Dagdeviren - Startups Grow With People

STARTUPS GROW WITH PEOPLE

How to Pick Partners, Recruit the Top Talent and Build a Company Culture

By

OZAN DAGDEVIREN

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Although every precaution has been taken to verify the accuracy of the information contained herein, the author and publisher assume no responsibility for any errors or omissions.

Copyright 2018 by Ozan Dagdeviren

Second Edition: Jan 2020

ISBN: 978 1982913373

Lets immediately start with laying bare the central idea of this book, Startups Grow With People.

Startups can only truly grow with the right people, coming together in the right combination, working within a functioning collaborative protocol. All indicators differentiating a successful startup from one that has hit a dead end, converge on matters that have to do with people.

The most important characteristic of a successful startup, that wishes to leverage technology for value creation is its ability to tackle complex problems in unique ways. This ability to solve complex problems with minimal resources requires two things. First, the depth and width of technical and commercial know-how (which the founders, partners and the first recruits bring) and second, the necessary collaborative protocol (the culture) enabling the fruition of these otherwise personally held assets. While each individual brings the depth, the collaborative structure creates the width through functional disagreements that is required for high-quality decisions.

In contrast to how people like to narrate success stories through heroes, unbeatable odds, and mystic coincidences; a startups success depends more heavily on the unglamorous realities of execution. As a startup consultant who actively advises companies on growth, people decisions and culture building (and also as an entrepreneur myself) I have witnessed this personally. I have seen many failed companies that started with an initial great idea but were overwhelmed by the sheer quantity and complexity of the micro-problems that constantly tested its founders tenacity, problem solving and decision making skills.

On a more positive note; I have also directly observed how companies that relied more heavily on getting good feedback, adapting a learning attitude, valuing good work ethics and increasing their execution capacity rather than fixating on their initial ideas, became success stories. These companies that created awe inspiring long term growth and value through their ability to make high quality decisions and execute, did so thanks to their appreciation of the role people play in making a startup up either fly high or crash down.

Building a successful startup is a complex business. It is very similar to designing a working engine with many intricate parts. To be fair, the people aspect is not the only important one in building startups. But, as an avid researcher on the topic and as someone who has focused on understanding human behavior for the last decade; it is my observation that this aspect is overly-neglected.

The complexity of the startup machine has a lot to do with understanding new technologies quickly, innovating with agility, achieving product-market fit, marketing smartly to solve awareness and distribution problems. On these topics and many more, there are some incredible luminaries and resources out there.

I am lucky to have run into the works of people such as Peter Thiel, Nassim Taleb, Robert Greene, Simon Sinek, Aaron Swartz, Reid Hoffman, Adam Grant, Eric Reis, Patrick Lencioni and Kevin Kelly among others, in writing this book. I wholeheartedly recommend you include them in your reading/research lists.

As a book, Startups Grow With People is very clear on what it is about. It is about the people dimension of building a startup.

Part One: How to Pick Partners will discuss when it is best to go at it solo and when it is best to partner-up; why partners are necessary; the top 8 qualities you need to watch out for while picking a co-founder, and which warning signs to watch out before making the handshake.

Part Two: How to Recruit the Top Talent will take a look into the most important dimensions to keep in mind while making the very first hires of the company. We will lay out why collaboration has such a direct effect on a startups success and the universal competencies startups need before moving on to talent spotting. Here, we will take a deep dive into the 10-Principle Model of recruiting in startups and conclude with the offer process.

Part Three: How to Build a Culture is based on the appreciation that as a company grows in size, the people dynamics start to change rapidly. After a certain size, the culture of the company becomes what people refer to in deciding their actions and behaviors, rather than one-on-one relations. Here, we will look at what a company culture really is versus what people think it is and move on to the big four: Actions, Rituals, Symbols and Stories. Next, you are going to find a rich list of the Universal Cultural Codes (Values) Startups Need, followed by the Culture Shaping Toolbox that includes a road plan you can use step by step for your own company.

For clarity, I will aim to adhere to the generic chronological journey of an entrepreneur who wants to start a startup: Partner-up, Get Traction, Grow, Recruit and Build a Culture. If you are already in a partnership, or have grown your company to a certain size, feel free to jump between the parts. That being said, many of the concepts and insights in each part have their valuable uses in understanding and making decisions in a wide range of people related issues. So I would recommend starting from the beginning and referring back to each chapter in the coming months/years as the need emerges on your startup journey.

Good luck and have fun.

A startup creates value by solving a problem through the unique use of new or existing technologies, with a potential to scale exponentially. It is a commercial enterprise. Its sole and utmost aim does not necessarily have to be maximizing profit for its stakeholders; but it does have to make sense commercially to allow its founders, investors and recruits to allocate their resources to it.

Startups are now the change engines of the world, but why is this so? The answer lies in the speed of change triggered by technological advances. Think of the jump from the world of radio, to the world of television. During the age of radio, people spent time by listening to music, stories, news and early formats of talk-shows. The capabilities of the days technology were utilized fairly efficiently. When the television was introduced, although the technological capability was now much higher (allowing the transmission of images and opening up the space for visual storytelling) the early content remained very similar to those in the radio days. People would gather up around a table, with texts and notes in front of them and read through the stories as if they were in a radio show. The camera would generally be motionless. Although the audio content was interesting, the visual content was static. Only in time, the visual content has started catching up to the technical capabilities of television, and use visual storytelling to its full potential.