So you think you can do it alone? The role of teams and hiring your dream team.

This is a question that bothers women more than men. Women as we know it are control freaks and power is what pleases them more than men. Before we get into why teams are important (I know the reasons you are hesitating to build your team) They don’t get it, they don’t share the passion, they can’t think like the way you do, no one else can know as much about the business as you do.

Great businesses need not only great ideas but great execution and execution is key. In my journey building Kidsstoppress.com as India’s largest and most trusted digital platform for parents here are reasons why strong startups need strong teams.

1. You don’t want to build neighbourhood businesses: If you are looking at doing it all by yourself then you will achieve only that much scale. For a business to consume you it’s very important to have people to support you in your vision and achieve that scale.

2. Time Multiplier: The biggest challenge most startup founders face is time. Now imagine multiplying it by a couple of people.

3. Expand your network: At Kidsstoppress we rely on parenting insights and it’s very critical for us to have a parents perspective and feedback. With 6 moms in our team( we are looking for dads too) I have multiplied that parenting hat by 6.

4. Bring in diversity: A mom from Mumbai thinks so differently from the one in Delhi to the one in Bangalore. Parents are culturally so diverse through cities, cultures and religions. Teams bring in diversity and that is key to any business

5. Get a fresh perspective: If you are building consumer focussed businesses it is so important to constantly innovate. As a founder you often get so consumed in building the business and wearing different hats that you sometimes lose focus and perspective. This is what a strong team does. It steers the ship in the right direction so the business does not lose focus.

Key to building the right team: 

1. Hire better than yourself. Guy Kawasaki says “great people hire great people, mediocre people hire candidates who are not as good as they are, so they can feel superior to them. (If you start down this slippery slope, you’ll soon end up with Z players; this is called The Bozo Explosion. It is followed by The Layoff.) I have come to believe that we were wrong–A players hire A+ players, not merely A players.

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2. Identify the skills that the business needs: At Kidsstoppress we struggled initially building our team with young people who loved tech but hated the parenting space or did not identify with the business. Then on we understood that it was so critical for our team members to have been through the experience for them to identify and value add to the business. Our team today comprises of 6 moms whose kids range from 6 months to 8 years.

3. Identify your weaknesses: As a founder be honest to yourself about your weaknesses and build a team that can fill in the gaps for you.

4. Passion precedes experience: The one who aces the skill sets may not always be the one you are looking for. Pick a person who is just as passionate about the business as you are.

So if you are not a fictional character like the great Harvey Specter who can do pretty much everything on his own, the first thing you need to do is put the best team in place.

Views in this article are that of the author not the platform