How to assemble a dream team without money. Experience FlowWow.com
In the last issue you saw how you can test an idea quickly and without money. It is simple and even interesting.
Today I will tell you how I have assembled a dream team - the Flowwow team, I will tell you about the mistakes that are often made and the peculiarities of the selection of employees by the example of my story.
About where to look for employees.
After Tolstoy Startup Camp, we were unexpectedly informed that the project team we were working on at the camp Bustourpro (SAAS for organizing bus tours) went to the first IIDF Accelerator , then a completely unknown organization. To be honest, after the camp I had a feeling that I already knew everything, and I didn’t really need training in some kind of accelerator, so I went only to those lectures that dealt exclusively with marketing, because in Bustourpro I was engaged in marketing.
')
After a while, I realized that the project is not going well, the value of the product is tight enough, and in the team no one wants to create a really cool product and earn money. Therefore, I gradually began to cool down to the project and deal with it less and less.
In parallel, I asked my comrade Vitalik to distribute the website design for Flowwow, the first MVP (minimal valuable product) + I started looking for a website developer. Someone said that the right specialist for little money can be found in Belarus. I turned to my friend from Minsk, the genius developer Artem Gambitsky, he thought and said that the task was simple and he was ready to take it.
Artem and Vitalik were with me at the camp. We worked in different teams. Both they and I didn’t fly projects and gradually turned into zombie projects. We kept in touch and ended up on the same team.
We started doing Flowwow. In just a few weeks, we did the MVP, it was very cool, because I had no such deadlines. It was a well thought out decision for future large-scale changes.
I remember that moment when I asked Vitalik whether he would work on the project and after we draw, he agreed with confidence, and I was delighted.
I remember how, in the process of discussing the cost of work, a thought flashed through me that it would be cool if Tyoma was on the team. Let me remind you, Artem Gambitsky is a person with high competence in development. I called him on Skype and asked if he wanted to join the project. He thought for a couple of seconds and agreed.
Then I called Slava Bogdan, my friend, with whom they came up with this idea and asked: "Are you in business?" He answered without hesitation: "Yes!". At that moment he worked in a large iConText agency, he is well versed in attracting customers and Internet marketing.
In general, projects such as Tolstoy Startup Camp , various accelerators are a great opportunity to find a team for your IT project.
Yandex, for example, very well selects people for the camp, there are people from sales and marketing, excellent designers and brilliant developers. People initially come to the camp charged to work and are ready to work for the idea, which is very important at the initial stage, if, of course, you do not have a lot of money from the very beginning to test hypotheses. I immediately recalled a lecture-story by the founder of “Ostrovka” about how they decided to make an aggregator of travel vouchers and poured a million dollars into the hypothesis test, in the end nothing came of it and they began to do Russian Booking.
My Fail Or how to select employees.
The team is not only the founders, but also the employees who work in the first stage, not for big money. When we were already accelerating FRIA, then we had the opportunity and the need to hire employees.
There was a funny case when I seriously selected an employee to receive calls, as a result, the choice fell on a young girl from Belarus, I thought that you need to take an “uncut diamond” and train her in everything that is needed. In the end, I taught her a month, every working day.
And here came a very important week for which I was preparing, it was 5 days of two flower exhibitions in a row in Moscow, and I left her alone to receive calls and went to the exhibition. On the second day of the exhibition, she told me that she was leaving for Belarus tomorrow. It was the greatest file, because I could not leave the exhibition, but I had to handle calls from customers.
About how I solved the problem of receiving calls that day, I will tell a little lower.
I invited two female students to the exhibition to work as promoters. I approached them and said: “Girls, throw lots and decide which of you will work at the exhibition, and who will go to work in the office”. One of them (Vera) went to work in the office. We sat with her in the evening, I explained the basics of working with clients, told how to answer basic questions by phone.
I returned from the exhibition and was shocked by how this girl works! For three days of semi-independent education she worked better than the young lady whom I had taught for a month and put all the strength and knowledge into her.
After that, I offered her a job, she agreed. Now our Vera is the most valuable employee, she does a lot of work and obviously works not for money, but for the sake of an idea. We sometimes think that we can give Faith control over the entire project and it will be even better.
I understood several important points:
- since we do not have the resources to train people for half a year, we need to clearly understand what kind of person you need and be extremely attentive at the initial stage of training.
- It is not always important whether a person has experience or not. Much more important is its learning ability, the ability to independently find the necessary information, responsibility and, oddly enough, adequacy.
How can you describe our team in one sentence?
This is a group of friends who work together, eat together, spend the night at the office, talk heart to heart, argue, argue and are ready for many things for the sake of others.
I know that this is one of the closest people to me. Each of us understands each other without words, I can look into the eyes of Slava or Vera, for example, and we will understand each other and do everything correctly, this is true.
Our team:
Slava Bogdan
Artem Gambitsky
Vitalik the Dodger
Kohl Kornyushin
Vera Modenova
Andrey Makeev
Conclusions and usefulness:
1. There are no people - look at various accelerators and camps, now there are a lot of them, there are a lot of your like-minded people.
2. Think rationally when you are recruiting employees, but sometimes turn on your intuition.
3. Spend a lot of time together, be close in spirit and in hobbies.
4. Read each other's thoughts.
5. Have a general idea and goal and move towards it!
The most important thing in recruiting a team is a common desire to make something worthwhile, a common vision of the result and a great desire to grow and develop.
PS: In the next issue we will talk about acceleration of IIDF.
Today I will tell you how I have assembled a dream team - the Flowwow team, I will tell you about the mistakes that are often made and the peculiarities of the selection of employees by the example of my story.
About where to look for employees.
After Tolstoy Startup Camp, we were unexpectedly informed that the project team we were working on at the camp Bustourpro (SAAS for organizing bus tours) went to the first IIDF Accelerator , then a completely unknown organization. To be honest, after the camp I had a feeling that I already knew everything, and I didn’t really need training in some kind of accelerator, so I went only to those lectures that dealt exclusively with marketing, because in Bustourpro I was engaged in marketing.
')
After a while, I realized that the project is not going well, the value of the product is tight enough, and in the team no one wants to create a really cool product and earn money. Therefore, I gradually began to cool down to the project and deal with it less and less.
In parallel, I asked my comrade Vitalik to distribute the website design for Flowwow, the first MVP (minimal valuable product) + I started looking for a website developer. Someone said that the right specialist for little money can be found in Belarus. I turned to my friend from Minsk, the genius developer Artem Gambitsky, he thought and said that the task was simple and he was ready to take it.
Artem and Vitalik were with me at the camp. We worked in different teams. Both they and I didn’t fly projects and gradually turned into zombie projects. We kept in touch and ended up on the same team.
We started doing Flowwow. In just a few weeks, we did the MVP, it was very cool, because I had no such deadlines. It was a well thought out decision for future large-scale changes.
I remember that moment when I asked Vitalik whether he would work on the project and after we draw, he agreed with confidence, and I was delighted.
I remember how, in the process of discussing the cost of work, a thought flashed through me that it would be cool if Tyoma was on the team. Let me remind you, Artem Gambitsky is a person with high competence in development. I called him on Skype and asked if he wanted to join the project. He thought for a couple of seconds and agreed.
Then I called Slava Bogdan, my friend, with whom they came up with this idea and asked: "Are you in business?" He answered without hesitation: "Yes!". At that moment he worked in a large iConText agency, he is well versed in attracting customers and Internet marketing.
In general, projects such as Tolstoy Startup Camp , various accelerators are a great opportunity to find a team for your IT project.
Yandex, for example, very well selects people for the camp, there are people from sales and marketing, excellent designers and brilliant developers. People initially come to the camp charged to work and are ready to work for the idea, which is very important at the initial stage, if, of course, you do not have a lot of money from the very beginning to test hypotheses. I immediately recalled a lecture-story by the founder of “Ostrovka” about how they decided to make an aggregator of travel vouchers and poured a million dollars into the hypothesis test, in the end nothing came of it and they began to do Russian Booking.
My Fail Or how to select employees.
The team is not only the founders, but also the employees who work in the first stage, not for big money. When we were already accelerating FRIA, then we had the opportunity and the need to hire employees.
There was a funny case when I seriously selected an employee to receive calls, as a result, the choice fell on a young girl from Belarus, I thought that you need to take an “uncut diamond” and train her in everything that is needed. In the end, I taught her a month, every working day.
And here came a very important week for which I was preparing, it was 5 days of two flower exhibitions in a row in Moscow, and I left her alone to receive calls and went to the exhibition. On the second day of the exhibition, she told me that she was leaving for Belarus tomorrow. It was the greatest file, because I could not leave the exhibition, but I had to handle calls from customers.
About how I solved the problem of receiving calls that day, I will tell a little lower.
I invited two female students to the exhibition to work as promoters. I approached them and said: “Girls, throw lots and decide which of you will work at the exhibition, and who will go to work in the office”. One of them (Vera) went to work in the office. We sat with her in the evening, I explained the basics of working with clients, told how to answer basic questions by phone.
I returned from the exhibition and was shocked by how this girl works! For three days of semi-independent education she worked better than the young lady whom I had taught for a month and put all the strength and knowledge into her.
After that, I offered her a job, she agreed. Now our Vera is the most valuable employee, she does a lot of work and obviously works not for money, but for the sake of an idea. We sometimes think that we can give Faith control over the entire project and it will be even better.
I understood several important points:
- since we do not have the resources to train people for half a year, we need to clearly understand what kind of person you need and be extremely attentive at the initial stage of training.
- It is not always important whether a person has experience or not. Much more important is its learning ability, the ability to independently find the necessary information, responsibility and, oddly enough, adequacy.
How can you describe our team in one sentence?
This is a group of friends who work together, eat together, spend the night at the office, talk heart to heart, argue, argue and are ready for many things for the sake of others.
I know that this is one of the closest people to me. Each of us understands each other without words, I can look into the eyes of Slava or Vera, for example, and we will understand each other and do everything correctly, this is true.
Our team:
Slava Bogdan
Artem Gambitsky
Vitalik the Dodger
Kohl Kornyushin
Vera Modenova
Andrey Makeev
Conclusions and usefulness:
1. There are no people - look at various accelerators and camps, now there are a lot of them, there are a lot of your like-minded people.
2. Think rationally when you are recruiting employees, but sometimes turn on your intuition.
3. Spend a lot of time together, be close in spirit and in hobbies.
4. Read each other's thoughts.
5. Have a general idea and goal and move towards it!
The most important thing in recruiting a team is a common desire to make something worthwhile, a common vision of the result and a great desire to grow and develop.
PS: In the next issue we will talk about acceleration of IIDF.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/291054/
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