

Pitfalls of Startup Team Building - lauremerlin
http://www.slideshare.net/randfish/pitfalls-of-startup-team-building?

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paul_f
Rule 5 is "there's no such thing as 10X engineers". Then to back it up, some
faux data about Marketers is given? This was weak, IMO.

The reality is that there are 10x engineers. They likely won't come work for
you though.

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gmjoe
Agreed. However, there's a caveat: not every organization _needs_ 10x
engineers. In fact, a lot wouldn't know what to do with them. So as far as
they're concerned, they don't exist.

After all, a 10x engineer is still only 1x when it comes to adding new
functionality to your CRUD app.

However, when you need a scalable recommendation system built in a weekend,
that works on a sharded database, uses clever math to run with limited
resources, and fits processing into an overnight cron job, and just _works_
(without breaking down every few days over the next couple months), that's
when the "10x" guy or girl is your only choice.

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gmjoe
> Your culture is not: Ping pong tables & beer in the fridge

> Your culture is: Who you hire, keep & reward vs. who you don't promote (and
> why)

I wish more people realized this. It seems so rare to hear, but it's so, so,
so important.

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jroseattle
Slide #10: "How can I have influence" is naive. It's a great concept, and I
hope everyone follows that link of thinking. It's the equivalent of "dress for
the job you want, not the one you have." And I've found that most people
gravitate to this mentality, too.

But the _key_ to this is that companies need to support this from the top
down, and frankly most don't. Seniority-based hierarchies abound, and
influence is nearly always associated with title. The people who have the most
to gain from the notion of influence-in-spite-of-role tend to report to the
people who have the most to lose from it.

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mvkel
All this stuff is kind of MBA 101, but much of it has been very useful for me
in practice.

Some companies in my region have the "inside joke, work hard play hard, let's
party after work" "culture" the slides mentioned, and it has zero bearing on
the trajectory of the company. I'm sure everyone's having fun, but god forbid
you're 30-something with kids who wants to make a real impact.

Interestingly, cultures like the above tend to come from the employees
themselves, despite the CEO's intentions. I'm a firm believer that your
culture is what your employees say about your company, not what you, the
founder, says.

The performance + values quadrant is probably the most important thing to keep
in mind when it comes to building a team. That, and "hire slow, fire fast"

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andyidsinga
I especially agree with the bottom left quadrant of slides 4 and 5.

low performance + high culture fit == hire/keep.

Over time I've found that high culture fit and a fun place to work help
improve performance.

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general_failure
The career progression slide is awesome but never implemented in practice. The
director has waaaay more influence and salary compared to the architect.

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gngeal
Before I clicked that link, I wondered why slides, of all things, should be
the pitfall of startup team building. ;-)

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robleathern
slides are a pitfall in general since way overused, but these ones are good. I
think they have some advice that's pretty right on based on the last 5 years
running a startup, especially on the recruiting front.

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crindy
For a second I thought the title was referring to the things you slide down at
playgrounds.

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jalan
The title is misleading, it should be: Pitfalls of startup team building
[slides]

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lauremerlin
Sorry, my mistake.

