This post was written by Seedcamp’s Head of Talent, Jamahl McMurran, and first appeared on the Startup Magazine. Follow Jamahl on Twitter @JHM_UK.
Startups are very much in vogue, and the chance to work for a small but growing company disrupting a traditional space is a hugely enticing prospect for some individuals. But the first few hires that a startup makes are often critical to the success of the business, so what does a Founder look for in an early-stage employee?
In this piece, I’m going to talk in the context of small startup teams of less than 15 people, however, you can loosely translate the below into any startup employee.
Founders, if they could, would replace themselves. They hire people that not only have the functional skillset that they don’t have, but also come with the right attitude, work ethic and insight. This all really boils down to three traits which in my experience are i) resourcefulness, ii) execution and iii) obsession.
Resourcefulness
Resourcefulness is the ability to deal skillfully and promptly with new situations and difficulties. Business (and life) is full of challenges, it’s how you deal with them that matters.
Resourceful people can thrive in a startup, it is truly an environment where they come into their own and enjoy flexing several different muscles (often all at once).
A resourceful person might know:
The latest tools on Product Hunt and understands what Zapier is
How to acquire information you don’t have
Knows a little about a lot and a lot about a little
Read a blog that XYZ person wrote and can apply that in context to a conversation 6 months later
Demonstrated emotional intelligence
They also demonstrate the desire and ability to learn, whether that is reading up on python to figure out how to manipulate a dataset or doing a 10min crash course in SEO basics to find out how to change the robots.txt file.
To stand out to a Founder, show how you can find anything you don’t have and make the best use of those resources that you do.
Aim to learn something new every day
Execution
Can you execute? In a startup being part of a small team means you have to be able to follow through and get stuff done. There are few decisions that can’t be undone.
Executors don’t waste time. In a startup, things happen fast. “Stop staring at Pipedrive and pick up the phone!” I heard one guy say rather eloquently at a co-working space recently to his colleague.
Avoid procrastination. When you put a task off, consciously ask yourself how your time is best spent.
Obsession
Lastly, be obsessive. You have a relentless persistence in line with the company’s vision. You are obsessed with your craft. The best example I’ll provide here is a JavaScript engineer I worked with a few years ago. They fell asleep listening to podcasts on programming, spent weekends at hackathons and conferences, committed to open source discussions on the latest releases, this person truly loved their work. This isn’t just a passion this is an obsession. Loving what you do is incredibly important.
In my opinion this profile contributes significantly to the culture of a startup. To be the best early-stage startup employee you should be demonstrating a level of competency in these three areas. If you can illustrate all this to a Founder and how you’ll bring real value to the business whilst remaining humble and coachable, you’ll quite easily find yourself in a role with an amazing problem to solve.
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The following resources were created by Taylor Wescoatt, one of Seedcamp’s Experts-in-Residence. Follow Taylor on Twitter @twescoatt.
In my role as an Expert-in-Residence for Seedcamp, one of the main objectives of my job is to advise our companies on ‘Product’ thinking. It’s core to achieving Product-Market-Fit, and as with all our programmes at Seedcamp, we try to demystify the many art forms it takes to build great companies. In 20 years of ‘doing product’, I’ve been lucky enough to learn from some great folks and see the industry develop tremendously. Hopefully, some of these articles can be useful to your current or next venture.
Resources
Podcasts
In the ‘Seedcamp Podcast Series’ we talk with key people in the tech startup industry to hear their stories and gleam key advice and learnings from their experiences.
We recently welcomed Gerard Grech, CEO of Tech City UK, to the Seedcamp office to join Partner Carlos Espinal to discuss how to build and create environments to support tech startups. Gerard talks through his experience in the music and telecoms industries and why he embarked on the challenge to help shape the UK tech scene, working alongside entrepreneurs and Government. Discussing everything from the Tech Entrepreneur Visa to the Future Fifty, Gerard provides insight into how other countries can create initiatives to support startups and entrepreneurs.
Gerard Grech is the CEO of Tech City UK, an organisation focused on accelerating the growth of digital businesses in London and across cities in the UK. He is also a member of the UK Government’s Digital Economy Council and Greater London Authority’s Smart London Board, both focused on economic growth through digital innovation.
Gerard has 15 years experience in the world of digital media, web and mobile. His international experience in London, Paris and New York, building digital products and rolling them out across 5 continents, has given him global vision and local expertise, spanning product development, business strategy and venture capital. Before that he was a new media journalist and started his career in the music business.
If the above player doesn’t work for you, you can also listen directly from our Soundcloud page.
Listen to similar episodes like this:
The VC Long View is a regular series of posts where Seedcamp talks to our network of investors on the trends they’re following and the ideas they’d like to back. This week we talk to Jon Lerner.
Jon studied Electronic Engineering and French at Bristol but decided not to practice and went into consulting. He spent a fantastic few years at Bain & Company learning what makes big companies tick and has now been at Smedvig Capital for almost a decade helping smaller companies reach their full potential. Smedvig backs UK tech and tech-enabled businesses at series A and series B rounds and then work very closely with the teams to help the companies grow.
Do you have any specific sector focus?
We invest in tech and tech-enabled businesses, but beyond that we don’t see ourselves as sector experts — that is the entrepreneurs domain, and hence we are not focused on specific areas and are quite opportunistic. Obviously over time you get to know specific verticals via portfolio companies — New potential investments find you more easily and are far easier to diligence (such as legal services and automotive). We try to be as open-minded as possible — it is one of the most interesting parts of the job discovering new industries and niches.
What areas are you most excited about and why?
Slightly contrarily the areas I’m most excited about are not at the bleeding edge of technology. They centre on the application of what is now becoming “mainstream” technology (often with some incredibly innovative twists) to the 99% of the world that is lagging far behind in terms of technology adoption. There are so many processes and workflows out there (both in the B2B and B2C sense) that haven’t yet been optimised. Sometimes people have been crying out for the solution for a long time, and sometimes it’s not clear how inefficient something was until you try the new way (for example Uber). We have made multiple investments in this area, including MyHomeMove, which is now the UK’s largest independent conveyancer. They have taken what was an inefficient costly process and through technology, offshoring and workflow made it far lower cost and higher quality.
These businesses tend to carry a lot less technical risk and are really about excellent product execution, sometimes displacing existing businesses sometimes creating new markets.
What are the bigger trends and technical innovations you see coming, which might not already be so obvious?
Given the areas I find exciting above, the biggest trend right now is the non-stop stream of innovation that smartphones and tablets can have on processes. Whilst they have been around for a long time now (relatively) I think we are still at the beginning of that journey, especially in the B2B (and B2B2C) sense, just as the power of the PC took many years to truly become apparent I think the BYOD trend will be a complete game changer in many areas. If one combines this with the mega trend for personalisation I think there are some very powerful applications waiting to be discovered.
What ideas would you love to back?
I would love to see better software solutions in car hire. It’s a massive industry, and whilst Streetcar introduced smartphone unlocking more than five years ago, the traditional hire car experience is still one of shock that you’ve arrived, followed by many pieces of paper in triplicate. It’s a classic example of where the application of tech, BYOD (empowering employees and customers), smart interface and pushing actions to the consumer could revolutionise the experience. Imagine being able to choose your car, walk straight to it, swipe your phone and drive away? The same goes for pretty much any situation where people are queuing — almost always (unless there is limited availability i.e. restaurants) it doesn’t make sense — the same would be true for supermarkets, take away food, even passport control!
What problems do you see in the world, or have yourself, that you’d love to see get solved with tech?
Such a good question, and not one that necessarily overlaps with what I can see myself investing in! Most of my ideas unsurprisingly revolve around current affairs, my hobbies and my family. To pick two — I think the Techfugee program is fantastic — it is clear to me that in the future we will look back at this period as one of the largest humanitarian crises ever faced. While politicians try to find solutions so people don’t feel compelled to leave their own countries (at great danger and cost) I believe there are almost limitless applications of smart tech to help refugees and critically to help them integrate into their host countries.
As far as having a 19-month-old toddler goes — some sort of universal translator would be great so I no longer have to guess what it is he is desperate for (and a negotiation module to explain why he can’t have it…). But seriously I find the amount of information out there (be it about how many hours they should sleep, what they should eat, what school they should go to etc.) completely overwhelming. It would be great to be able to build a personalised recommendation engine from likeminded individuals so you could quickly get to the answer. All these decisions seem like such a big thing at the time and often only weeks later the answer seems like it was always obvious!
If you were founding a company rather than investing in them, what would you do?
I strongly believe that one of the key tenants of a successful business is the passion and drive from the entrepreneur — it has to be something they truly believe in. So if I was founding a company I would in all likelihood be setting up an outdoor pursuits business in the mountains both summer and winter. Probably not scalable, almost certainly not investible, but it remains a dream!
How can Founders get in touch?
You can tweet and follow me at @jonlerneruk and @Smedvigcapital.
This post was originally posted on Medium. If you’re an investor and would like to contribute then please get in touch with us @seedcamp. Or, if you’re a startup working on one of these ideas and looking for your first investment, you can register your interest in Seedcamp here.