New Venture Lab: Equipping Christian Entrepreneurs

Hiring the Right Team for a Startup

Question

I have a very early-stage software company and I am meeting with a venture capital investor and he will likely ask about my management team, which is not completely in place yet.  What kind of questions should I anticipate and how should I best present the team I have?

Answer

What investors will look for are the key leaders:
  • The entrepreneur (CEO)
  • The product leader (CTO)
  • The sales leader (VP of Sales)
  • The project management/integration leader (VP Professional Services)
  • The finance leader (CFO)
They will want to know these kinds of things about each member:
  • Has the team worked together before? (in other words will they be immediately effective together as a team or do they have to take the time to go through all the "forming", "storming" and "norming" stages prior to reaching the "performing" stage)
  • Have they (each member) had this type of job before with demonstrable success?
  • Have they worked on this type of product/solution/software before with demonstrable success?
  • Have they worked with this customer set/industry before with demonstrable success? (especially for the sales leader and CEO - do they have a deep Rolodex of industry contacts already or are they starting from scratch in order to build their sales pipeline)
  • Do they have a deep network of people that they have worked with successfully in the past that they can tap for this opportunity?
If a particular member of the team is not yet in place, you should have an ideal profile already created for what you are looking for and a strategy for how you will fill the position once you are funded.

Many times investors will have ready suggestions of talented folks that can drop into place that they already have a relationship with and they would in fact view your deal in a more favorable light by doing so.

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