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Startups of The Year 2023 Winners: Europe

William A. Sahlman of Harvard Business School famously insists that most business plans waste too much ink on numbers while not paying attention to what matters most: the team. “When I receive a business plan, I always read the resumé section first,” he wrote. Once considered bold, his approach has become common in angel investors and venture capitalists alike. “Not because the people part of the new venture is the most important, but because without the right team, none of the other parts really matter.” Note: this is an excerpt from my upcoming book, Art of the Initial Coin Offering . The book describes and shares reflections from my experience working with a number of ICOs. In this excerpt, I share what I believe makes for the best founding team. While presented through an ICO-oriented lens, the concepts are applicable to all software businesses. The team stage is the perfect place to ask the big questions, like who you want to as a company. formation be Zappos, the popular shoe e-retailer, defined a set of core values when they were in their early stages. The title alone sets the tone: the Zappos Family Core Values. In it, they offer ten key bullet points: Deliver WOW through service Embrace and drive change Create fun and a little weirdness Be adventurous, creative, and open-minded Pursue growth and learning Build open and honest relationships with communication Build a positive team and family spirit Do more with less Be passionate and determined Be humble Zappos formed this list by asking teammates to share their personal values, which they combined and tested against existing employees. This is a must-have conversation for project partners, and the sooner, the better. Each team member will be investing their limited time on Earth in this project, and it’s important to understand — to the extent which you can — what their individual goals and motivations are. When interviewing potential team members at , I often ask applicants what the job-after-this-job is. Benja This fosters a sense of understanding between the organization and its employees. If an employee shares that they may be interested in starting their own company someday, it signals that they may be a good person to task with founder-like responsibilities. That’s a win all around. This understanding enables the organization to offer compelling and interesting work which benefits the development of the employee. For most software projects, the ideal team is consists of a founder, a technical founder, and a few advisors. This simple and limited set of team members should offer a clear division of labor and minimal bureaucratic overhead. business I occasionally run into a startup which launches with more than one business founder but have never found an instance where such an arrangement is necessary. Teams should aim to keep as lean as possible, as startups often pivot and needs will change in time. If a startup keeps overhead low, it increases its chances for success many times over. Finding a Business Founder Business founders are, frankly, a dime a dozen. Take it from me, a business founder. Don’t get me wrong: business founders play a critical role in the organization, but there are many who can do the work. A business founder can be found in any city, business skills are transferable between industries and segments, and supply generally outpaces demand. so If you’re a technical founder with an idea, you can afford to be picky. Qualification for the role is less about which skills the business founder has and more about the business founder’s interest and relation to the problem. In most cases, a business founder is the one who takes the lead in a pitch; They are most likely the individual who will lead meetings or calls with prospective investors or partners. As any businessperson will tell you, the person who delivers the best pitch is the one who tells a clear story that demonstrates a real feel for the problem. You’re looking for someone who can generate a feeling of empathy from their audience. Further, you’re looking for someone who can , though that doesn’t mean you’re looking for the best salesperson on paper. In many startups, the business founder serves as the public face of the company — they’re going to have to sell Even if the position will require little or no sales activity, the business founder is going to be tasked with selling the idea to investors, the product to partners, and the marketing plan to the team. sell it. When hiring for business roles, I have found that one simple exercise is the most effective way to gauge the candidate’s ability to sell: we ask them to teach the recruiting team something. In my experience, responses to this question are fantastic. Thanks to our recent hiring efforts, I’ve learned how to ask for a beer in three different languages, how to cast a fly fishing rod, and how to make the perfect paper airplane. By surprising the candidate with the question, we gain an insight into how they think on their feet. We learn how they adapt and if they’re able to organize information in a concise manner. Often, we learn a little bit about the candidate’s personality and hobbies. Above all, we gain an insight into how the person sells something they know and care about. It’s a good one. Above all, a fellow founder should seek a business founder they can trust. It’s typical for a business founder to handle financial responsibilities, including compliance, tax, and general financial management, critical tasks whether the organization is handling $500 or $500 million. The business founder should be able to handle most of the business-side tasks. Between a decent business founder and software for items like payroll, bookkeeping, and the like, there is typically no need for a second business founder. You generally don’t need a Chief Financial Officer before you have annual revenue in excess of $10 million. Finally, depending on the nature of the project, you may find that an effective business founder comes from a sales engineer background. Many sales engineers are tasked with preparing and delivering technical presentations which address technical needs, experience which may be helpful for products based on a non-mainstream concept like blockchain. When the team at pitched a list of apparel retailers on our token-based advertising marketplace, I found it necessary to include a primer on blockchain and cryptotokens. In some instances, these concepts took more than half of the presentation to work through. A sales engineering background would have been useful. Benja While this may seem like a daunting task, it’s an important one for both yourself and the crypto community more generally: the more people are comfortable with the term “blockchain,” the better. A rising tide lifts all boats. Finding a Technical Founder This is certainly the case in non-mainstream tech cities, like St. Louis and Los Angeles, but is even true in Silicon Valley. It has always been difficult to find a rockstar technical founder. The competition for full-stack developers is intense, and as the cryptocurrency market finds new highs in 2017, there’s an added layer of complexity: technical workers are making more money than ever before, shifting the market and making it increasingly difficult to incentivize someone with a developer skill-set. I’ve heard stories of fresh Stanford grads walking into the Googleplex drunk and walking out with a $150,000 starting salary. I’ve met ones who decided to hole up in a San Francisco co-working space, launch their own cryptotoken, and raise $5 million in less than sixty days. The question is this: in this environment, how do you incentivize a technical founder? Not unlike the way we qualified the business founder in the previous section, the answer is motive. When I’ve been tasked with technical recruiting, If the candidate contributes to open source projects, take the time to look at their user profile(s). I often seek to learn what the person works on in their free time. Side projects will tell you a lot about a person. At the time this book is being published, I advise companies to pay less attention to blockchain specialization and more attention to interest and ability to learn. There simply aren’t enough developers who have the experience necessary to lead blockchain projects, a fact that I am hopeful will change soon. An alternate path, one which I know many are taking, is to hire a team of junior developers and contract a blockchain specialist to train the staff for three to six months. While this may slow the initial development phase, it will be easier than competing for a full-time specialist, and in that period of time you should be able to identify an individual to lead the technical effort. As always, trust is paramount, especially if the technical founder is working alone. Finding an Advisor There are many common misconceptions about the role that an advisor plays in a young organization, including whether they’re even necessary at all. Let there be no mistake: no matter who you are or what the organization is, a team of advisors is necessary. This is the case whether the founding team is a duo that dropped out of the University of Florida with no work experience or if they’re startup veterans with several successful exits. The reasons are many: you may be starting a business with no industry experience and you may be able to draw from experienced operators. You may have a specific need — financial expertise, perhaps — but not yet be in the position to hire for such a role. You may need an advisor who settles disputes between founders and provides objectivity. All viable reasons to bring in an outside voice, and this barely scratches the surface. Entrepreneurial pursuits can be outright exhausting and, in many cases, lead to depression. A study by Dr. Michael Freeman, a clinical professor at the University of California, San Francisco, that thirty-percent of all entrepreneurs experience clear depression. In my opinion, there is no greater reason than this: you’re going to get tired, and you’ll need a trusted party to help keep you on track. shares No entrepreneur is immune to the pressure of expectation, which leads many to respond to questions about how things are going with blind optimism, a reaction driven by the false standard that early-stage companies need to be “crushing it.” The line between honest optimism and false bravado can put a founder on an emotional crash course for disaster. The right advisor can be a business therapist of sorts, a steady hand who can help navigate the trials and tribulations of this experience. Much like a personal therapist, the advisor who looks best on paper isn’t always the right one. It can be tempting to bring in an advisor with a pedigree that will wow potential investors but, it’s far more important to find one who you can have an honest and direct conversation with, especially if that person specifically covers one of your individual or team weakspots. For new participants in the crypto space, there are many areas where an advisor can add value. There is the technology end of the business, of course, but also a number of business-side tasks and considerations during a cryptotoken issuance and sale. Even in a basic token issuance, there may be a need for a salesperson, a marketing guru, and an economist. And that’s just figuring out what your token supply might be. Even in a world where you’re able to find strong advisors who are interested in your project, you’re left to identify motivations and pinpoint a method of incentive or compensation that is fair to all parties. The answer lies in an interview, no different than an interview for any other position in your organization. This may seem counterintuitive, especially in scenarios where young founders worked hard just to have a conversation with experienced advisors, but this is part of the dance: simultaneously asking someone to join your young organization while being selective. After an advisor comes aboard, a simple agreement defining the scope of expectations is an appropriate and fair step for both parties. Set the ground rules. In the end, time is the most valuable resource for both founder and advisor. Neither should waste it. Throughout the evaluation process and during the advisement period, be specific about you want to talk and be clear about the amount of time you’re asking for. An e-mail should offer some frame of reference, with an ask like “We’re concerned about our retention metric and we need to hire a user-experience designer — do you have twenty minutes to chat?” why And if it isn’t working, cut bait. An advisor is no different than any other employee in your organization whether they’re paid or not. My name is Andrew Chapin — I’m a co-founder of Benja , the merchandise ad network. My book, Art of the Initial Coin Offering , will be released in November 2017.

On Building a Strong Founding Team

, I work with diverse types of candidates who are looking to make career transitions. Recently, I’ve had a number of candidates who I have the pleasure to work with who in addition to being incredibly motivated and hard-working, are also incredibly qualified, and in demand because of their skills and experiences. As a career coach As some context, these candidates tend to have one more of the following: Undergraduate or Graduate degrees from prestigious universities Degrees in rigorous education programs (ex: Engineering) Name brand/blue chip companies on their resume Competencies and Experiences within in-demand skillsets or roles Superior and consistent high performance and demonstrated results Social Capital and a good network As a result of being sought after and having in-demand qualities/experiences, these candidates A) tend to abide by a different application process, and B) also do things a bit differently in their search. As a result of this, the work I do with them tends to be allocated on different strategies and tactics than the average job search. job For those people out there who are highly qualified and who have skills and experiences that are in demand, I wanted to share some of the strategies and tactics that I see some of these candidates doing in their job search that tend to be helpful. Work The Network This one is self-explanatory, and something that all candidates should do, but if you’re a highly skilled employee chances are you’ll have a good network to help you connect with people and land your next job. Use the network as best as you can to find job opportunities, informational interviews or anything else that you need. How to Do this: Leveraging 2nd degree connections to help you get connected to someone you want to have an informational interview with Finding people who work at a company that you are targeting but used to work at your company Finding people who have already made a transition from the role you had to a role you desire to have Finding people who used to work at your company in your role who recently made a transition Attend Company Specific Career Events Many blue chip companies will have networking events, or open houses that are invite only. If you can find a way to score an invite it’s a great way to learn about the company and the specific departments as well as get in contact with recruiters and hiring managers. To do this, talk to people in your network at companies you are interested in so you can learn about these events, as they generally are not made widely public. As an example, a candidate I just worked with was invited to a women’s event at a tech company, and recently just accepted a job offer to start working there, all because she got connected to a recruiter and hiring manager at that event. Get in Touch with the recruiter Recruiters hold the keys to the kingdom when it comes to making it through the candidate screening process. The key is to build relationships with them so that you can stand out amongst all the applicants that come through the job posting. Additionally, since 70% of job postings that are filled never make it to the general public, knowing a recruiter can be really helpful. They can get your resume in front of a recruiter who then can offer you a phone screen or potentially even a first round interview. For example, someone I am working with saw a job posted on a company’s website and asked sent it to her friend who was able to email the hiring manager and recruiter to make a referral. From there, the recruiter reached out to the candidate directly to setup a phone screen. When a job is posted — — They can speak to you, get a sense of your background, send you a few postings available and offer to keep your resume on file if something comes up. Generally, recruiters are regularly meeting with teams to find out about their hiring needs, so they can often tell you about things that are not posted but will be soon, or, they can even help create a role for you if they know your background. This is why it’s so critical to build relationships with a recruiter. When a job isn’t posted If you know what kind of role you are looking for at a specific company, get someone in your network to introduce you to the recruiter who is hiring for that role. Ex:If you want to do Product Marketing at Google, get your friends at Google to refer you to the Google PMM recruiter. How to do this: Another option is to search for recruiters on Linkedin. Some, (not all) will mark in their profiles their email address and that they are open to being contacted either on Linkedin or via email. I would not recommend cold emails to people who don’t mark this, but if they do, then it’s fair game. I’m a big believer that referrals are a good thing, but fall into the necessary but not sufficient category. Yes, they are better to have than not have, but they do not necessarily guarantee anything more than getting your resume read. So by all means, get them, but don’t expect it to land you the job. Note: Be Nice to recruiters I’m a big believer in the notion that a little empathy goes a long way. To that end, thinking about what it’s like to be a recruiter is incredibly helpful into how you approach your interactions and communications with recruiters so that you can engage with them in the best possible way. Each day, recruiters have lots of communications (voice, in-person, digital) with lots of different people. These can be short (intros’ and hellos) or long (interviews) and can span across candidates at all stages of the lifecycle. Moreover, recruiters get emails from candidates, hiring managers, employees looking to make referrals, and other recruiters. A friend of mine who is a recruiter told me in a given day, she would schedule at least 10–12 20 minute phone conversations with candidates, and if they weren’t the first or last person they talked to they needed to really stand out because everyone else just blurs together. Recruiters get a ton of communications from a ton of people and almost all of these people want something from them in some form or another. Additionally, they are on incredibly tight schedules and are usually juggling many things. Knowing this, think about how you want to communicate to them. Here are some of my tips So, here’s the key takeaway: How to Do this — Most (not all) recruiters are in this job because they either like to be around people or like engaging with people, at least in their day job. Feel free to engage them and to be friendly, but also be courteous and respectful Be warm but polite — Recruiters have tight time constraints, so be respectful of their time, and even call it out to demonstrate your empathy and understanding of the demands on their job. (ex: ) Acknowledge their time demands/constraints I appreciate you making time to chat, I know you must have a lot of people to talk to today.. — Recruiters don’t have a ton of time, so be concise and get to the point. If you can end early (without rushing) do so and give them time back in their day Be Concise — There’s a litany of things that candidates do that piss recruiters off (if you don’t believe me ask one) This ranges from forgetting to show up for a call, not knowing the basic details of the company, asking questions that could be answered by looking at the website, etc. Simply making sure you avoid these can actually make you stand out. Do the things other candidates won’t do that annoy recruiters Be prompt in your communications and follow up if you don’t hear from them, but don’t be over the top. Follow up, but don’t be pushy — Craft your own role As I said previously, almost 70% of jobs that get filled never make it to the public job boards. While part of that is due to internal hiring, another chunk of that comes from candidates who get to know the company and work with a recruiter or hiring manager to create a role or identify a new one. Not everyone is going to be drawn to a job posting on a website. Additionally, not all open needs are made available on a job board. As such, if you can find a way to pitch your own role to a company you want you can find a job that fits your needs and fills the hiring needs of a company. It can’t be done everywhere, but, the keys to it start with relationships with recruiters and hiring managers. My advice is to find A) find a company you want to work for B) find a person at the company at a high enough level who you want to work for (ex: VP or higher) and get to know them really well over a period of time. When the time is right, talk to them about your interest in working there, and go from there. Additionally, this approach tends to also work well where there are less defined hiring processes or paths, such as a startup, so if you are looking at those it’s a good option. Also, one other benefit to this approach is that you don’t have to always go through the normal hiring process of submitting a cover letter and resume. How to do this: Know Your Salary Range This is important, because most recruiters at some point are going to ask you about your salary history or at the very least your salary requirements. In some states, it’s illegal to ask job candidates about salary, but the way that many get around this is by asking what you are hoping to make moving forward. There’s a number of takes on how to respond to this, so check out , , and . Having said that, I want to focus on how to determine your salary range. this this this First, I think a and leaves the option open for flexibility. To determine your range, you’ll need to take into consideration the role you’re applying for, the companies willingness (and ability) to pay, your own requirements, and other forms and means of compensation available. range is important because it helps mitigate any anchoring bias, How to do this — Most job boards (ex: , LinkedIn, ) now have salary estimates and ranges for many of their job postings Job Boards Glassdoor Indeed — Places like and are good resources based off of crowdsourced data Salary Specific Resources Comparably Payscale — In today’s day and age, it still is taboo for some people to talk about salary and compensation, but, it’s also the quickest way to finding it out. People Use the job boards and salary specific resources to get ballpark estimates and accept the fact that while it’s a great directional indicator it’s not perfect. Back that up with any actual data you can get with people to determine what the ranges are, and figure out the range for you. Tailor Your Resume It’s important to make sure your resume is up to date and relevant. A good resume is necessary but insufficient to landing a job, and ultimately tablestakes, so make sure to take the time to update yours. Additionally, you’ll want to make sure that your resume is tailored and relevant to the position you are applying for. First, build a big resume bank, that has all the bullets you want on it. After that, start tailoring your resume to specific roles/functions. For instance, if you’re looking at Marketing roles at large companies and small companies, build a large company marketing resume and a small company marketing resume. To do this, take a job posting from a large company, evaluate the responsibilities and requirements, and then make sure that your bullets on your resume demonstrate as many of those responsibilities and requirements as possible. Take on Microprojects to shore up weaknesses or blindspots We all have blindspots and weaknesses — It’s a given and fact of life. Additionally, it’s hard to find the exact perfect candidate. But the good news is that with some self-awareness and planning we can proactively overcome any perceived weaknesses when applying to a new job. If you can walk into an interview already armed with information about potential weaknesses our interviewer might spot in our application and show them how we are overcoming them it’s going to make you a stronger candidate (and probably make you come off as even more impressive) Weaknesses sometimes come in the form of a lack of skills or experiences needed for a specific role. If that is the case for you, if you can figure out what those skills or experiences that you’re lacking for a given role you can take on microprojects to build up competency in these areas. My friend Jeremy has a on how to do this, but they involve taking online classes, taking on mini projects for small businesses or entrepreneurs, or finding them in your current day job. great post First, identify any perceived weaknesses you might have for a given job or role you plan on applying for. As an example, let’s say you’re a consultant looking to transition into a Business Operations role but you haven’t done a lot of financial modeling, you can then take a class on financial modeling or work on a pro forma for a small business. Or, let’s say you want to move into product marketing but you haven’t had experiences with actually executing marketing campaigns. You can take a class on digital marketing campaigns or even take on a project running one for a non-profit. ( You can also use these skills to answer the “what’s your weakness question, and then talk about how you went to correct it!) How to do this: Pro Tip: Prepare for Interviews Failing to prepare is preparing to fail, so all good candidates come prepared for any interview that comes their way. If you’re a qualified candidate you probably have some basic understanding of how to prepare for an interview (if you want a full guide, ) so I’ll just leave a few more advanced tips that hopefully will put you over the top. check out the one I made — is a sales technique used as a way to proactively address objections that someone might have to a sale. It can also be used during interviewing by identifying potential weakspots or areas of concern in your resume or body of work and coming up with responses of how you’ll address them. I wrote a more detailed post about it here, but the main process is 1) identify your weaknesses 2) write out how you’d respond to them 3) provide details on how you are working on them Practice Objection Handling Objection handling — The last part of the interview is usually reserved for you to ask questions so make sure you come prepared with good ones. Come prepared with questions to ask the interview Here are some of my favorites — Every company has a different interview process and is essentially testing and looking for different things. Take the time to talk to people at the company you are interviewing at and to get a sense of what the process is and specifically what they are looking for. It can be very helpful to talk to someone who actually conducts interviews as they can give you insight into what they look for. Find out how the interview process works — Interviewers want to see two things, competency and warmth. Competency answers the question “Can they do this job?” One way to do this is to prove that you’ve done the things they are looking for and done them well. To prepare, take the skills and experiences you have, and start matching them against the skills and experiences in the job description. Practicing this will help you figure out how to talk about relevant experiences in the interview. Match Skills and Experiences to Job Description Qualifications This list is not exhaustive nor definitive, but it’s a good starting point for any sought after candidate who is starting their job search. If you have any other suggestions or tips I welcome the feedback!

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