James Sinclair (speaker) argues that although diversity and inclusion clearly help companies serve diverse audiences and are morally important, many early-stage startup founders still deprioritize them. He outlines three reasons: (1) founders focus on immediate "jobs to be done" and milestone-driven hires, (2) actively recruiting underrepresented candidates takes more time and personal effort, and (3) founders tend to unconsciously recreate teams that "look like them" because of their existing networks. He closes by urging founders to recognize the evidence linking diversity to better chances of success and to investigate it further.
Chapters
I want to talk about diversity and inclusion in early stage startups. I don't want to talk about the fact, the obvious fact that having a diverse group enables you to better serve a diverse audience. I don't want to talk about the fact that it should be is a moral imperative. I also don't want to talk about the fact that creating a more inclusive culture just creates a better company. What I want to talk about is why early stage founders kind of don't focus on something that is so obvious to accelerating their growth and their opportunity to succeed. First of all, the most important is I know nothing. The more I look and read and try and understand, the more bias I realize I have and I have to recognize and the more self awareness I try to kind of think about and learn how to better serve and better lead and better talk to these topics. Three reasons why early stage founders tend to not put this front and center in so many cases. Number one, really easy one. So many early stage startup founders are just trying to race forward and the people they're hiring, they're thinking about one thing, what gets me to the next milestone. And so the way they think about this is really under jobs to be done. I need someone to do this job that's a jobs to be done role. Therefore they can hire it through a services system, LinkedIn indeed. Whatever it is, it's just jobs to be done. I don't need to think about the makeup, the diversity, the opinion, the, you know, the diverse nature of this. Just do the job. Not true, not true that diverse opinion has a play at every stage of your company and by default having people across your entire company that are from underrepresented populations is going to accelerate and get you there quicker. Fact. But I understand, I understand the job should be done methodology. The second reason is it takes a huge amount of effort and it takes a personal choice to invest time and and energy into finding these candidates in these underrepresented pools that have the similar values, alignment of mission, have the competencies you need. It just takes longer and it's harder and it takes that personal choice. So in this racing to succeed, move fast and break things. Surely as a startup founder you should just, you know, not worry about it, not put time there and instead do something how much accretive value can really build to my next milestone? The answer is it's an and conversation. It's not an or conversation. It's not I should be doing this or being inclusive. No, it's and it's the baseline to be a more inclusive human. The third and probably most important thing out of all of this is for a lot of startup founders, they're building companies that look like them. And by look like them, it really means, you know, who's the community they're going to, who are the accelerators, the incubators, who are the other founders they know? And so they're trying to build companies based on what they know and they see around them. And most people in most tech startups look like their founder. It's just a fact. And so perhaps people are not giving it the importance or the opportunity that it deserves. I'll leave you with this. If you got this far, if the data shows by having a more diverse group of people in your leadership and operational teams, you're more likely to succeed, Surely you should just recognize it and investigate it a bit further. Good luck.
