A lot of us get fascinated by Startups and always relate startup with challenging work, open-culture, rewards,innovation and fast growth. But there are startups which somehow are not good to work with due to different reasons. There are some basic ingredients which are very much required for any good startup. I am highligthing 10 type of startups which are not worth exploring ( The idea here is not to criticize startups but to make entrepreneurs/job-seekers aware of various sensitive issues):
1. Sharing " Not our Policy " - Some startups do have this kind of mentality. They think their idea and participation is the foremost and ultimate thing. This mentality is evident right from the beginning. Even during initial interaction these startups keep on asking thousands of question to you. But when you ask few questions,they become annoyed or decline to answer politely. Openness is one of the foremost rule of any business. Any startup is run by a set of people,and gauging their attitude and mind-set is very important. The people with wrong mindset won't share important details like revenues, sales target, available funding, growth-path etc. with you even at very advanced stage. Never-ever think of joining any such Startup. These people won't be fair with you during any stage of your engagement.
2. We all are leaders, but can't pay for your tea : Few startups do have good people as founder members, but they can't take any decision. They look for others before taking final call over any matter. They believe in several rounds of discussion even for very small issues. Most of them don't have guts to face any adverse situation and failure. They believe that group-thinking is always required and hence take huge amount of time to solve petty issues. Successful Startups are known for their responsiveness and agility. The top-management is very fast at taking decisions and always don't require consent of whole group. There are few cheer-leaders who take decisions quickly, keeping in mind internal and external factors. These startups are typically very slow moving and you may not enjoy working there.
3. We are the best, you can't compete : The founder members believe that they are best at doing everything. Anyone joining new will always be second to them. These people never trust others and always believe in doing work by themselves. Any startup which wants to grow faster should get good people and give them quality work. Any good founder should hire people who are smarter than him/her. The growth of any startup lies in the hand of every person associated with them directly or indirectly. Founder members should always groom future leaders within the company. Shared responsibilities and rewards would always help startup to scale-up faster. Any startup which gives less priority to meritocracy should be avoided without giving any second thought.
4. Vision Statement is only for website : You should never join a startup which thinks that Vision Statement is just a statement. If founder members are not visionaries then definitely that is not the right place to work at. The passion of founders should be visible at various forums. They should work towards achieving higher growth and increasing value for every stakeholders. If the management is quite shaky about a lot of things, then you should be cautious.
5. Employees are just resources : You should never join a startup which thinks that employees are just resources to get their work done. For anybody, decision to join a startup is quite difficult and hence startup should provide very healthy environment. Every employee should be given due attention and he should feel priviledged of being part of a great team. There should be sense of belonging and employees should be happy being part of small team.
6. We don't follow any policy : If any startup boasts that they don't follow any internal policies and they are very flexible, then you should become cautious. Lack of policies creates confusion and dissatisfaction at later stages. After crossing very initial stage ( i.e. once team grows more than 10 people) startup should figure out and document internal policies. These policies helps in handling a lot of issues quite easily. Also this helps employees/prospective employees to understand company in better manner. Startup should not create a chaos internally after it gains critical mass.
7. Just work for us, don't Think : A startup which restricts creative freedom should be avoided. Typically a lot of people join startups to learn lot of new things quickly. They also want to try out new things/ideas. Some of them want to own their startup at some point of time. If a startup is not providing enough learning opportunities then that is not the right place. Founders should promote innovation and internal ideas.
8. You should not worry for money : A lot of startups tell their employees that they should not worry for money because the work is pretty good. This justification won't work for long-time and shows lack of validated revenue model. Any good business should make profits and should be shared with employees appropriately. In case company is not in a position to provide cash then it should be suitably compensated by stocks, profit-sharing etc. Any company spreading the message that they will pay less and won't compensate by other means should be avoided. This basically shows greediness of founding members.
9. We are Unprofessionals : You should never join a startup which shows high level of unprofessionalism. They don't value time, their dressing sense is horrible, they don't care about their clients, they don't value commitments etc. These kind of people can't scale-up operations to the next level. In business, after crossing initial stage very high level of professionalism is required by each member.
10. Accumulate money as much you want : If the founding members say that startups mean money and success only, then you should be cautious. If people at top are just showing rosy picture then definitely there is some serious problem. A lot of ventures become unsuccessful, but a falied startup also provides huge learning opportunities.
Showing posts with label Team-Building. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Team-Building. Show all posts
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
Open Coffee Club Delhi - July Edition Vol. 2
In my last post I captured few points discussed by participants during OCC meet. Here are other key points discussed along with my comments :
Hiring & Retention Policy : Most of us think that employee retention is very important. You should have somebody working for you as long as possible. A lot of people tend to forget that the cost of employee becomes fixed-cost once he is associated for longer duration. Also his expectations during appraisals are quite high, if he is staying with the same organization for some time. The productivity of employee also decreases in most of the cases once he becomes complacent. In some cases, companies feel that they made a mistake by hiring wrong person. So, employees should not always be seen as assets and attrition should not have a negative connotation. One specific example of a BPO was given where they hire 100+ people every month. A lot of employees join here at a salary as low as Rs. 4000 and work for 3-4 months before moving to some other organization. But from company's perspective the cost of hiring & training is lower than keeping highly paid long-term employees. Even maintaining a work-force who works for you on part time basis is also a good option for organizations.
So folks, within your organization try to figure out cost of long-term vs. short-term employees before judging whether attrition is good or bad for you.
E-commerce & Mobile Advertising : All of us hear a lot about e-commerce and mobile advertising. The potential for both these technologies is quite huge, but currently it will take some time to pick-up. Few big challenges for e-commerce is establishing credibility and service guarantee. In India still there are only 2.5 Million e-commerce transactions happening. Once everything is in place and people will have good faith e-commerce will pick-up fast. The companies offering their services using e-commerce as a base should be ready for great end-user experience, good supplier network and security of financial information.
Mobile advertising is currently INR 40 Cr. industry and it growing fast. Smaller players are also using these means to touch-base with their customers. Getting a SMS from nearest Mall or restaurant is becoming popular. The only problem is information overload for end-users in long run. Intelligent background study is also required to send relevant messages to right people. The key lies in providing right advertisements to right people at right place and right time.
Need of low-cost solutions for SME's : There are huge number of emerging organizations in India and abroad. There is an urgent need to have customized application packages bundled for Small & Medium Enterprises. These kind of offerings would be priced reasonably,having key features only and easy to use. Think of a strip-down version of ERP software for SME's at reasonable price. The emerging organizations need good system in place to manage their business and technical functions.
Overall the discussion was quite enriching and people who missed out this time should definitely join next time.
Hiring & Retention Policy : Most of us think that employee retention is very important. You should have somebody working for you as long as possible. A lot of people tend to forget that the cost of employee becomes fixed-cost once he is associated for longer duration. Also his expectations during appraisals are quite high, if he is staying with the same organization for some time. The productivity of employee also decreases in most of the cases once he becomes complacent. In some cases, companies feel that they made a mistake by hiring wrong person. So, employees should not always be seen as assets and attrition should not have a negative connotation. One specific example of a BPO was given where they hire 100+ people every month. A lot of employees join here at a salary as low as Rs. 4000 and work for 3-4 months before moving to some other organization. But from company's perspective the cost of hiring & training is lower than keeping highly paid long-term employees. Even maintaining a work-force who works for you on part time basis is also a good option for organizations.
So folks, within your organization try to figure out cost of long-term vs. short-term employees before judging whether attrition is good or bad for you.
E-commerce & Mobile Advertising : All of us hear a lot about e-commerce and mobile advertising. The potential for both these technologies is quite huge, but currently it will take some time to pick-up. Few big challenges for e-commerce is establishing credibility and service guarantee. In India still there are only 2.5 Million e-commerce transactions happening. Once everything is in place and people will have good faith e-commerce will pick-up fast. The companies offering their services using e-commerce as a base should be ready for great end-user experience, good supplier network and security of financial information.
Mobile advertising is currently INR 40 Cr. industry and it growing fast. Smaller players are also using these means to touch-base with their customers. Getting a SMS from nearest Mall or restaurant is becoming popular. The only problem is information overload for end-users in long run. Intelligent background study is also required to send relevant messages to right people. The key lies in providing right advertisements to right people at right place and right time.
Need of low-cost solutions for SME's : There are huge number of emerging organizations in India and abroad. There is an urgent need to have customized application packages bundled for Small & Medium Enterprises. These kind of offerings would be priced reasonably,having key features only and easy to use. Think of a strip-down version of ERP software for SME's at reasonable price. The emerging organizations need good system in place to manage their business and technical functions.
Overall the discussion was quite enriching and people who missed out this time should definitely join next time.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
5 Ways to hire & retain good people at start-ups
A good team is very much required at start-ups to scale-up their business after the volume of work starts increasing. Finding a right person is difficult for even bigger companies,but for start-ups its almost uphill task. A lot of time and energy is being spent by founding members in identifying bunch of right people, talking to few ones, selecting right ones and then finally motivating them to join.This is just one part of the story, the other bigger one is to retain them for long time. There are certain issues which makes the whole recruitment & retention process quite problematic. The few ones which need attention are:
1. Lack of Right Source/s for Identification of Candidates : Most of the start-ups don't have any formal channel to identify right candidates. Some of them try to get candidates from networking events while others try to get through some referrals. The cost of buying a database and then trying to identify right candidates is not justified for start-ups. Eventually the whole hiring process becomes damn slow and pain-point.
2. Compensation & Other Benefits : Start-ups typically don't want to overspend and hence evaluate each and every financial decision cautiously. While defining salary and its structure they take all measures to minimize the cash outflow. A lot of people don't appreciate stock-options, even though tried by start-ups to attract & retain people.
3. Attitude of Founding Members : Start-ups typically are started by bunch of people who are passionate and do have higher risk-appetite. Sometimes, their passion becomes obsession and they believe that they hold all rights to handle each and every thing, be it any small decision or big one. Sometimes they don't realize that the person joining a start-up will start believing in the same vision and should be suitably placed & rewarded.
4. In-appropriate Projection of Company's Image : In some cases founders show a rosy picture to prospective employees while few ones discuss all problems and warn them to be ready for failure. This kind of mis-representation leads to employee dis-satisfaction at later stage.
5. Next One would be Best One Syndrome: Sometimes people don't want to stop their search and always keep on evaluating new people all the time. They think there is always a chance of finding better person than last identified person.
For any start-up handling all these issues is not easy. There are ample number of limiting factors, restraining them to solve these issues. According to my opinion and learning " 5 Ways to hire and retain good people at start-ups" are as follows:
1. Formulate Structured Candidate Identification Process : The ad-hoc methods of finding right candidates may not work out and yield desired results. A few structured ways of candidate identification are:
-- Visiting colleges in nearby areas to get entry-level people. Establish good relationship with few colleges to acquire good talent pool.
-- Shared HR or Database for group of 3-4 companies. This would lower the recruitment cost significantly. Also typically a start-up don't require huge numbers to be filled in immediately. Also in some cases a candidate not compatible for one vacancy may be well suited for other one.
2. Better Compensation Offer & ESOP's : Start-ups should give best offer to candidates to keep them interested in the company. The employee stock-option trust should be formed in the very beginning. Also stock-option for each employee should be worked upon and communicated to him/her beforehand. The financial value and projections should also be highlighted to the concerned people. In case of initial stage start-ups, such offer holds very high value and should be leveraged appropriately.
3. Creative Freedom : In terms of responsibilities initial bunch of people should be given enough freedom of planning & execution.The creative freedom holds the key as far as hiring & retention is concerned.
4. Project Balanced Image : When talking to potential employees one should always portray balanced image of the company. At one hand is freedom, responsibilities and growth while at the other is lower brand value & money. Setting right expectations in initial stage would help start-ups in long-run.
5. Come out of the Next One would be Best One Syndrome : One can search for right person forever and won't make any progress, but that is worst strategy. The company should make an offer to a candidate as soon as they find someone fulfilling good number of variables laid down by the company. Some of the missing variables can be developed over a period of time. Also there is significant impact on company's overall strategy and execution in case of such delays.
Building a great team, meeting time-constraints is the key to SUCCESS for any start-up.
1. Lack of Right Source/s for Identification of Candidates : Most of the start-ups don't have any formal channel to identify right candidates. Some of them try to get candidates from networking events while others try to get through some referrals. The cost of buying a database and then trying to identify right candidates is not justified for start-ups. Eventually the whole hiring process becomes damn slow and pain-point.
2. Compensation & Other Benefits : Start-ups typically don't want to overspend and hence evaluate each and every financial decision cautiously. While defining salary and its structure they take all measures to minimize the cash outflow. A lot of people don't appreciate stock-options, even though tried by start-ups to attract & retain people.
3. Attitude of Founding Members : Start-ups typically are started by bunch of people who are passionate and do have higher risk-appetite. Sometimes, their passion becomes obsession and they believe that they hold all rights to handle each and every thing, be it any small decision or big one. Sometimes they don't realize that the person joining a start-up will start believing in the same vision and should be suitably placed & rewarded.
4. In-appropriate Projection of Company's Image : In some cases founders show a rosy picture to prospective employees while few ones discuss all problems and warn them to be ready for failure. This kind of mis-representation leads to employee dis-satisfaction at later stage.
5. Next One would be Best One Syndrome: Sometimes people don't want to stop their search and always keep on evaluating new people all the time. They think there is always a chance of finding better person than last identified person.
For any start-up handling all these issues is not easy. There are ample number of limiting factors, restraining them to solve these issues. According to my opinion and learning " 5 Ways to hire and retain good people at start-ups" are as follows:
1. Formulate Structured Candidate Identification Process : The ad-hoc methods of finding right candidates may not work out and yield desired results. A few structured ways of candidate identification are:
-- Visiting colleges in nearby areas to get entry-level people. Establish good relationship with few colleges to acquire good talent pool.
-- Shared HR or Database for group of 3-4 companies. This would lower the recruitment cost significantly. Also typically a start-up don't require huge numbers to be filled in immediately. Also in some cases a candidate not compatible for one vacancy may be well suited for other one.
2. Better Compensation Offer & ESOP's : Start-ups should give best offer to candidates to keep them interested in the company. The employee stock-option trust should be formed in the very beginning. Also stock-option for each employee should be worked upon and communicated to him/her beforehand. The financial value and projections should also be highlighted to the concerned people. In case of initial stage start-ups, such offer holds very high value and should be leveraged appropriately.
3. Creative Freedom : In terms of responsibilities initial bunch of people should be given enough freedom of planning & execution.The creative freedom holds the key as far as hiring & retention is concerned.
4. Project Balanced Image : When talking to potential employees one should always portray balanced image of the company. At one hand is freedom, responsibilities and growth while at the other is lower brand value & money. Setting right expectations in initial stage would help start-ups in long-run.
5. Come out of the Next One would be Best One Syndrome : One can search for right person forever and won't make any progress, but that is worst strategy. The company should make an offer to a candidate as soon as they find someone fulfilling good number of variables laid down by the company. Some of the missing variables can be developed over a period of time. Also there is significant impact on company's overall strategy and execution in case of such delays.
Building a great team, meeting time-constraints is the key to SUCCESS for any start-up.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
OSSCamp Delhi Summer Edition on 21st June
If you are a technology enthusiast and looking forward to understand and/or teach open source projects, then OSSCamp is the right place to be. OSSCamp Delhi Summer edition is scheduled for June 21st, 2008. It will be a single day unConference focussed at emerging FOSS projects and the dynamics of FOSS in India. The camp is scheduled from 10am to 5pm at Indian Social Institute,Lodi Road Institutional Area,Behind Sai Mandir,
Lodi Road,New Delhi.
Venue Map is here
As on date there are more than 19 speakers and 65 participants. Some of the areas covered by speakers are - Game Development,Building Complex Workflow Applications using BPMN Standards, Ruby on Rails, CSS, Drupal.
This event should not be missed by any upcoming company, since this platform may help them to get good talent for their internal requirements. Also companies should try to look for smart people who can help them to ramp-up there development work.
Lodi Road,New Delhi.
Venue Map is here
As on date there are more than 19 speakers and 65 participants. Some of the areas covered by speakers are - Game Development,Building Complex Workflow Applications using BPMN Standards, Ruby on Rails, CSS, Drupal.
This event should not be missed by any upcoming company, since this platform may help them to get good talent for their internal requirements. Also companies should try to look for smart people who can help them to ramp-up there development work.
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