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The Non-Obvious Steps Startups Must Take To Build A High Performance Team
I was recruiting a really good engineer to join our team. His previous employer was another startup that had just closed its doors.
I asked the engineer what had gone wrong? He said, “The two founders were fighting all the time. No one could anything done.”
This rang true to me. The most important indicator of whether your startup will succeed is your ability to build a high performance team. There are the obvious things you need to do to build your team like spend time recruiting and compensate your team well. That’s obvious.
However, you need to pay attention to five non-obvious things to build a high-performance team.
A. Make sure you and your co-founders are cultural fits
Your company culture affects everything you do. And, if you and your co-founders are not working well together, there is no way your team will work well together.
For example, there’s a CEO I’ve been advising who has two co-founders. His co-founders are immature and undisciplined.
It’s just like engineer I was recruiting said to me. No one can get anything done if the founders are fighting.