How to Attract the Right Talent to Your Startup

Let me tell you. The secret to an effective startup that’s going to make a lot of money in the future is not the idea. I know that’s probably earth-shattering to you. Your eyes are probably as big as dinner plates after reading that sentence but let me repeat it, it’s not your idea regardless of how hot, how awesome, how earth-shattering you think your idea is.
Usually, what determines whether a startup is going to succeed or fail is the team behind it. Let me say something that’s even more earth-shattering. Everybody has a capacity to come up with a hot idea. Seriously. They’re a dime a dozen if you think about it. There are so many startups opening and closing every single day in the United States and everywhere else. The world does not face a hot idea shortage.
Ideas are like noses. Everybody has one. But a good idea is few and far between. I’m not saying that your idea is worthless. I’m not saying that your idea is not worth pursuing. I’m not making any of those claims. Instead, I just want you to look at your business from the right perspective.
What makes your business’ potential worth taking note of is the people behind the startup. You have to understand that since ideas are so plentiful, the big

difference really between companies that make it and companies that stay at the idea level are the people working with those ideas. Put in another way, how good is your team in turning concepts into realities that people can see, hear, touch, taste and smell? That is the answer that you should be focused on.
That’s why you need to attract the right talent to your startup or your startup is going to take a long time before it gets fully developed assuming that it even gets there. Make no mistake about it. There’s a tremendous amount of competition for startup funding out there, whether we’re talking about seed capital, angel funding, series one funding or secondary funding. It’s crazy.
There’s so much competition out there. It’s dog-eat-dog. We’re not just talking about competition within a sector. We’re talking about several sectors represented by the best and brightest people from the top universities from all over the world competing over the same pot of gold. That pot of gold is limited. There’s only so much that could go around.
This is why it’s really important to focus on tightening your business plan so that it can convince the right talent to join your team. You have to remember that the real visionary talents are not motivated by money. Of course, they’re going to need enough money to keep body and soul together but in the United States, once you pay somebody 120 thousand dollars to be part of your core team, that is enough because anything more really is gravy. Anything more really involves somebody who is looking for a career, not an entrepreneurial activity.
If somebody is claiming to want 200 thousand dollars, then that person just needs a job. That person just wants to work in a stable corporation so he or she can collect the paycheck every two weeks and move on. That’s not the type of team member you’re looking for. The team member you’re looking for is looking for enough money to make sure that he or she has their life taken care of. They have to make enough to take care of the basics and 100 thousand dollars is fine but anything past that, you’re looking at an employee. You’re not looking at a team member.
You have to attract that person with a bright future for your idea. Remember, these are idea people. They want to leave a legacy. They want to build something that they can be proud of. They want to be part of something that they can proudly point to and say, “This changed the world in its own little way.”
That’s why you need to tighten your business plan. Make sure that you are pursuing the right idea and assuming that you are, make sure that you present it in such a way that it would excite people. It would tell people, “This is what I expect from you and this is the kind of idea that you’re going to push.”
It’s the talent that makes up the bulk of the success of any startup company. Don’t let any hype or exaggeration regarding hot “can’t fail” ideas make you think otherwise. Your business will rise or fall depending on the quality of the people you attract. You have to get the people with the right principles, philosophies and mindsets to join your team. These are the people that will take your company to the next level.
If you think about it in broad terms and considering the gravity of their roles, they’re really not asking for much. So, you need to get together the right business plan, get enough funding, so you can attract the right people with the right pitch. That’s how you play the game.