Have you ever wondered why some people become NBA All Stars and others are passed over for college basketball scholarships? Playing basketball requires skill and ability. Training can make a big difference, but at some level ability and human factors kick in. In watching March Madness games over the weekend I was impressed that a really short (relative to the others) guy was able to score the most points in the game. A while back there was an MVP from Kentucky that was a freshman who was also relatively shot. Both of these guys had one thing in common: they could shoot and score consistently. While some might chalk that up to skill and training, you can’t overlook human ability in considering this.
It is because of this same factor that people make serious hiring mistakes. In a startup environment you can’t afford to miss because often y0u only get one shot – whether it is with an investor, advisor, employee or customer. Who hire will be a part of your team so I’m going to tell you how to put on your A team jersey while making your hiring decisions.
For starters, don’t hire like club fed does. Take the new Federal Cybersecurity initiative for example. According to Time Magazine, the Department of Defense wants hackers so it is training hackers. This a great idea in concept, but the reality is that the things that make hackers effective is that they don’t think they way that government employees do. A couple of weeks ago I read somewhere that during the Cold War American spies were often foiled by some very simple oversights. For example: they would go to a lot of trouble to create very good fake passports for use in entering into the Soviet Union. They got everything right except they used staples made in the USA which were of a different metallic composition. The staples used in Soviet Era passports rusted because of the different composition. When American spies entered the Soviet Union they were caught because of Staples! Can you believe that? The same holds true for hackers. You just don’t get the kind of perspective that a true hacker has by sitting through a government contractor or DOD employee orientation and training series. Don’t get me wrong – there are some very good hackers who work for the government. Some of these guys can hold their own against the best. But that isn’t the point here. I’m talking about your starters. So let me draw a bright line here.
Think of your startup team, or at least the first 1-100 people you hire as your starters. Starters need to have natural ability and skill. At some level there is just something there that you can’t train. It is more like instinct. One of the startups that I advice recently asked me for feedback on a job description for a sales rep. They had things like “must have a degree from a top school” and “must have 5-7 years sales experience” in the description. The first thing that I pointed out to them is that the head of online ad sales for Facebook, a somewhat successful startup, went to the same school that I did – an obscure state school that most people have never heard of. He didn’t get a Harvard MBA or a Wharton MBA. Donald Trump did, but who really cares. Am I right? The first thing that I suggested that this young startup founder do was to go out and meet really successful sales people. Keep a journal of what they noticed about the person. How did they dress. How did they communicate. What were the attributes that made them who they were. After meeting a few of them I suggested creating a list of attributes they had in common. After the pattern emerges, then start writing your job description and talking to people who are candidates for your sales job.
Back when I was working in the big box staffing world I was introduced to the idea of A.C.L. A.C.L. stands for All Candidates Lie. Ok, so what’s the point, right? The point is that you need to know how to spot the starters in the lineup. Another analogy that comes to mind is poker. I think it was Matt Damon’s character in Rounders that said that if you can’t spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you ARE the sucker. Both of these rules apply heavily to hiring good sales people. The same applies to vendors, employees and business partners.
The takeaway here is that you need to know what you are looking for and be really sure about it before you start looking. If you don’t then you need someone on your team, on your advisory board, or someone who can help (like an exceptionally good recruiter) who can work with you to ensure that do. When people talk about startup founders who have made it I think they tend to focus much of their attention on the hero as others paint them. But make no mistake about it, you find me a startup that made it big and I’ll show you a startup founder who knew how to hire starters or surrounded themselves with others who did.
Pick the best people or get a job working for them.
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