Ok, I know this post and its title seems like the most obvious thing in the world.
But empirically, I can tell you it isn’t. Over the past years writing SaaStr, I’ve met with friends/colleagues/partners/ex-customers who are total rockstars and working on starting a company. (Yes, I know that’s an overused term).
As individuals, they are amazing.
But what they don’t have is a good enough founding team:
- Sometimes, if the prospective founder isn’t super technical, then the CTO/VPE isn’t really great. They’ve got a rent-a-CTO.
- Or if the founder is technical, and it’s SaaS, they just don’t quite have enough business and domain expertise on the team to really figure it out from a customer side (interviews, getting on a plane, proto-sales, market sizing and segmentation, etc.).
- Or sometimes they are great, but the team members are just not great enough for their new C-level roles (CEO, CTO, CMO, CSO, CBO, C?O).
Yes, I know statistically, the odds are against you when you do a start-up. I also concede that markets are just as important as teams. But great teams find great markets, so that doesn’t really matter.
But.
Personally, I don’t know of a single rockstar founding team that didn’t somehow, someway, scrape out at least a single. At least an acqui-hire. At least a soft landing, or a pay-everyone-back M&A. I know there are plenty of contraexamples, but in my network, all of the great teams find a way to make something of their start-ups. Sometimes a home run, sometimes a double. At least a single. But basically, no one that is great, but without a great team, did. A few, but they almost died doing it.
I guess here’s my point to my friends and colleagues anxious to do a start-up. I hear you. And Yes, you are Great. But Wait. Wait until you have a Great Team, a Truly Great Team. Even if this specific opportunity passes you by. Even if it takes 18 months. And if your Team is Almost Great — this is the hardest one — you should still Take a Pause.
I’m not saying your team has to be 100% complete before you write a line of code. Of course, that’s impossible. But you have to have the rockstar team it takes you to get to reality, to pre-traction, on Day 1.
If not, focus on team building. You’ll somehow come up with another idea, another vision.
(note: an updated SaaStr Classic post)
Isn’t this another way of saying that if you don’t have great connections, and enough social capital to acquire A-players then the startup game is not for you? Capital is no longer the limiting factor in markets, it’s talent. If you don’t have the talent, personally, to attract a superstar team, then you are out of luck?
Yes, that’s my belief …
I completely agree as well. This is why a lot of startups fail, and why some do. Everyone is in such a rush to be successful early today that they are often skipping the dues paying portion of their careers.. you know the period where you work for someone who doesn’t get it, mastering your job, and meeting as many people as you can so that you can move on to bigger and brighter things?