5 team building strategies for Startups

Building a team is one of the most important tasks for any startup founder. The team is the one that is going to make the founder’s idea into a reality, the team is the one that executives the founder’s vision, the team is the one that is going to take the startup from 0 to 1.

Being a startup it’s obvious you cannot take a traditional route of using staffing firms or job portals to source candidates. Both of them are expensive and do not get committed candidates who can stick with the high and lows of a startup journey.

So how do you source good candidates at zero to low cost and build your team?

There is no one answer and you need to use multiple of the following strategies to build your team.

#1 Peer to peer referral

Be shameless and talk about your startup at every conference, party, coffee shop meetups or ceremonial gathering. Express your vision every time as if you are talking the first time. Your eyes should literally have the sparks when you talk about your startup every single time. And within a reasonable time, you will be surprised ing having people referring you candidates that would align with your vision and are looking for startups like yours to work for.

#2 Use personal social media handles

Before you startup, spend a couple of years building the network both personal and on social media sites. I found LinkedIn to be the best source for networking with like-minded people. But you can use traditional social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or domain-specific sites such as Angel.co, stackoverflow.com, Quora, Whatsapp Groups etc.

Once you are active on social media sites, push your candidate requirements and ask for referrals. Share job requirements on your handles with good hashtags that could make the post viral.

#3 Whatsapp Status Page

Yup, that’s right, your Whatsapp status page is one most often visited page by your phone connections. Keep posting regular updates of your startup and candidate requirements. Use freely available graphic tools such as Piktochart or others to build high-fidelity “We are Hiring” cards. Push these cards on Whatsapp and all other social media handles with good tags to attract eyeballs.

[Image courtesy: https://www.postermywall.com/]

#4 Startup focused job boards

Startup-focused platforms such as Angel.co, Internshala, and others are good water holes where a lot of potential candidates come searching for startup openings. Create your startup profile with a clear vision and what you could offer in return to potential candidates.

#5 Firing is a lot expensive than hiring

Don’t be in a hurry to recruit people. Take your time and assess them properly. Anyone who says “I don’t have time to attend your MCQ assessment” or “I am over 10+ years experienced and don’t want to show my coding skills”, simply say thank you for your time or my favorite “TA TA” with a British accent.

Remember this or best put it on a sticky note “Firing is a lot expensive than hiring”.

A lot of professionals use startups as a springboard or temporary rafts before their next big jump. Which is fair for their careers but is a disaster for your startup. Finding the right candidate is literally like finding a needle in the hay, you need to take your time.

Conclusion: These 5 strategies are no magic bullet that would guarantee success but they would certainly get you started. So get out there and take the leap to build something amazing.