Hiring and the Startup Fit

I have been ruminating on this post for several days, if not weeks or months. Borne out of experience and frustration, the question is this -- "are certain people more cutout for startups or small businesses than others?" The immediate and obvious answer is yes, but the subtleties and practicalities of the implementation are vastly complex and difficult.

Today, we use a "personality profile" (www.internalchange.com) and it provides and excellent overview of the person, but it does not measure that personality against the small business/startup culture/organization. As my partner says, the profile indicates who MIGHT be a bad fit, but it does not say who will be a top performer. We also do an exhaustive interview, even for entry level positions. We have found that attitude and outlook can greatly shape the success that person experiences on the job AND those attributes are infectious. The old "one bad apple" rule that grandma espoused applies!

The other piece to this question is, are startups and small businesses relatively the same in terms of organization and culture. In other words, are the demands of these types of businesses close enough to call them the same. After having done a couple of startups and now in a small business (startup?) I would say the answer is mostly yes. The major difference being the small business I am associated with today lacks the engineering perspective which creates a whole set of new demands and challenges.

What I look for is someone who can live in an ambiguous world where their job is not prescribed from the time they hit the door to when they leave. Of course, there are positions that are very transactional (ie AP clerk), but for the key hires, this is not possible.

In a past life, the best hires were those that had spent three years at consulting firms coming out of business school. Why? One of the MBA's greatest skills learned is how to graduate while doing only 20% of the work. In other words, business school refines and hones the skills of choosing what work NOT to be done in order to be successful. And because as consultants they are trained to never say "I don't know", "that's not my job" or "no". By definition, consultants don't know, but they always find out and become the experts in a very short period of time. They are good at managing time and projects (or they get fired). And they are not troubled by ambiguity! To me, in a startup, this is the type of person you must hire and form a corp around. Give me a hand full of these types and I can beat the pants of the "experts" almost every time.