Tech Uncensored - An Altitude Accelerator Podcast

Samie Husain

Well, good morning everyone and welcome back to an early edition of Tech Uncensored right before the March break. And today we're talking about founders and building a committed team. I was reading a recent article in Forbes and they talked about how solo founders can, in the early stages, do everything from building a potential product or an idea or an app, pre-selling it, and getting it out into the market. But they also say that building a team in the early stages helps in fundraising. But in order to ensure that it's a good team, you need a committed team who's passionate and can execute on the various areas of what you require in building that product or idea. They go on to say that startups need a leader, a builder, and a marketer. It's not to say you can't find all those three things in one person, but chances are....

Samie Husain

I think we can agree as you do scale, you do ultimately need to build a team. So today my guest is David Peterson. David is an ICF and Lean Stack certified coach specializing in optimization. He coaches leaders, founders, entrepreneurs, and executives worldwide to achieve purpose and value in their community through the stewardship of talents and gifts.

Samie Husain

He has a background in tech, program management, operational readiness, and risk management. He is the author of Handling the Remedy: Aligning Business and Technology Solutions. He has worked in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. David, you are truly a renaissance man.

David Peterson

Is that because I got a vinyl record at the back?

Samie Husain

That and your global experience. Do you agree with the article I just read? Should you build a team early or should founders just go and build as much as they can before they bring a team on.

David Peterson

It's having the right people at the right stages of your development, right? Because there are stages that every startup in the founder takes the company through and based on the stage they are, they've got to bring in the right people a little bit early so they understand what they're being. I would say ideally three months before they're at that stage where they need them. So it gives the person three months to ramp up, get to understand the culture of the company, what the founders values are, the principles, what they're trying to achieve and the goals and then work towards building the strategy to achieve that. So yes, definitely something that they should start building but it's in stages. Having marketing teams ready on hand and you have nothing built and you don't know what the features are. What are they selling, right?

Samie Husain

Yeah. So what should founders do to have a committed team? How do they go and find a committed team? So let's say a solo founder is now looking at an idea, concept or a tech and saying, "Okay, I don't have the skill set to do, let's say the tech app. But I have the vision, and I know where I would sell it and build it." What should they do in order to find that person in the early stages and what should they look for?

David Peterson

Definitely talk to everybody and anybody, right? Talk to everybody, saying, this is what you're looking for. But most importantly, what they should know is what are they looking for in that candidate? So, for example, if I'm looking for a salesperson, what kind of salesperson? Like a salesperson is so generic, right? I'm looking for a salesperson that can do a million dollar sales or have done $50 million. That have sold application products, that have sold technology type products. What is it that they're looking for? And tell people that this is what you're looking for. And then people know, "Okay, I know someone who's looking for somebody", and they'll connect you. And then when you approach somebody, you'll be like, "are you a salesperson? Okay, do you have that kind of experience?" It works better, but you got to know what you're looking for. You can't be too generic. You got to be very specific to what you're looking for because you've got a product or you've got a problem, technically, that you're looking for a very specific solution and there's a person out there that can solve it. You just have to be specific enough.

Samie Husain

And then what makes a team important to a founder?

David Peterson

What does the founder offer them in terms of a reward? What are you getting in exchange for the work that you're putting in? Sometimes people just want to sell something that's innovative. It's something that inspires people, right? People are looking for something that's giving them energy, right? So the founder, the teams, the people, the work culture, the environment, the product, whatever they're building, it inspires people to be the best, and that's what really attracts people to work with certain organizations and founders.

Samie Husain

Let's say you're going along, and I'm just going to say, if I'm building a team and I have a startup XYZ, and I say to you, "David, what would you advise? How do I build this team? What should it look like?" I tell you that my strength is sales let's say.

Samie Husain

My strength is also I'll run it, I'm the leader. Sorry, go ahead.

David Peterson

But that's the thing. Okay, so you've got sales as your strength. What are your weaknesses and what are you looking for in your team, and where are you in your roadmap? Right? Have you mapped out your plan as into what you're building? When are you building it? When do you need what team members for your team, and what do they need to complement you in? Because if you're great in sales, maybe it's branding as an example that you need expertise in. Maybe it's the technology that, "okay, I'm building something that's a technology that needs technology so I need tech people." Right?

David Peterson

So you got to go find the right people, but then you got to look at, what do I value the most? Right? What are my values? What are my principles? And does the person I'm bringing in align with those same values and principles? Are we on the same goal? Right? Like, what we're trying to achieve, are we gelling? Is that the same? And that's very important because sometimes you don't want to hire or get somebody that just wants a job, just wants to make money out of your product, right?

David Peterson

Or whatever you're selling for as a founder. You want somebody that wants to take you to the next level, right? And they want to come along for the ride because they know that that's what you want. There's something that you're both in agreement with fundamentally on that foundational level.

Samie Husain

So then that's a good point. If you're bootstrapping and you want to bring some people on and you're saying, "look, I'm bootstrapping right now, and I'm going to get to an MVP, you're going to help me get to an MVP, and then I'm going to raise capital now I'm going to pay." Is that even possible? Do people even want to be a part of that? And if they do, what is it that you have to do to incentivize them to be a part of that?

David Peterson

There's definitely people that love to be part of something new, right? If you got a great idea, because most founders have a brilliant idea. And I've heard amazing ideas, you know, in my life from people and speaking to a lot of founders, but it stops at an idea. And then there's the development of the realization of the idea that comes to fruition based on the team that the founder created. And it's important not to rush things because there is a process, and you can't really skip the process. And this is where sort of planning is really paramount. What am I building? When am I building it? What do I need here? What do I need when? And the process to go from start to MVP sometimes can take a year. It can even take two years. And that's the most important thing. When you start looking at and planning it, you realize the duration of it, and then you set expectations with the team that you're onboarding that, "look, this is my plan, this is my roadmap. It's going to take a year. It's going to take six months to build."

David Peterson

And then people look, "okay, I can do that. Yes, I've got X number of hours that I can put in." Because when you're bootstrapping, you're bringing people on that already have a job, right? You're not paying them. So when they're coming in, they're going to give you 2 hours, 4 hours, 6 hours, it depends on what they have available. And you've got to look at, okay, if I need to build this, this takes X a long amount of time to build. If you're giving me 4 hours or 6 hours and then life happens. So you got to factor all that in, right? And so how long will this in reality really take to build? How many people do I need? And that's how you got to fix like this map to all of that, right? There's a formula, there's science to it. So as long as you follow that process, use all the right formulas, you'll actually get "Here's the reality." And then once you've conveyed that to the team that you're coming on, they don't have the false expectations of, "oh, this is really great, we're going to be up and running in three months."

David Peterson

And it's like nine months and it's like, I spent nine months working on this, what am I seeing? Like, I don't think you're able to do it, but this is where the founder really needs to understand, set the course, explain the process. So when people come in, they're committed to you for that duration because they're like, oh yeah, this is nine months. I see why you said it's taking nine months. I see why you're saying it's going to be a year and a half. I'm good to stay with you for a year and a half because, yeah, that's how big this project is.

Samie Husain

So you think that you can find the team who would be willing to be part of it and then they know that it's going to take that long. And then after that, if the company raises capital, they'll get compensated. Is that enough?

David Peterson

Most often, yes. Because people are believing in the idea that you're selling the purpose behind it. When you understand, what's the purpose of me bringing this to the market. Right? Like, every founder has an idea, but it's serving a purpose. And when you have the team that's aligning with that purpose, oh yeah, you know what, this is really going to help people in this way and they have that, "I want to do this, I want to help you achieve that." Because they're aligning with that purpose, it becomes easy. Everybody else just wants a job. So you want to take away the people that just want to get a job, make some money from some equity that you're providing, from the people that are really in line with that purpose that you're trying to achieve.

Samie Husain

That's a good point, but my only concern is that when you go into business or when you do a startup, or let's say you just go into business and you go into business with others, it's a relationship as well. It's like a marriage, really. And it takes a long time to figure out if that marriage is going to work out or not. And startups don't have that kind of time. Right?

Samie Husain

In the early stage you want to get the right team right away. Otherwise how is it going to work?

David Peterson

I would say startups always end up spending that same amount of time. I've seen many people that have tried to do it. And you know what? We can get this done in a month or two or six, but once they actually map out all the things that need to be built, where it's no longer just in their head, and here's the actual flow. And they start talking to the developers, and they'll be like, "oh, yeah, hold on, hold on. That's a lot more than what you said." So once you have that thing taking place, then you realize, here's the reality of it, it works out, right? People will be there.

Samie Husain

And do you find in your experience as they go along that some of those people who are on the team eventually leave because they're just not the right fit? Or you figure that out as you go along?

David Peterson

What I've seen from my experiences working and talking to, even personally......

David Peterson

People leave because there's something else that may come along, like something more committed, right? Or they might have some other issues that they need, maybe financial help for whatever reason that they might maybe leave. But that's a personal reason. But most often where people leave is they see the disconnect between what the founder has been telling them and what the reality is, what they're realizing that, :hold on, we built this. You haven't found a client that's going to consume it yet. So what am I really building?"

David Peterson

So it's very important for a founder really to sell it first. Get clients that are actually committed to using the system, then design and build it. But work with the client that you're selling it to saying, look, I'm building the system, it'll be ready in six months. But now you have a time frame. It's going to be ready in six months. So you sort of have a team that you know you're going to put together. You know it's going to take about six months. You've got committed clients that are going to start using it.

David Peterson

So even the developers and the people and your team that's working for this solution now have a goal. Okay, there's a client there. At the end of the day, we're building for that, we're interacting. So they're building the conversation, that relationship not only with the founder, but with the clients and building the solution to meet those needs.

Samie Husain

So that's kind of like you're answering the question of how does the founder's background affect the team, right?

David Peterson

Exactly.

Samie Husain

Yeah. I'm going to just ask you a different question now because we're in a different post-COVID environment where startups, well, not even startups companies in general, like in downtown Toronto, you're looking at almost the US just came out with a statistic about 44% vacancy rate now in commercial office space. There are a number of technology companies, successful ones downtown have vacated their spaces. Their lease came up. They see no need for it. I think that's going to get further exacerbated as people realize that office space is no longer required, particularly for startups as well. But companies don't require the space. People can work from home. How does that affect building a team? Can you still build a team that way and create, I guess, the environment where you need to grow as a startup?

David Peterson

Absolutely.

Samie Husain

Team building. Is it there?

David Peterson

Absolutely. And that's creating the interactions of even just jumping on a call, just allowing people to just talk, chat, get together. There's so many things that can be done virtually. The benefit is you have access to talent across the globe. You're not limited to your so many kilometer radius that you got to go find people. You can get talent anywhere, almost everywhere. Right? And that's the best part, because people like to work the way they like to work. It gives them so much more freedom of time. So that's a huge incentive. So even recruiting somebody saying, 'you know what, you don't have to come into the office. You don't have to come anywhere. You can work.'

David Peterson

They're like, 'oh, great, I'm just saving all these hours of commute. Instead of that, I can work on it, on this product or this company.' They're reinvesting their time that they would have otherwise spent on stuff that isn't being productive into more productive endeavors. So I think 100% people have proven now in the pandemic that business can be done and business can be done extremely successfully by not having anybody show up in the office.

Samie Husain

Yeah, I agree with you there. I 100% agree with you there. So what should the founder look for when they are recruiting a team?

David Peterson

The right people that match the values of the founder and the principles. So value and principles. That match is the most paramount thing there.

Samie Husain

How would the founder know that he's picked the right team then, or the right person? How do they know that?

Samie Husain

In the beginning, they may think they have the right values and then two or three months down the line, they realize, 'oh, wait, hang on here. Our values are not aligning here.'

David Peterson

Correct. That's why I would say it's always in the first three months that you really get to know a person. And after you've done the initial interviews and conversations, the kind of virtual coffees that you may have to do. It takes the first three months of understanding, is this person the right fit? And what the founder needs to do is explain to the person that they're getting is, let's try this out for a month or two or even three, and see if you like working here and vice versa. Right?

David Peterson

So you can have people come on on that trial basis that in three months, if this works out, this is what will happen. Right. Like, you get this and return in exchange. So there's a pre-agreed upon exchange for that time that people are committing to.

Samie Husain

Okay. And you feel that they can make this assessment even though we're all remote?

David Peterson

Oh, absolutely. For me, I've worked with many teams completely remote, not only for years prior to the pandemic, but even post-pandemic. Now it's all virtual. It's very rare to actually get into an office to actually talk to people anymore. Because you can actually do real back-to-back meetings.

Samie Husain

That's true. So in your experience, what have you found founders doing well?

David Peterson

I think founders, what founders have done well is really persuade and sell the idea that they have. Right? They really believe in it. The energy that they have, they're able to really transfer that to the people that they're talking about their idea to. So I think founders do that really well. From whatever I think you speak to anybody, they've always got a brilliant idea. You can see the passion, right? That's the thing. That's the most beautiful thing, that they really link their passion with the idea and what they're selling to people.

Samie Husain

What do they do poorly?

David Peterson

What I would say most often, from what I've seen, and sometimes even for myself, is not really understanding where we're really weak at, where we're not really strong, and then getting the right people to complement our strengths. And sometimes we focus on the wrong things because we haven't really identified what are we truly solving for. And once we've identified that, then everything starts to work better because we're really only solving for one thing. And then we solve for the next thing, and then we solve for the next thing. So as long as we keep that in our mind, then it works a lot easier.

Samie Husain

Okay. And we just had a comment made, and I agree. Patrick, I would agree with you that the founder has already established a strong vision, mission and value. So hiring the right fit of a person is easier. Would you agree as well, David?

David Peterson

Absolutely. Because everyone's aligning. So everything is all really about alignment. Like, if they're not aligned to the goal, the purpose, what are we trying to value, of what we're trying to build? How is it benefiting people? There's an exchange of that, right? People are linked and connected to build on something that is benefiting not only themselves, but society. And founders are building a company that brings people on board that in the end benefits the community that they're serving and everyone around them. It's not just an idea that's selling to make money, it's something that's going to be built for the community as well and those around them.

Samie Husain

I would even go one step further, and I think part of that would be built on intuition as well. The founder knows and intuitively, whoever they're meeting with, they'll know if that's the right fit or not to go forward. Maybe sometimes it could be wrong, but I find that my gut is right nine out of ten times.

David Peterson

So that's really great for founders that have that instinct and have the gut. But there are some founders that really....

David Peterson

There's people that talk a big talk, right? And founders need to have a process or have an evaluation process, get different people in the room, maybe doing an interview, getting different opinions. What do you think? Because that allows them to get a broader opinion on the person that they're bringing on board to give them the idea that, "okay, yeah, I think you're the right fit because the other person knows you". So sometimes it's good to have somebody else that knows you well. :Yeah, you know what? I think that person will gel with you." And they think along the same lines. 'I like how they like their energy, I like their vibe.' So those things will work in your favor.

Samie Husain

Let's talk a little bit about you. You started your own business, your own startup. What did you feel you did right, and what did you feel maybe you didn't do so right?

David Peterson

Well, building the business plan worked well. Like, the idea, the concept, getting a thing, bringing on a few developers across. But where I struggled was not knowing enough people. Right? And that's really important because sometimes people come in. When I came in, I was very new to the country, so I didn't really have a network of people in Canada that I could really tap into and work and get them to help me find people. And that really does make a big difference. You got to know enough people to tell people what you're looking for in order to get them to give you referrals for people that you can then evaluate to see whether they're the right fit for you or not.

Samie Husain

So you underestimated that, but otherwise....

Samie Husain

And what did you think you did right?

David Peterson

It's hard to say what you did right, because sometimes there's paths that you can just be lucky with, right? And you can just say, okay, the idea sold itself. And so at the end of the day, not completing something is where you kind of look at, 'okay, what do I need to do to do that better? How do I prevent myself from being in the same situation again?' So I think lessons learned is the part that I'd walk away with what I did right is just going and figuring out, what do I need to do to do better? And that's what's helped me doing my next startup and founding the other side of the business

Samie Husain

Now, building a team early versus building a team maybe a little later....... I think you advocate for building a team early.

David Peterson

When I say building a team early is getting the right people or the right number of people for the right part, that you're building, that's part of your roadmap, right? You can't have the entire team on early. That's too early. The people will be sitting, and they'll be disenfranchised, and they'll be like, what's happening? Because there's not enough traction. There's nothing really happening that they can be a part of. But as you get people on at the right time, you're building that momentum, you're building that traction and that energy in what you're trying to sell. And it's getting closer and closer to idea. Here's the product. Okay, now we're going, there's somebody that's going to be using it. We've got it into the market. Now let's expand it into further areas into the market. It gets exciting, right? So building the team at those different stages, the excitement, you got to keep building on that excitement, right?

Samie Husain

What about if the founder can just build the MVP on their own, maybe even take it to market on their own? I mean, it would be a lot of work. Let's say it's a lot of work. It's a lot of hats they're wearing. Would you say they should do that and then start building the team? Or as they realize that they're getting spread too thinly, that's when they should start building the team.

David Peterson

It all comes back down to the plan, because sometimes a founder may want to build everything because it's a way of.......

David Peterson

They have the idea, they have all the skills that they need at that point to build, to get to the MVP, right? And you see that a lot with tech founders, right? They have all the coding skills and everything that they need to get to that MVP. They're able to sell the idea because technology, they're able to speak to it, everything works fine. But they need to have a plan of when do I need to bring people in to keep the thing going. Because it's an engine. Now you build something, and now you need to keep expanding it into different places. But you also need to have people build it and continue coding and doing stuff. So realizing where are you in the plan and bringing people in, I would say always at least three months before you actually need them so you have that onboarding time where they become productive. They really become productive after three months. The first three months, they're just learning the ropes of what needs to get done and figuring things out.

Samie Husain

Let's say you're building a tech team, and my background is not in tech, okay? So I want to get a tech team. How do I know I'm hiring the right tech people or bringing on the right tech people if I'm not even hiring them? Let's say I'm bootstrapping either one. How do I know I'm bringing on the right ones? How do I know I've got a bad one?

David Peterson

You can never know that you've got a bad one until you actually start working with them. Right? That's just the case because, again, it's a similar thing to an interview, right? When people are hiring people for a job, at the interview, people may say all the right things, but the reality is afterwards you're like, 'okay, hold on. You talked a good game, but that's about it.'

David Peterson

So you need to have some advisors, people that you can trust that can look at it and evaluate the person, give you an honest opinion. Right? Like, you want people that will just tell you, yeah, that person's great, that person sucks. Right? Not the right fit. And you got to keep looking, but you've got to keep looking to find it. You got to keep talking to a lot of people. People know people. Like, you can't get people without talking to people. That's just how it works.

Samie Husain

But also, what you're saying there is that you need someone with some form of expertise in tech also to help advise you.

David Peterson

Absolutely. Because they'll ask the right questions, right? Because you won't know what question to ask from a tech person, like what kind of languages that the person knows to code, what's the experience? Experience allows the person who's interviewing the other person to figure out, do you really know your stuff or not. And that's the part where you need to have the right tech people on your call doing the interviews to go and figure out, do you have the right tech person? Because they'll be able to gauge better than you and they can give you an opinion. Yeah, I think that person knows their stuff. You can try them out, but at least they've passed all the checkboxes of being a viable candidate. Okay, for your team.

Samie Husain

What are the things that you've seen in your coaching experience that you saw that companies have done really well? Startups.

David Peterson

Yeah. So what I've seen actually, it's surprising that there are a few people and you can tell the founders that really have experience under their belt and the founders that are just starting. And what I found very interesting is the founders that have experience under their belt are already looking for coaches to help with the transitioning of new people. So when new people are coming on board, how do I get them to be more productive and prevent all the rifts and stuff that happen. Miscommunications- how do they learn to communicate? Because just think, when you start a new job as an example.

David Peterson

"Okay, I've started a new job. How do I deal with this? What do I say? How do I approach this?" They need somebody to go and speak to. But who do you speak to when the founder is the boss of everybody. Like, that person holds everything. There isn't a process of, oh, that's the manager. Oh, I have HR. I can speak to that person. You have more people that you can speak to in a big organization, but you don't have that same thing when you're, let's call it a one man show kind of operation.

David Peterson

That support system isn't there for the person that's being onboarded, and that's a disadvantage or a disservice to the person being on boarded. They don't have that support. And that's where coaching comes in. And I've seen experienced founders actually start looking for that, which is very good.

Samie Husain

And what have you seen that they're not doing well in your current practice?

David Peterson

It all depends on the type of founders. I think from what I've seen, the tech founders are the ones which are the most challenging. I'm from the tech space, so I've been there myself personally. We tend to sort of think we know everything, right? Until we realize that, hold on, we don't really know everything, and we move from a different mindset of, 'okay, I think I know things' to 'okay, here's what I don't know.' And now you realize, okay, what you don't know. And then you start going and saying, 'okay, fine, I need people, but I need the right people to get where I need to go.' Because sometimes in experience you get the wrong people and they end up being more work than they're worth, right? So you realize getting the right people and trusting..... That's why having the right team is the bedrock of success.

Samie Husain

And do you find these things happen more with so the issues that happen, happen more with the more inexperienced founders versus more experienced founders?

David Peterson

Yes, absolutely. Because the inexperienced founders most often, they've never been a team leader, they've never been a manager, they've never been a supervisor. And because they've never held the roles of even a director or a VP in a company where they've had to actually really manage people, appraise people, tell them, give them bonuses, tell them, 'okay, here's what you didn't do well. That's why I can't give you a bonus.' Those tough conversations.

David Peterson

'Here's what you really did well, and that's why I'm giving you the bonus.' They haven't had that experience. And most of the people that have some team lead experience or managing experience of people, it's in the same business line. So if the person's finance, they have the same group of people in accounting, but it's all finance people. You don't know how a marketing person works. They're creative. They want to talk a lot. You go to a coder, 'don't disturb me, I'm in my zone, no one disturbed me.' Right? Everyone's different and you got to know how to interact with these people. But you don't learn that until you make the mistakes as a startup founder if you don't have the experience.

Samie Husain

What are your top three before we sign off on our broadcast today, are your top three recommendations in building a team for founders?

David Peterson

Get somebody that knows what you need to look for. Write it down, figure out what kind of person, figure out your strengths, and most importantly, figure out your weaknesses that you're looking for in the team to support you.

Samie Husain

Okay? On that note, David, thank you very much for taking the time to come on Tech Uncensored, and I will speak to you soon and see you soon.

David Peterson

Thanks, Sam. It was a pleasure. Okay.