 Years as a Successful Start Up Founder series by clicking on the link.