E 1.0, a partnership between the Richard Ivey School of Business and TechAlliance, educates participants on key issues surrounding planning for the success of a start-up or early stage knowledge-based company. In the 10-week intensive course, participants will acquire the practical tools and knowledge to manage business challenges, and develop the support network that every entrepreneur needs (http://www.techalliance.ca/entrepreneur-10).
The second session, called “Team Building and Management,” was hosted by Sharon Irwin-Foulon, Director of Career Management at Ivey and Karen Conway, Associate Director, Client Relations at Ivey.
Irwin-Foulon and Conway ran a very interactive seminar involving group discussions, team interviews, and group breakout sessions. The hosts challenged the group of entrepreneurs to think about what culture they would like to create in their businesses, and what competencies they look for when hiring employees in order to create that culture.
Building the team is perhaps the most important part of building a new company and should not be outsourced to a hiring or talent agency. But, how can you personally find the people with the right competencies/traits?
Ben Yoskovitz of Instigator Blog offered some key tips on attracting the right talent to your startup in a recent blog post. The following points were taken from his blog post entitled: “The Key to Startup Hiring: Building a Magnet.”
Attend events. This is obvious. Go to as many relevant events as you can. Even some that don’t seem totally relevant; go to those too. But you have to maximize your attendance…
Have your pitch ready. Pitches aren’t just for investors. They’re for candidates too. Actually, you want your pitch ready for pretty much everyone you speak to. You never know when you’re going to speak to someone that knows someone that knows someone that’s a superstar startup person looking for new opportunities.
Know the talent. If you’re hiring Ruby on Rails developers, you should have a list of 20 top ones in your area. It’s not hard to find them. Get the list, memorize it and make sure you go out and meet those people. Meet their friends. Get yourself involved with the best talent; even if they’re not ready to jump ship, they might know someone else.
Know the competition. I’m not referring to competition for your business, but competition for talent. Who else is hiring? What are they doing? How are they doing it?
Sponsor events. Sometimes attendance isn’t enough. Think about sponsoring a local event. Or volunteer and meet the other volunteers.
Speak at events. Don’t have the money to sponsor an event? Try and get a speaking gig then. Maybe it’s a pitch event (if it is, pitch at it.) Speaking, in general, is a great way of demonstrating a certain amount of expertise, and building your reputation.
It’s not just about the company’s reputation. Companies do have their own brands, but the founders better be damn sure they’re building and promoting their own personal brands as well. A lot of startup employees will base a significant portion of their decision to work for you based on you (and the other founders).
Get buzz outside the local area. Sometimes the best way of building buzz within your own city is to build buzz outside your city. Getting written up on relevant blogs, for example, can build up awareness at a local level. Another good idea: Get a guest writing gig on a popular, relevant blog. Promote that yourself, after the fact.
Write your own blog. I believe that company founders should be blogging. Again, it comes down to building and promoting of your reputation in order to attract others to you. People naturally want to work with other smart, successful people. So get out there and build that up as quickly as you can.
Attract local media. Meet and network with the local reporters. Pitch them stories. Offer to be a source for relevant stories where your expertise might be useful. Soon you’ll be quoted in the newspaper and may have your own feature piece about your startup as well. That’s great press.
Once you attract the attention to your company, Irwin-Foulon and Conway outlined how you can conduct interviews with potential new hires. “Your view on the interview depends on what you’re looking for in an employee and what they can add to the culture of the organization,” said Foulon, “What are the critical skills that you bring to the organization and how can you best fill in the gaps with your new hires?”
Karen Conway went on to mock-interview Sharon Irwin-Foulon in front of the group and started by asking, “Tell me about a time that you’ve dealt with conflict in the workplace.” Irwin-Foulon answered the question by telling a story of dealing with a client and outlining how the issue was resolved in detail. The attendees then picked apart the response and each expressed their individual feedback on how well the question was answered.
Each member of the audience had a differing opinion on the response based on his or her own personal biases towards the type of person that they would want to hire in their own business. The people in a team make up the culture of a growing company. It was a fantastic learning experience for the attendees that emphasized how entrepreneurs need to continually develop the culture of their company and keep it in the forefront of their minds as they build their startup teams.
Look for next session’s post on Delivering Dynamic Presentations with Ivey Professor Michael Sider.
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