In hindsight, successful startups always have great teams, however, the recruitment process rarely has to do with résumés.
Sure, skills are important, but more important is to share a strong vision. A vision that prospective team members can get inspired by and join our journey. This is the underlying idea of something called “the crazy quilt”, one of the principles of “Effectuation”, a method for building entrepreneurial ventures. Personally, throughout my career I have always felt more moved by a resonating vision of the future than by compensation or any other perks.
Here is one process to develop an effective vision:
First, it has to be authentic. It has to come out of the founder’s own passion. This way, it will attract team players who will share the same goals, and there is no use in attracting people who are behind the wrong goal, Right?
Second, has to be as simple as possible, but also very vivid. Whoever listens to our story should be able to “get it” immediately, but also “feel it”.
Finally, it still has to be achievable. A vision works better when is scaled appropriately to be inspirational, but yet attainable with some effort. I would look for “wow”, not “no way”.
One exception to this last one are the “Moon Shots”. In this case, to make it work, substitute as much “achievable” you have to take out, by an equal portion of “inspirational”.
Once we have their attention, check for attitude, then aptitude. In that order. Do you agree?