The Key Ingredient for a Successful Start-up: Team

In my start-up experiences, and I've had my fair share in my 20's, the one key ingredient that start-ups need to have are a coherent working team. Yes, execution is important and yes ideas are worthless but if you don't a team that can work together during the bad times, especially when no paychecks are going around, having a well-established team goes a long way. 

I remember my first time at a start-up the main reason for the collapse wasn't the product or the execution but the poor handling of team management. One of the main co-founders was such a control freak that everything and anything could not have been done unless it was his way. The three of us who took part in the business plan competition that won our first round of capital either quit or got kicked out, I was the one who got kicked out. 

Two other start-ups I was part also failed because of the lack of teamwork. I remember the first meetings were filled with happy thoughts but as soon as work needed to get done communication diminished and daytime jobs along with excuses took priority.

I recall how in an online magazine start-up, the principal founder was so upset about our first online magazine issue that he talked to me for an hour of his displeasure, and we never worked again on making another issue because everyone else had other things to do and could not get over the fact that the issue did not come out his way.

Starting the next Facebook or Snapchat is difficult enough but finding the right chemistry in a group is even harder. How many mainstream startups have you heard where the primary funders broke up? Does Facebook and Twitter sound familiar? This blog post was not meant to downplay anyone I worked with because each start-up brought something valuable to the table, but the main challenge was building a team chemistry that would take the start-up to the next level. 

So when you are building your start-up make sure your team has chemistry because that's what will get your start-up from nowhere to somewhere. 

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Mr. J

​Educator, business, and blogger on things that matter in life. Follow @joseful