Building a committed, motivated team

Corporations invest in employee experience because, to get things done, they need workers, good workers are difficult to recruit, and unhappy workers leave. All this is true for startups, too. Unfortunately, startups are resource poor, and cannot invest nearly as much in affordances like perks and career development.

So what can startups do to retain great employees?

The most important thing is to hire the right people in the first place. Workers have diverse motivations and values, and when you hire someone with desires you cannot satisfy, you’ll expend significant energy placating them. No matter what you try, they’ll continue to complain, and eventually leave, feeling cheated due to poorly managed expectations. Instead, startups need to hire people who define success the same way the startup does.

• Only hire someone primarily motivated by money if you can give that to them. A salesperson motivated by money will thrive under an uncapped commission plan. An engineer who you can only afford to pay at market or below will never feel satisfied.
• Some people are motivated by career growth and want to lead a team. Never hire these people as individual contributors if there is no line of sight for them to achieve this.
• If someone is motivated by career development and training, only hire them if you actually have time to provide this. Otherwise, it’s better to hire someone more experienced.
• Never hire someone who would rather slowly produce quality than quickly produce results. These people belong in a more established company.

When an early stage employee can satisfy their own needs by simply succeeding in their role, you’ll achieve better results with less management overhead. When an employee needs more than you can give them, they will distract you from focusing on the most important things. 

The most important thing to hire for is startup metabolism. Some people just move more quickly than others, have a high tolerance for stress and whiplash, and are desperate to prove themselves. Others are self assured, meticulous, and sensitive to stress, risk, and disorder. These people belong in bigger companies.

The ideal startup employee knows enough to do their job without training or handholding, but is still hungry to prove themselves. These people will work smart and hard. They’ll mostly motivate themselves.

Your goal as a leader is to create a fulfilling work environment. Not a fun, pleasant, easy, orderly, low stress one. Being honest about that will help you to build a high performance, low management overhead team.