Dear startup founder: here are 5 things to keep in mind

Image credit: Brajeshwar Oinam

During the early days of Crowdfire, someone with prior experience helped, guided and connected me with the right people without expecting anything in return.

This inspired me to contribute to the community and help out budding entrepreneurs in the hope that some day, they will do the same for someone else. I see a lot of people starting out, I see some startups shutting down, and I feel the need to share a few things with all the new entrepreneurs out there.

Dear Startup Founder,

Congratulations on your idea! But let me put it bluntly: your startup journey is not going to be a cakewalk. You will see a lot of successful (and unsuccessful) companies around you. Every day you will read a lot about startups raising capital, moving to swanky new offices, or being lauded for introducing a new employee benefit.

Read all you want but get the thought of following suit out of your head. It’s time to work hard. Getting a plush office and perks are important but fall secondary to building a successful product. A few things to keep in mind as you’re starting out:

Be badass but not an ass!

As a startup founder, it is crucial for your team to like you, but not just because you are a good person. They decided to join you because they were excited by your vision and wanted to help you realise it. In order to lead and mentor your team, your team needs to have faith in your abilities.

If you’re a great person, but a poor leader, you’ll make a lot of friends but won’t make anything happen. If you’re a strong leader but an asshole to your team or your customers, they will eventually leave you because, well, you’re an asshole.

You need to find a balance between nice and effective for your team (and your customers) to stick with you in the long run. A safe bet is to tell yourself you can be as nice as you want, so long as you have a strong growth rate to show for it.

Be wise and value every dime

When you’re starting out, there’s little money around and a lot of work to be done. As a startup founder, it’s important to be resourceful. We were bootstrapped for three fucking years before we raised our first round of external capital.

Sameer and I wrote the first pieces of code for Crowdfire before hiring more people. We wanted to make sure we knew why we were hiring and who we were hiring. Without working on a job profile, it’s really difficult to hire.

For a long time we made it a rule to first do the job ourselves before hiring someone for it. We hired admin, finance, HR, content, community, marketing all by first doing it on our own and then looking out for someone smarter to take over the work.

You shouldn’t shy away from giving new responsibilities to people. Make sure that even when your team grows, someone in your organisation is already working on the job profile, and has reached a stage where they need someone to take a part of their work away. This way you’ll be using your people effectively. The alternative – bloating your team and then going on a layoff spree, doesn’t make much sense.

Invest in a good team first — not perks

In the early stage of your startup, you need people who are willing to join you regardless of the perks. We didn’t have so much as a couch when we started out, and yet people were motivated to work with us.

Perks are good and the ROI is increased productivity

Make sure you’re fucking great at what you do. Only then can you lead