4 Ways to Build The Perfect Team

BY May. 06, 2010 26 Comments


What is the number one thing that separates bad companies from great companies? That’s a no-brainer. It’s the team. What you are missing is a great team that is as passionate about the business idea as you are. If you’ve already found that, stop reading and go relax at the nearest beach as your success begins to pour in.

If you haven’t found it, let’s talk. We’ve organized meetups and events to help young people find potential co-founders and team members. So, I’d love to share four ways our GenJuice team and the several other young entrepreneurs have gone about building the perfect team:

1. Be open to working with anyone

We found most entrepreneurs recruited their friends because that’s who they felt most comfortable working with. However, comfort never leads you to success! Your goal should be to find individuals with strengths that fill your weaknesses. The GenJuice team consulted with Ingrid Stabb of The Career Within You to help us discover our individual strengths and how to best work together. You can use any resource you’d like, but you should be open to discovering the talent in anyone.

2. Get out there and attend events

You may stumble upon a great person’s blog or find a hyper motivated person on Twitter, but you can gain a lot more when you meet and interact with them offline. Most of our team met through events and they are super easy to stumble upon. Subscribe to Startup Digest, search for cool meetups on Meetup.com and of course make sure to check out a GenJuice event in your city.

3. Talk to potential co-founders’ or teammates’ friends

You know the saying: “You’re only as good as the people you surround yourself with”. Meet the best friends and classmates of potential co-founders. Hang out with all of them. This is great for establishing your future company culture, as well.

4. Have a practice run

The single best way to build the perfect team is to practice first. Spend an entire weekend building a product, meet up for a day to launch a new blog or do community service together for two hours. Come up with a mini-project that best fits what your team will ultimately do and try it out. If you enjoy the experience working with them, recruit them immediately!

Finding the perfect team is difficult. You have to be open to different kinds of people, open to meeting new people, and just spend a great deal of time with potential team members. As many have said before me: ideas are easy to come by, it’s the team that’s the tough part.

If you’d like to attend an event where you get to have practice runs with several individuals who could potentially be your co-founders or teammates, feel free to check out a GenJuice Tour event in your city.

Have any other tips or ideas that you’d like to share?

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  • http://agentdeepak.com/ Agent Deepak

    I have not worked much in team but I would surely love to.

    Hopefully your post will help me somehow.
    .-= Agent Deepak | Blogging. Marketing & Success´s last blog post: Blog Launch Pre-Marketing – Collecting Traffic Before the Blog Launch =-.

    • http://genjuice.com Arielle Patrice Scott

      Working on a team is so much more rewarding than working alone, I say give it a try! Hopefully this post helped you feel comfortable seeking some amazing team members.

  • Tyler King

    Nice post! I particularly like #4. Picking a business partner is a lot like getting married. You can’t just back out at the first sign of trouble (for legal reasons), so it’s important to know what you’re getting yourself into before you take the plunge.
    .-= Tyler King´s last blog post: Use long-tail keywords to target your niche =-.

    • http://genjuice.com Arielle Patrice Scott

      Thanks and exactly! Some have said it’s like dating, but I would agree with you in saying it’s more like getting married.

      The legal elements of a business partner is the number one thing early entrepreneurs tend to ignore, and it can be detrimental to a business. Thanks for bringing that up!

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  • Dennis Edell | Direct Sales Marketing

    Very interesting information. Due to personal injury reasons, I don’t get out a whole lot, but i have learned many ways to hook up with potential partners online.
    .-= Dennis Edell | Direct Sales Marketing´s last blog post: Would You Like to Read a TRUE Make Money Online Blog? Part 1 =-.

  • Tom

    I don’t think there is such a thing as a perfect team. There are definitely those that are better than others, but beware of spending too much effort in try to create the perfect team from the start. Focus more on point #4. Only through working together will you understand each others strengths and weaknesses and best to move each other forward.
    .-= Tom´s last blog post: Your Choice =-.

    • http://genjuice.com Arielle Scott

      Good point. You should not strive for the “perfect” team, but you should spend a good deal of time vetting out potential team members to find a good fit. #4 is the number way one to do so.

  • http://www.jasonwheeler.biz/cashoffers Jason Wheeler

    I especially agree with attending events. Meet as many people as you can and make those relationships. Sounds cheesy but it works.
    .-= Jason Wheeler´s last blog post: Stock Market Down Almost 1,000 Points At One Point Today | Repeat of October 2008 Drop Coming? =-.

    • http://genjuice.com Arielle Scott

      Not cheesy at all! It’s a great way to find new people. You can use the other steps to make sure the people you meet are good people to work with.

  • http://www.earningdiary.com Lakhyajyoti

    Nice information.Personally i feel working in a team always helps to increase productivity and helps to build a good relationship among each other.
    .-= Lakhyajyoti´s last blog post: 5 Things To Avoid When Blogging =-.

    • http://genjuice.com Arielle Patrice Scott

      Exactly!

  • Sebin

    Same thing could be said about blogging too ! Building a team to tackle it is the perfect strategy to make your blog a winner !
    .-= Sebin´s last blog post: How to get your website featured by Apple ! =-.

    • http://genjuice.com Arielle Patrice Scott

      Interesting point. Have you found it more difficult to manage an individual blog than to manage group blogs?

  • Liberateyourlifeproject

    I have a mini-assembled team on odesk and getafreelancer websites.

    What I noticed is this- Many of them are not actually interested in taking the initiative to bring your business to the next level. In fact, they see the freelancing jobs as just tasks.

    They want to be fed, and do exactly what you say. I find this frustrating because it seems that they are not sharing my passion of growing my business.

    So what I do now is to give incentives to them. i share a revenue percentage with them each month, up and above an established baseline. This spurs them to work much harder and give suggestions.

    You can try it too!

    • http://genjuice.com Arielle Patrice Scott

      It’s definitely more difficult to manage a team of freelancers, consultants or individuals who may not be core team members.

      You’ve hit the nail on the head. In those situations, you need to provide incentives for them to work beyond the minimum. Do you find it difficult to find freelancers who share your vision?

      • Liberateyourlifeproject

        Hi Arielle, I must admit, after the explosion of interest in 4 hour work week principles, I jumped on the bandwagon too. But it’s a lot of tough work!

        I mean, i have a team of 7 people (all of them do micro work, nothing long term)

        I have a horrid time deciding to pay them per hour or per assignment, because the majority of them try to stretch the hours to earn extra.

        In my experience, i have had better feelings working with those from India than those from Phillpines. The philippines for me is really an over-hyped area for freelancers now.

        But yes, to answer your question, it IS hard to find people who share your vision. But I have had lucky breaks too.

        One tip is- Before you actually hire anyone, place explicitly on the proposal that you require them to dictate exactly how they see themselves working together in the team and bringing the company up another level.

        When I do that, I get on the minimum 3-5 solid proposals for free, and i decide who to employ.

        In fact, EVERYTHING, except the content on my own blog has been outsourced, from wordpress installation, to header design, to navigation etc. For content, i prefer writing up my own to establish my own unique “voice”

        I visited your site GenJuice. Great stuff there by the way! Will subscribe to the feed =)

        • http://genjuice.com Arielle Patrice Scott

          Wow! That’s a good suggestion to have freelancers state their goals and what they bring to the table before getting started.

          Personally, I’ve been really lucky and fortunate to find excellent co-founders and team members, but finding good freelancers is a completely different ballpark. You have some really good ideas on how to get started in that area.

          Also, thank you on GenJuice. We hope to help a lot more young entrepreneurs find good people to work with through the tour! Will be following you as well.

  • http://shirley.shirleyszone.com/ Shirley Osei-Mensah

    A team is a really great way to take your business forward and a passionate one at that. Cos I believe two heads are better than one :) .
    .-= Shirley Osei-Mensah´s last blog post: Know When Someone Unfollows You On Twitter – Qwitter =-.

    • http://genjuice.com Arielle Patrice Scott

      Agreed!

  • Joe Boyle

    Although those are good methods, I have to completely disagree with the idea of building a team. I think that the more stuff you load yourself up with, the more you can learn. You learn time management and people skills, as well as the subject you are teaching.

    • http://genjuice.com Arielle Patrice Scott

      You’re right. You can definitely learn a ton by taking everything on yourself and you can learn very quickly.

      The difference here is you really cannot scale your venture or project beyond yourself at that point. There’s just so much even the most intelligent people can take on. You can be more efficient and more effective by recruiting the best people to help you reach your goals.

      Plus you won’t get lonely and have some people to motivate you when things get hard!

  • Database Software

    You’re right about keeping ‘comfort’ out of the equation when building a great team. Ideally, the team creates a level of (positive) discomfort as they accomplish things they never thought possible.

    • http://genjuice.com Arielle Patrice Scott

      Absolutely! Think about it. If you and your team consistently felt comfortable, that means most likely you are not working hard enough or thinking big enough. You are thinking “inside the box”, in essence.

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  • http://adrianquarless.blogspot.com Adrian Quarless

    Excellent article. Team building is very important in business. Love the content.Adrian Quarless