Tag Archives: consulting

Team Configurations for Startups

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Startups so young they haven’t even started officially using the term “team configuration” still need to decide their team configuration. They ask themselves:  what team do we start with? Very often the answer boils down to the answer for what team can we start with. Startups don’t have the luxury of choice primarily because they are constrained monetarily. At the same time, though, they also face the constraint of wanting team members who are aligned on long term objectives.

There are five startups that I now have the good fortune of watching develop into full-scale companies. All of them face their own unique situations. Specifically with regard to team configuration, these startups face different problems.

The first, a project management consultancy (with which I am engaged in an advisory role), wants fully committed hands-on people even when the work is project-based. The second startup, a financial literacy and online trading interface firm, needs people who can work on exactly what the company is doing, but without the same grade of pay as large financial companies. The third, an advertising firm, needs good hands for web-based ad development. The fourth already has a 4-member team in place, what it now needs is to move into a field that will utilise their diverse strengths. The fifth is sure of neither its field, nor its team members, and so it is still in an incubatory phase.

Looking at this from the recruit’s side, working for a startup is an investment. The big question to be answered is: am I willing to invest my next 2-3 years (at least) working for this company, and tie my fortunes to its?

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The Sprint and the Marathon

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Building something is about staying invested, about weathering the ups and downs, and mostly, about staying long enough till dame luck smiles. This is a difficult fact to acknowledge, especially today when results have to come fast, and making one’s own luck is the done thing.

I know someone who has decided that he wants to build an independent consulting firm, and regardless of what he does, he has already taken a decision that will drive the odds in his favor – he has decided to stay with consulting for three years, come what may. Staying power is hard to come by today, when every decision has to show results in the next quarter’s earnings, and every piece of work has to add to one’s resume.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.