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Hiring people, not skills
Yesterday I posted about how (not) to hire a technical cofounder. Today I was going to write something about how to vet the skills of a technical cofounder.
While I think it's important to talk to an engineer about skills, I'd like to just post this link I came across today on hacker news - Building Teams - Why I Hire People, Not Skills. In this article the author breaks down the percentage of how they try to hire a team member:
Cultural Fit (45%)
Scrappiness and Drive (35%)
Intelligence and Experience (15% and 5%, respectively)
This author pretty much took the words out of my mouth. The only thing I would add is make sure that you gauge that 15% of intelligence well and carefully.
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4 Comments
Totally agree.
Mark Suster users a phrase that's probably filed under "Drive" that I love: "Find people to punch above their weight class". This can be huge for a growing business.
I am reminded of Tom Brady's recently told story on ESPN. Coming out of college, he was overlooked by most teams. He didn't have the biggest arm. He wasn't the fastest or the strongest. He was picked 199th, the 6th quarterback selected. The problem was the all the attributes the scouts looked at were physical. His mental toughness, heart and drive were overlooked. He's was a winner and that transcended to the NFL. When he first talked to Robert Kraft, the owner of the Patriots, he said "I'm the best decision this organization has ever made." He turned out to be correct.
Steve Mariucci said it best, "We didn't open up his chest and look at his heart."
I recently read an article (more like a Q&A) in the March 2011 Entrepreneur Magazine about this. Paul Graham, a co-founder of Y Combinator, was asked a few questions about startup businesses and how they determine who they invest in.
When asked: "What's most essential for a successful startup?" He responded with: "The Founders. We've learned in the six years of doing Y Combinator to look at the founders-not the business ideas..."
Next he was asked "What do you look for?" His response was: "Determination. When we started, we thought we were looking for smart people, but it turned out that intelligence was not as important as we expected. If you can imagine someone with 100 percent determination and 100 percent intelligence, you can discard a lot of the intelligence before they stop succeeding."
I'm a big believer in finding the right people and teaching them (or working with them) to do what you need them to do.
-Good answers above me too!
One hack that works well in the early days of building a company: make sure that your culture is literally defined by scrappiness and intelligence. That way you don't need to spend too much time worrying about cultural fit.
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