Team Formation - Module 2 Flashcards
the process through which founders establish a team to start a new venture
Entrepreneurial team formation
A __ put your talents, time, and energy to their best use, taking on an overwhelming challenge and using your wits (and a little trickery) to overcome every obstacle that crosses your path.
team, the RIGHT team
someone with authority to make decisions
Decider
is the official decision-maker for the project
Decider
Name some “Deciders” in a startup companies
founder or CEO
Name some “Deciders” in bigger companies
a VP, a product manager, or another team leader.
They generally understand the problem in depth, and they often have strong opinions and criteria to help find the right solution.
Deciders
A predefined span of time in which a team will work to accomplish specific goals and a decider (or two) must always be involved.
Sprint
If your Decider is reluctant, name arguments to be used as a strategy
-Rapid progress
-It’s an experiment
-Explain the Tradeoffs
-It’s about focus
Deciders are not excited about customer tests but everyone loves fast results
Rapid progress
Decider can help evaluate how effective a sprint was when it is over.
It’s an experiment
Show the Decider a list of big meetings and work items you and your team will miss during the sprint week.
Explain the tradeoffs
Instead of doing an okay job on everything, you’ll do an excellent job on one thing.
It’s about focus
It suggests co-founders select each other because they share similar interests, possess admirable qualities, and return the sentiment of liking
interpersonal-attraction strategy
This strategy emphasized supplementary fit, namely co-founding with members of the same kind and resemblance between co-founders.
interpersonal-attraction strategy
this strategy follows the principle of ‘birds of a feather flock together’.
interpersonal-attraction strategy
A strategy that suggests co-founders are selected based on the resources required for new venture creation.
resource-seeking strategy
This strategy emphasizes complementary fit, as the focus is on individuals’ human capital-their knowledge, skills and capabilities-and access to relevant resources and assets.
Resource-seeking strategy
selection of co-founders based on the quest for complementary capabilities, higher education and experience, and related industry knowledge
resource-seeking strategy
this strategy have identified linkages among co-founders based on friendship, family ties, and ethnicity
interpersonal-attraction strategy
Four inter-related team characteristics
team diversity, equity distribution, leadership, and structural boundaries
The immediate result of entrepreneurial team formation
team configuration (or composition)
referring to the collective characteristics of the founding team
team configuration (or composition)
It has been studied in terms of both surface attributes such as age, tenure, gender, and race, and deep-level aspects such as personality traits and values
Demographic-personal diversity
It has been measured through founders’ education, professional background, and prior experience.
Functional-informational diversity
the equal or unequal distribution among co-founders
equity-distribution
The division of equity and leadership is often characterized by…
‘throne versus kingdom’ paradox
lead entrepreneurs may desire possession of major shares and leadership authority
Owning the throne
even though it may undermine venture survival and financial performance
the kingdom
it distinguishes between members considered core of peripheral in the founding team
Structural boundaries
are enduringly involved and significantly committed to the new venture activity
core members
have a more temporary and sporadic involvement, addressing specific needs during limited time-periods
peripheral members
those who provide their own capital or reputation but are barely involved in the venture activity.
sleeping partners
the presence of junior sub-teams to pursue specific opportunities, while senior members oversee activities alongside broader venture management
multi-tier structural boundaries
encompass external agents, such as consultants or surrogates who provide critical knowledge and management skills
blurred boundaries
In team formation, they often join the team during later stages
blurred boundaries; external agents or surrogates
an outcome of team characteristics
team processes
include alignment of values and vision as well as cohesion in the form of interpersonal-emotional bonds within a close-knit unit
coordination-related processes
may enable co-founders to rely on others’ diverse knowledge bases, gain deeper expertise in different specialized domains, and improve venture capabilities and access to a larger pool of resources.
Specialization-related processes
performance indicators of successful efforts at entrepreneurial team formation
milestones and markers
Venture performance has also been measured by … (3)
financial, growth, and survival indicators
Given a specific problem or challenge, they must be able to brainstorm and collaborate and contribute to what different kinds of ideas they have to solve the problem.
Idea generation
They should be able to identify the scope of the project, cost of the project and time needed to execute a certain task.
Project Management
They should be able to translate customer needs into a product design with better user experience.
Design the product
They should be able to build the solution that they propose.
Develop the product
They must be able to market the product and communicate the value proposition of your product to your target market.
Product marketing
They should be able to identify who their customers are and create a persona of their customers
Customer qualification
what motivates customers to buy a product or do certain tasks.
Customer qualification
The team must be able to identify what kind of revenue models are suitable for their product or service
Business and revenue modeling
Team also must be able to identify who their competitors are and what products are already existing in the market.
Competitive analysis
Understanding your competitor would help you strategize on how you can be unique apart from the existing competitors.
Competitive analysis
They should be able to sell the product to target customers.
Product sales
They should also know how to deploy and bring the products to the market
Product Deployment
They should also be able to manage their finances efficiently, especially during this initial stage of their business
Accounting and finance
Founders must have the abilities to speak in front of a live audience during pitch competitions.
Public Speaking
They should also be able to seek external funding from potential investors
Fund Raising
The team must have the ability to learn technical skills to design and build products.
Experience
They need to have a vast network of connections who are possible partners, mentors or investors.
Network
Startups need ___ to build a market for their product and support from investors to fund their startup.
Network
They need to have background about the industry or the market that they are entering into because they need to know who the market is, where the market is, how big the market is, and who competitors in the market are.
Knowledge
These are other qualities that a team member can have together with any of the above mentioned qualities.
Skills or Strengths
It is the ability to lead the team towards a certain goal.
Leadership.
It is the ability to work harmoniously with your team mates
Team player.
The ability to identify project scope, project cost and project schedule to achieve a goal.
Project Management
The ability to create plans or strategize to achieve a goal.
Strategy.
The ability to execute the plans.
Execution
The ability to translate customer needs into user interface and/or user experience design
UI/UX Design
The ability to speak in a live audience.
Public Speaking
The ability to convince people to buy your products, join your team or invest in your startup.
Influence
three ways three ways to form a team, according to UC Berkeley
Team-centric Startup Formation
Research-centric Startup Formation
Market Opportunity-centric Startup Formation
you build your team from your existing network
Team-centric Startup Formation
You invite people you highly trust to join you on this endeavor
Team-centric Startup Formation
You look for people in your network who have the experience and knowledge you need to start a business.
Team-centric Startup Formation
In this type of team building, you encourage your co-researchers to establish a startup and bring your research outputs to the market.
Research-centric Startup Formation.
this team is highly technical in experience.
Research-centric Startup Formation.
teams are formed or created during a hackathon or a competition.
Market Opportunity-centric Startup Formation
People of the same interest gather in one place, meet each other and realize that they have a lot of things in common.
Market Opportunity-centric Startup Formation
three sides of team diversity that was coined during an entrepreneurship seminar by UC Berkeley:
Business Function, Roles and the Silicon Valley Triptych.
In the business function side of diversity, the team needs:
strategist
designer
builder/engineer
sales/marketing expert
project manager
who knows how to create a business plan and analyze the market,
Strategist
who designs user experience and user interfaces,
Designer
who develops prototypes
Builder or an Engineer
who knows how to attract engage customers
Sales/Marketing expert
assigns tasks to each member and oversees all of the activities inside the startup
Project Manager
Another side of team diversity are Roles to play:
Idea Guy
Communicator
Peacemaker
Problem-finder
Problem-solver
Executor
who always have fresh ideas in mind,
Idea Guy
who has special facilitation skills in the team
Communicator
who maintains harmonious relationship of the members
Peacemaker
who can spot challenges or problems before they occur
Problem-finder
who is always eager to take on any challenge and solve problems
Problem-solver
who can swiftly finish any assigned tasks.
Executor
Silicon Valley Triptych. This is very common in Silicon Valley. Here we need:
Hustler
Hacker
Hipster
Hound (sometimes added)
who sells the product or seeks investment, (silicon valley triptych)
Hustler
who designs the product. (silicon valley triptych)
Hipster
who builds the product (silicon valley triptych)
Hacker
who initially talks to customers and does market research. (silicon valley triptych)
Hound
