No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if youre playing a solo game, youll always lose out to a team ~ Reid Hoffman, Entrepreneur Study says that around 60 percent of startups fail to take off due to ineffectively constituted teams! This statistic sets up the way that behind every successful startup is a team of passionate individuals who work eagerly towards a common goal.

Despite how awesome your idea may be, building a team for your startup lays down the stepping stone to success. The following points outline the team building benefits that every founder should know about: Start with yourself As cliche as it might sound, the beginning of a team-building approach begins with you. Be prepared to wear a pioneers hat and be unafraid to settle on some tough decisions.

As you are the leader of the team, everyone will vigorously rely on you. Being the focal point of your startup, you have to start by examining yourself. Since you will be playing an influential role, you need to recognize the core strengths and weaknesses that you possess. Evaluate what you bring to the table and how it will profit your startup. Your skill set does not necessarily have to be technical in nature. Indeed, in the present scenario, soft skills garner a greater weight than mere hard skills. And then the co-founder(s) You may have seen that founders and co-founders are regularly well-acquainted with each other.

They could be friends or roommates or work colleagues, or any other informal relation. This may work truly well for startups as it eliminates miscommunication due to familiarity with each others work ethics. Such individuals have great chemistry and can work like a well-oiled machine, which is important as there is a lot at stake. However, successful startups stand out because of one common thing - they have complementary founders and co-founders. One could be a technical whiz while the other is a marketing expert. Each founding member should contribute something essential to the startup.

A good example of complementary founders is in the case of Intel where Gordon Moore had expertise in Chemistry while Bob Noyce was well-versed in Physics. Identify the key positions Once you have the top brass sorted, you need to recognize the lower but important rungs of your startup. Usually, a startup would need the following types of team members for building the basic blocks:

• 1. An innovator for conceptualizing the idea behind any product or service
• 2. A designer for designing and perfecting a product or a service; and
• 3. An executor who brings the product or service to life The principal positions in your startup could be in SEO, research and development, programming, sales and marketing, project management, and account management sectors. Recognize the void and formulate a team composition. Priorities these sections on the basis of your startups requirements and the corresponding budget. Shortlist the candidates While short listing the candidates, the answer to the following questions will help you conclude if the candidate is worth ones salt:
• 4. Does the candidate possess the right set of tools for your startup?
• 5. Will they fit in your startups culture?
• 6. Are they passionate about what they do Such short listing and team building techniques will help you locate candidates that meet your specific necessities. Conduct a quick fact check and a background check on the shortlisted candidates. Once okayed, they will be ready for the next team building stage - hiring.

Hiring After you have zeroed down on some qualifying candidates, you can go on to the interviews. An interview will give you an insight into their attitude towards their work. You can also take this opportunity to discuss their salary expectations in the early stages of your startup. At this stage, do not be shy from being picky. Even if you are hiring a friend, make the employment formal by extending an offer of appointment and other documentation. When it comes to hiring for a startup, follow the mantra of Less is more.

The team building objectives that come into play while hiring are that you have to give preference to quality over quantity. Training When the people have been on-boarded, team building training can get them in tune with other members. Certain team building activities will concentrate on technical aspects while some team building activities for corporate could stress on improving interpersonal communication.

On the whole, the team building workshop will help the new recruits to acclimatize to your startup environment. Role assignment Now that the initial stage of the team building program is almost complete, start by assigning roles and responsibilities to the team members. You can start by assigning small projects and increasing the complexity progressively. This is one of the most reliable team building methods to test out the pressure handling capacity and team involvement of the individuals.

Employee satisfaction You may have worked hard towards building a winning team, but what happens next?

To ensure that the team members are motivated, you need to incentivize goal achievement. Outline promotional aspects and career growth and development opportunities to get the best from the team members. A happy team is a necessary ingredient for your startups success. Constant assessment If you are wondering how to build an effective team, the secret is continuous assessment.

Situations change and accordingly, so will the course of your startup and your requirements. Further, knowledge gaps may creep up in due time, which will have to be plugged at the earliest. Thus, assessing your team is an indispensable component of staying on top of your game. In Conclusion, We can sum up by a beautiful African proverb, If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together. Thus, to take your startup to stellar heights, you need to start by building a winning team that will take you far.