Recruiting is commonly cited as part of a laundry list of corporate priorities, usually couched in such platitudes as "people are our #1 priority," "we put people first," etc. And it's complete BS, not only as a hackneyed priority but also in its limited focus only on employee recruiting.
Which brings us to Rule #2 in our occasional series on Rules for Startups (not in any particular order; Rule #1 was about getting a great lawyer) -- you should always, always be recruiting. And by recruiting I don't mean buying drinks for the disgruntled software engineer sitting at the end of the bar because you are months behind in your product rollout and you'll take any warm body who can code at this point. No, I'm talking about recruiting in the larger sense of talking business (yours and theirs) with people you know and meet along the way, not solely for the purpose of getting them to join your team. Some benefits of this approach:
- you improve your sales pitch to customers (how to translate what's in your head into customer-ese)
- you improve your sales pitch to investors
- you improve your sales pitch to potential recruits
- you are forced to answer the question "what exactly do you guys do?" (have pity on the first few people who ask you this, since they have no idea of the verbal assault & battery they are in for ...)
- you learn to listen to people's comments and not just ramble on with your vision
- you'll learn about someone else's business, which makes you a more interesting conversationalist and also improves your ability to grok new ideas (as Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions")
- most importantly, you may actually impress and interest some folks along the way, any one of whom could turn out to be an advisor/investor/new hire, etc.
We have a stellar Advisory Board and a wonderful VC in Ann, and the common thread running through our relationships with all of them is the fact that we got to know each of them long before we started the company or we were referred to them by a close friend. Good karma goes a long way, and it takes a long time to build the foundations of such relationships before they start to bear fruit, but in the end all the work you put in "recruiting" over the long months and years to get your startup off the ground is ultimately repaid in spades.
