When it comes to starting a new venture, one of the most important decisions you’ll make is the right team to collaborate with (Source). The ability to work as a team is one of the most valuable skills any startup can have.
The right partners can accelerate your company’s growth and help you reach your goals faster. A bad startup team structure, however, can stunt your startup’s growth and make you waste time trying to fix it.
Working in a team means that you have to trust your partners and accept their ideas even if they don’t make much sense at the moment. In addition, having a team structure also enables you to answer questions faster than if it was just you.
If you haven’t started thinking about how you will structure your team yet, don’t panic—there are so many great points that are worth taking note of before forming a team in the first place.
Here we present you with five solid reasons why establishing a strong team structure from the get-go is imperative when starting a new business venture.
Why you should establish a winning team structure from the start
The world of startups is a competitive one. If you want to make it in this industry, you’ll need to be on your A-game. There are many ways to make yourself stand out, but the best way to do this is by selecting an ideal team structure and then making it happen.
If you want to grow your business, you first need to identify what that business will be and what are the main critical success factors in this business. Once you have those figured out, you will be able to decide on the right team structure to support it.
When starting a new business, you will have a deluge of options when it comes to team structures. This is great because it gives you lots of options to choose from.
However, when you don’t make a strong effort to establish a winning startup team structure from the start, you run the risk of wasting time and resources trying to fix problems that could be easily avoided.
A winning startup team structure from the start helps to establish routines and processes that need minimum changes or adjustment later.
1. A great startup team structure facilitates startup growth across its lifecycle
The best team structure for your business will be one that facilitates growth across its lifecycle. From inception to exit, every business has different challenges, needs, and growth trajectories.
This means that no one startup team structure will work for all types of businesses. Different team structures are necessary for different stages of your business’s lifecycle. Once you have identified where your company is in its growth cycle, you can begin to map out the best team structure for your business.
The first thing you need to do is map out your business growth strategy. What are you trying to build? Where do you want to end up? What are your end goals? What are your milestones? What are the key factors that will affect the success of your business?
These are just a few of the many important questions you should be asking yourself to map out your growth strategy. Once you have a clear idea of what you are trying to achieve with your new business, you can begin to think about how you will structure your team.
2. Great startup teams are agile and flexible
The best team structure for your startup will facilitate flexibility, agility, and changeability. If you are looking to have a successful venture, you will need to be ready to pivot and change course if necessary.
Flexibility and agility is needed since your startup ventures into the unknown and there are A LOT OF uncertainties as we explain in this post about nontechnical cofounders.
Nothing about the venture business is set in stone, and you will need to be ready to alter your course if necessary. This also means your team members should be on board and have a similar mindset if change is necessary.
In another post, we talk about how some Silicon Valley startups had to pivot in the covid-19 crisis to survive. This is why you should strive to establish a great team structure that is agile, flexible, and changeable.
An agile team structure is flexible and able to change quickly depending on the situation. If you are in a position where you need to change course, you need an agile team structure that is flexible and able to adapt to the change.
3. Communicate, communicate, communicate!
It’s not enough to select the best team structure and then just let it happen. You have to be proactive in making sure that communication is happening every day between all members of your company.
The best startup team structure for your business is one in which all partners communicate well with one another. Even when there are disagreements and arguments, a strong team is built on healthy communication between partners.
If you are starting a new venture, you will discover that there are going to be many things that will go wrong. When this happens, you will need to have a strong team that can take the time to address the issues and work through them as partners.
Communication is one of the most important aspects of team building. It happens between the founders, but also between the founders and the rest of the company.
This is where a great team structure comes in handy. When things go wrong in your company, partners should be able to communicate with one another and with relevant stakeholders to work through them and address the issues as partners.
4. Strong startup teams focus on quality products and services
The best startup team structure for your business is one that focuses on delivering quality products and services. Even in the most successful companies, only a small percentage of revenue is generated from the top products and services.
The best teams will heavily focus on the top products and services that bring in the most revenue and help the business reach its growth goals.
When you design a team structure that focuses on the quality of your products and services, you are sending a signal to your clients that they can trust you with their well-being in a way that most other businesses simply cannot.
This is particularly vital in the beginning since startups gravely suffer from “liability of newness” in their early years that can lead to high chances of failures. Product and service quality is a common goal among successful startups. However, it is often a goal that is missed by many teams.
5. Strong startup teams have excellent networking capability
Networking is one of the most powerful ways to grow a company. Networking is the act of connecting with other people, businesses, and organizations in your industry and trying to work with them on some sort of collaboration. Networking is a hugely important part of business, but it can be especially useful for startups.
When you are an entrepreneur, you are often on your own and have to rely a lot on yourself. Your networking skill will help maintain your independence and help you stand out from the crowd.
The best team structure for your company is one in which partners have excellent networking capability and spend enough time on networking with potential investors, customers and others.
Partners who are able to network with one another, partners who can build business relationships with contacts outside of their company, and partners who are able to take advantage of the many business opportunities that come their way will be the key factors in the growth and success of the venture.
A strong team structure for your startup will focus on building strong business relationships outside of the company and taking advantage of the many opportunities that come along the way.
Conclusion
The key to building a successful startup is to find the right people to work with. You can’t rely on just your colleagues for expertise — you also need to network with entrepreneurs and investors in your community.
Entrepreneurs and investors often have connections and can help you connect with people who can help you get your idea off the ground. The right team structure will help you get the most out of your team and open new doors for growth.
Now, there are a variety of startup team structures to choose from, but the best one is the one that brings everyone together on the same page and unites them in the common goal of building a successful company.
In this article, we outlined some of the best reasons why you should establish a strong team structure from the get-go.
We also provided some solid tips on how to do it effectively. Now, it will be interesting to see how you will handle the challenge of building a strong team structure for your new startup venture.
