Top 12 Founder Mistakes While Building a Team

Founders are often the first to quit a great idea and start over. Sometimes they get tired of their failure and want to work on something new. But we all do that at some point in our life and career. Building a team is one of the most important things a founder can do. When building a team, there are many mistakes that a founder can make, and these will have a huge impact on the success of the company. This post will highlight the founders' mistakes when building a new team.

1. They Hire People They Know

In a world where everyone is looking for the best, it's hard to stand out. Even if you do, you'll need help getting noticed by the right people. That's why founders hire people they know and trust. A founder will think they can find the best talent on their own. But while they may have strong opinions, they only know nearly as much about hiring because they believe they do. Usually, founders will go with what their network says instead of what they, which makes it harder for them to get the right person in the door.

2. No Hiring Plan or Roadmap

A hiring plan is a roadmap that helps you find the right person for the job, but it's not the same as a job description. Founders don’t have hiring plans or roadmaps. They don’t know where the company is going and can’t tell you how long it will take to get there. A founder who sits back and hopes that people will come to them is setting their business up for failure. You can use several valuable tools to bring people onto your team. 

3. No Hiring Process

Founders can go through a hiring process to find top talent for their business without going through a hiring process. This is one of the reasons why many startups fail: they need to learn how to hire the right people for their company. Most founders don't care about hiring. They just want to get started with something and grow it as fast as possible.

4. Don’t Get a Big Enough Pool to Compare Candidates

The biggest mistake founders make is not getting a big enough pool of potential candidates to compare them against. When hiring, it's easy to fall into the trap of looking at only one or two resumes per candidate. It's best to have a large pool of candidates you can compare against. This will allow you to get more qualified candidates in your stash than if you had just one or two.

5. Hiring too Quickly

Hiring too quickly may cause you to miss out on the best candidates. You may get excited about hiring someone new and want to hire them immediately, but wait, don't do it. Hiring someone too quickly can make finding the right person easier, leading to long-term problems. Hiring slowly and carefully is better, but you can only sometimes afford that luxury. 

6. Don’t Hire Globally

When you’re looking to hire, there are lots of hiring mistakes that founders make. One of the biggest mistakes is that they don’t hire globally. In order to get a global team, you must look at the global talent market. It can be a great place to find talented people who complement your team and help them grow. However, it can also be an incredibly complex landscape that requires careful planning and management.

7. Random Interview Questions

It's common to see when founders interview candidates for the first time. Doing a random interview question is like doing a blind tasting. You don't know what you'll get, and you don't know how it will taste or if it will even be good. It can and probably will disappoint you. If you want your team members to perform at their best and believe in what you're building, there are better ways to go about it than asking them random interview questions.

8. Hiring People That Emulate Your Profile

The founder's mistake while building a team is hiring people who emulate your profile/personality instead of rounding out the team. If you are the one who needs to be right all the time, then wait to hire someone else like you because they will always need help understanding what you're thinking or feeling. You will not have a great relationship with that person, affecting your business negatively in the long run.

9. Focusing on Company Culture Later After Hiring People

Focusing on company culture later after hiring people is a common mistake. You need to focus on creating a positive company culture from the beginning because if you do not have one, your new employees will probably never get it. A good way to start is by creating a vision statement that clearly states your goals and values. 

10. No Onboarding Process

The most important thing about building a team is that you need to make sure that you have an onboarding process in place. This is one of the founder's biggest mistakes when building their teams. The onboarding process is critical because it's where all your new hires are introduced to every aspect of your company culture, from the product roadmap and strategy to how people are expected to work together in teams and on projects.

11. No KPIs or Measurements

Founders' biggest mistake when building a new team is that they need KPIs or measurements. KPIs are important because they let you know how your team is doing. Measuring is another key part of the equation; you want to measure what matters most to your business.

12. No Organizational Development Plan

Many founders need a formal organizational development plan for their business, and that's a problem. You need an organized framework to build the right team. People must be aligned with each other or your business goals and objectives. A lack of alignment will only lead to confusion and chaos in your company.

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