Lessons For Buidling Your Team | Lydia Fayal

If you get to our point, you've been around now for— we've been around now for about 4 years since the ideation stages. We have raised good money. I have a great group of advisors. We have traction. We have press. We have brand awareness. Doing a lot of hires. OK, so we have 12 right now, but we keep hiring, keep hiring. There's a new person almost every month. lessons we've had to learn there. These are the least obvious lessons, and I think the least written about. There are a lot of sort of how to build a startup, Lean Startup, you're gonna read all about that. But then what do you do once you have that? How do you find the right people to help you grow your team? How do you get them to be motivated to contribute? How do you keep them happy? communicate with everyone, and how do you maintain a good culture? These are my, just quick, 8 points. The Sunday test. So, whenever we hire somebody, we ask ourselves, if I came into work on a Sunday and I saw John working there, would I let out an exasperated sigh and be like, oh God, John's here? Maybe I'll just work from home. Or I'd be like, hey, cool, John. Yeah, this is awesome. Let's get to work. Hire people you want to work with. You never want to dread coming in in the morning. You're going to see these people almost every day. Like the people you work with. 2, avoid dogmatic personalities. This is huge. In startups, I think startups especially, they attract a lot of very stubborn people. There's a lot of hubris in this community of kind of like, I know everything. Because a lot of times you guys know a lot. And you're willing to take a risk and take pay cuts because you really are passionate and believe in something. Awesome ringtone, by the way. It's way better than mine. So, yeah. Avoid dogmatic people. The way that you do this is when you're hiring, at least when we're hiring, we ask people their ideas on various things. So, for a UI/UX designer, we'll ask him to do a prep, kind of like a mockup of what he would make changes to this other site, and we give feedback that we know is Bad feedback. So something like, you know, he'll be like, you should have it be this size and click through to here. And we'll be like, I don't know, I really like it the other way. See how they react to it. If they tense up, if they're like, no, if they're not really willing to listen, you don't want to work with those people. You want somebody who hears you and then explains sort of, okay, well, yeah, but what about this? And you can grow and come up with a better idea as a result. Yeah. Avoid dogmatic personalities. 3. Ensure intrinsic motivation. As founders, you are motivated. This is your company. You have more in it than anyone else. You've put more blood, sweat, and tears. You have more equity than anyone else. And you've been working on it longer than anyone else, and you know the product better. But what about other people on your team? Equity and bonuses help, but that's not enough. You need people to really take ownership of what they're doing and have control over what they're doing. The best way we've done this, or at least seen it to work, is we share the spotlight. We have people actually go and present their work at various events. We also have them talk to the customers through Olark, through chat. They're interacting with people on a regular basis, not just the customer service people, everyone, so that they are taking ownership over what they've done. And they also have to sometimes present at board meetings and talk to investors, because eventually they want to do their own startups. and they should get used to talking to investors. This is great too, because it kind of pushes some of the fall off of you and onto investors to be like, what is your schedule and what are you doing next month? Let's stay in touch. Yeah, I don't always like to crack the whip. 4, encourage career growth. People are always individually motivated first and foremost. What are their career plans beyond their just current startup roles? Titles are cheap, as are General Assembly courses. Help them get there, serve as advisors, Help them grow beyond their current role. 5, decide on data. Never shoot down an idea outright. If somebody comes to you with something and you're like, that sucks, don't say it. Instead, tell them what you would need in terms of mockups and data in order to rethink it. Set a time for them to come back. Ask them a few difficult questions. They'll probably come to the realization on their own that it is a bad idea. But if they bring the data to you and prove that, other people want it, then consider it before you go to your developers. Remember always, your developer hours are sacred. They are the most expensive. And you need to keep building. You need to keep iterating on good ideas. Always A/B test. Do a lot with data. 6, ask, don't tell. This requires the most restraint. When people come to you, make sure you ask them questions so that they come to their conclusions on their own, that they take ownership of their ideas. Make them think everything was their idea, they'll be more motivated to see it through than if you told them what to do. 7, focus on culture. This is a huge push in Silicon Valley. I think it can kind of get lost with, like, OK, yeah, we're gonna have a lot of games. We're gonna have a cool place to hang out. And it's gonna be a fun culture. It's a lot more than that. It requires having, you know, building a company, making good hires where people wanna work together, and also building a sense of camaraderie. You know, eating lunch together. Going on company outings to see Aziz Ansari and Amy Schumer. Those are fun things for our company to go to. as a group and really connect with, with each other outside of work and feel like we're part of it. But don't go too far. I think it's ridiculous how much startups spend on giant offices in inconvenient locations. People go overboard. You don't need all of that, especially early stage. Factor in commute time. Think about your employees first, not just how awesome something looks in photographs. 8, final point. Don't be too soft. At first, you're going to hire friends. It's completely normal. There are gonna be hard times. You will have to make cuts. Firing a friend really sucks. We had to do that. One case, there were even lawyers involved. That was one of the few times in my life where I was happy to be a lawyer, 'cause I didn't have to hire one. But, you know, it's— people, if they're not doing their job, you will have to make cuts. It will temporarily hurt morale, but it's more important for the overall company's success. You're not just building a startup, you're building a company. To that point, you know, I think there are sort of a lot of VC-subsidized Potemkin villages, just shells of companies that look really great on the outside, but what are, you know, what's going on underneath? Always think of this as building a company, building long-term success. What is, you know, what is your plan a few years down the road, and how are you going to get there? It's about people. These are a few photos of our team and our office. It's up in the right corner. If you take, you know, one main thing out of this presentation, it's the importance of people. First and foremost, your co-founder. Find a good one. It's going to be like you're married to this person. You'll see them all the time. They will be a huge determinant of your career success. Next, coworkers. Take care of your coworkers and they'll take care of your users. You want them to feel like they're really motivated to do that. And you want to like working with these people. Users. These are the people you should be perpetually thinking about. Get out and talk to them, especially at first. Before you build anything, talk to them in person. Don't be shy. And then finally, think about the people outside of work. Connect with good people. You want a support system around you. Make sure that, you know, there are people a few years ahead of you, but also a few years below you. Paying it forward always pays dividends.