Startups Need Stem Cells
Here's the kind of talent early-stage companies need to get from zero to one
I recall several years ago at my last startup, sitting in a staffing review with our board. One of our VC investors, Brent Hill, remarked, “She’s a great stem cell.” I stopped him to ask what the hell he was talking about. Brent elaborated that in the early stages of a startup you need people who can come in and flow to whatever is on fire. They figure stuff out on their own and eventually settle into a focused role where they are most needed.
Brent’s “Stem Cell” analogy has stuck in my head since that day and guided a lot of our (successful) hiring. Flash forward ten years and our team at Hearty is helping other early-stage startups find the right talent. In just a few months I’ve had onboarding conversations with nearly 50 companies. My favorite question to ask is “What kinds of people fit best?” After just a few such meetings I kept hearing the same things over and over. I dumped all of their answers into word cloud software, with the result above.
These words might be self-explanatory, but I think it’s worth grouping and explaining for both candidates that are interested in joining a startup and for startup founders that are hiring their first teammates.
What Makes up Startup Stem Cells:
Strong Communicators - This is the first and most important factor, and it’s why we include video samples of all candidates we offer up to our clients. Everyone at a startup is going in a million different directions and counting on each other. Communication is the glue that holds the team together, and it’s even more important in a remote environment where you can’t just turn around in your chair to ask a question. It doesn’t mean English must be your first language, or that you’re on Slack every second. Instead, it’s about being a great listener (with your team AND customers), and clearly articulating what you’re working on, what’s holding you back, and what you think should happen next.
Self Starters - Welcome to your first day at startup.com—now go grab a shovel and start digging where you think is best. At the early-stages, companies don’t have time to give employees specific direction or assignments. In fact, that’s against the grain of what startups are about at this stage. Everyone is hacking together solutions, making pivots based on market feedback, and solving unexpected problems. Meetings or memos to decide direction are a waste of time. Startups need people who have an ownership mentality and can decide on their own where to spend their next half-hour. We also see words like “scrappy” and “persistence” that communicate how you’ve got to have the drive to
crawlchew through glass to get this company off the ground.Curious - Startup successes come from constantly asking Why the world is the way it is and How we can make it better. Each member of the team is like a market researcher or anthropologist, drinking in any fragment of feedback to piece together what’s needed to succeed. Curiosity leads to creative solutions and market innovation.
Team Players - A startup is like a small boat adrift on the ocean for years, hoping to somehow arrive at a treasure. So you’d better be sure you like the people you’re stuck with. You’ve got to drop your ego, be accountable to your peers, help out however you can when someone is struggling, and be able to laugh through both the ups and downs. Many of us have found that this team dynamic leads to some of the most special experiences in our lives. Humans are evolutionarily programmed to hunt together in small, trusting groups, and this kind of teamwork unlocks endorphins in the moment and magic memories for the rest of your life.
Mission Driven - Startup work is way too intense to do something that you can’t love. When we feel that our work has a chance to make a positive dent in the world and/or do work in an area we’re personally passionate about, we’re more efficient and less impacted by the startup dance of 2 steps forward, 1.5 steps back. At Hearty, we work with a concert streaming startup that prefers to hire musicians and an immigration SaaS platform that prefers to find people who have experienced the pain and benefits of relocating. You don’t always have to be the customer, but you do need to find something about the work that means a lot more than a paycheck and PTO.
Startups are not for the feint-of-heart. But if you can turn yourself into a stem cell it can be the type of experience where you dramatically accelerate your skills and knowledge. You’ll be able to look back and say to yourself, “If I wasn’t in this role, X, Y and Z wouldn’t have happened”—even if you’re the intern.
Fair warning, though: Once you become a fearless early-stage stem cell, you might never be able to settle back into a traditional position or company. The challenge and camaraderie are addicting—along with the chance to make a real dent in the universe.
I hope you choose this path. Our clients and the world needs you!
(For another great post on early-stage hiring, I love this post)
Bob Gilbreath is a 2x-exit entrepreneur and co-founder of Hearty, a curated matchmaking service that puts together top software developers with early-stage, venture-backed startups.