How to Assemble a Development Team for a Startup: Top Advice

Less than a third of startups survive the so-called “valley of death”, most of the companies fall apart within the first three years. There are many reasons for this, and one lies in the employees and software development team: not everyone is ready to fight for business development selflessly.

In order for the company to work like clockwork, it is important to assemble a good dev team for a startup. We tell you how to do it: what is included in the training, what employees to look for, and what to do with them later.

Draw the Structure of the Company Before Assembling the Team

It is advisable to do this in two ways:

1. The first is the MVP, or minimum viable model: the team you need to get started. It can consist of several people, and that’s fine.
2. The second is what the company will be like in a year. Usually, new positions are added to the starting structure, and more specialists are required.

The structure will change, sometimes several times a month: this is the specifics of startups. But it is needed to understand what kind of specialists to look for at the first stages of development.

Choose the Right Nearshore Employees

In a good startup dev team, specialists are competent, responsible, and motivated to work for the benefit of the company, and in the end, lead it to success. Nearshore development here is the best model for hiring employees. You can read what is nearshore Software Development from the Turnkey Labs to make sure it matches your needs. It is not possible to experiment with positions and build entire departments, so it is better to immediately look for suitable employees.

Hire Experienced Professionals, not Interns

Beginners without experience can be paid less, but:

• they will have to be taught – you will spend time on it instead of leading;
• the price of a mistake is too high – a conditional newcomer can drain the entire advertising budget and not bring customers, because they do not understand how marketing works.

It is better to hire those who are qualified in their field and know exactly what to do. Then you will not teach them, but they will teach you.

Consider the Expectations of Specialists From the Work Front

You can hire a hypothetical person who worked at Google and still fail. The thing is in his expectations: those who worked in large corporations are used to having a long-term marketing strategy, entire departments can work on tasks, and there is a fixed budget for everything.

In a startup, plans and budgets change quickly, and one specialist does all the work in a particular area. Someone who worked in a large corporation may not be able to cope with the responsibilities. Or such a front of work will reduce motivation – in the end, this will lead to the fact that a person will leave or will work “in a slipshod manner”.

The golden mean is important: hire the best who understand what to expect from a startup. Ideally, experienced professionals who have already worked in successful startups.

For a startup to develop, it is important to hire people who believe in its success and will do everything for the company. It is difficult to find such people, but if you can, get dedicated like-minded people who do their job responsibly and help you find fresh ideas.

 

Authored and supported by Netpeak Outreach Department – netpeak.net