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If you're not good at building a founding team, how will you excel at building a company? Technology and design are great, but companies are the people that the

by ghc 13y ago

If you're not good at building a founding team, how will you excel at building a company? Technology and design are great, but companies are the people that they are comprised of. There's nothing wrong with being a solo founder because being one doesn't mean you can't build a good team. But you obviously have issues with team building, so I'd work on that first or found a company with someone who is actually good at it.

choxi 13y ago
Recruiting employees requires different skills from recruiting cofounders. They have different incentives, different roles, and it happens at different stages in your company.
- ghc 13y ago
  Recruiting is an entirely separate issue. Building a team begins where recruiting ends. In this talent market (in Boston in my case) we have a difficult time with recruiting, but our experiences with team building have been far more painful (as growing pains go).
jt2190 13y ago
> If you're not good at building a founding team, how will > you excel at building a company? This falsely equates "team" (a group of people) with "company" (a business venture). If the business venture requires a team of people to tackle it, then obviously putting together that team is a prerequisite. However, there are many business ventures that don't require a team, and developing better team building skills in those cases doesn't make any sense.
- adventured 13y ago
  TwitPic and Plenty of Fish come to mind (even Instagram had a very small team for a long time) It's remarkable how far you can scale certain types of web businesses now with one or just a few people and a pile of hardware. If you're a social person and you like teams, clearly as always that's a viable path. If you're not, and you prefer going mostly solo, it's also clear that that's a viable path. The variable is you can only build certain types of businesses going solo.

by ghc 13y ago

choxi 13y ago

Recruiting employees requires different skills from recruiting cofounders. They have different incentives, different roles, and it happens at different stages in your company.

ghc 13y ago
Recruiting is an entirely separate issue. Building a team begins where recruiting ends. In this talent market (in Boston in my case) we have a difficult time with recruiting, but our experiences with team building have been far more painful (as growing pains go).

jt2190 13y ago

> If you're not good at building a founding team, how will > you excel at building a company? This falsely equates "team" (a group of people) with "company" (a business venture). If the business venture requires a team of people to tackle it, then obviously putting together that team is a prerequisite. However, there are many business ventures that don't require a team, and developing better team building skills in those cases doesn't make any sense.

adventured 13y ago
TwitPic and Plenty of Fish come to mind (even Instagram had a very small team for a long time) It's remarkable how far you can scale certain types of web businesses now with one or just a few people and a pile of hardware. If you're a social person and you like teams, clearly as always that's a viable path. If you're not, and you prefer going mostly solo, it's also clear that that's a viable path. The variable is you can only build certain types of businesses going solo.