Teamwork is the reason a business succeeds, societies function, and civilizations advance. Even the brightest and most innovative startup founders can only do so much individually, no matter how knowledgeable he or she may be in all the functions of developing and operating a business.
Just off the top of my head I've come up with accounting, marketing, logistics, administration, negotiating favorably with investors, dealing with the press, regulatory laws, tracking metrics, budgeting office supplies, drafting a business plan, and on and on—the startup founder could not launch a successful new business without the right team to manage operations and accomplish their vision.
Team-building is perhaps a startup founder's most important skill. Knowing that there will be good days and bad days, founders need to enlist individuals who, in addition to bringing talent and expertise to the table, are well-rounded and well-grounded enough to function productively as a unit when the pressure is on.
The ability to communicate openly and collaboratively with each other is key to a startup team'ss success. Each team member's capacity to cope under pressure, identify and solve their own problems, and join forces to help each other effectively identify and work out problems is a testament to the importance of building a startup team with the mutual goal of growing the business and achieving the vision they share with the founder.
The way a team performs as a whole determines the business's success.
Another measure of a startup team's commitment to succeeding is developing a demonstrable growth strategy that leverages metrics. Good metrics can inspire and motivate team members, help everyone stay focused on key objectives, shape realistic forecasts, impress investors, and boost the business's odds of being acquired.
Startups that are serious about building a successful business know that metrics are an essential means to that end. An alarming number of startups fail because their teams don't communicate or collaborate effectively and underestimate or ignore the essential role metrics play in developing strategies and accommodating trend changes to sustain the business's performance and investor appeal.
And without metrics that reveal revenue run rate measures to see how sales are developing, gauging the company's performance over time, or how likely the business is to reach its forecasts and demonstrate its potential to investors, the likelihood of securing funding can all but disappear. Startup teams that, for whatever reason, fail to prioritize metric tracking are essentially flying blind, and undermining their own startup dreams and goals.
For a startup to succeed in an entrepreneurial culture with a 70-90% failure rate, recruiting the right team and tracking metrics are not negotiable. If launching a successful startup was easy, every person who headed down an entrepreneurial path would be wondering why everyone doesn't give it a try.
From idea to launch, the work is hard, the hours are long, and the commitment huge. Anyone who has taken the journey can attest to this, but most entrepreneurs aren't afraid of hard work.
It's strategies such as building the right team and developing a metrics-centric plan that seems to be the memo so many startup founders and their teams miss. With the right team and good preparation, your startup can succeed where others fail.
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