You’ve got a killer business idea, a fist full of cash, and enough marketing knowledge to attest your start-up’s worth – what’s next?
Now it’s time to hire some employees to do all the grunt work for you!
Determining who those people should be is easier said than done. While you may have your head in the clouds, wondering, “I’m going to be rich,” your hands are still tied because money is always tight for start-ups. Therefore, it is suggested not to rush through the process. The goal is to hire gradually and train your candidates thoroughly.
Since every employee tends to bring something new to the table, it is crucial to hire people you trust. The very best way to discover your initial team members is by personal recommendations and word of mouth.
But what are the first-key roles and positions you need to hire for running a start-up successfully?
The response varies depending on the type of organization/business. But below, you will find the roles undeniably necessary in a start-up and beyond.
- The Product Manager
If the product malfunctions, who do you call? The product manager, of course!
The product manager will be your go-to for everything related to your products. This valued team member manages the product vision, development, and marketing strategy. They typically work closely with the marketing and engineering teams to market and design the product.
A product manager loves analyzing traffic and building stuff. Often, they have an abundance of coding abilities and are also engineers but may lack an extensive interest/background in computer science. Still, product managers can effortlessly do a little bit of everything: customer development, rapid prototyping, designing in Photoshop, and analyzing conversion metrics.
In conclusion, without a product manager, your start-up will lack inventory management.
- Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
A team member specializing in MBA information technology management is vital for your business’s success, particularly for tech start-ups. You can also hire freelance back-end and front-end engineers, but it’s best to have someone by your side who can take charge of this sector. As your team progresses, this role can be further split into two distinct positions. The first, someone with the skills to determine what’s best for business. And second, some for supervising management and integration of various systems is crucial. They will need to consider everything from software to hardware and mobile technology.
- Operations Person
Frequently, you’ll see founders inhabiting this role, but regardless of who is doing it, someone who manages operations is necessary.
The operations person in a start-up is responsible for managing accounting, employee operations, invoicing, business filings, and typical day-to-day operations. Consider this person as a hybrid of a CFO-COO manager or Chief Anything Officer. Moreover, depending on the type of company, you may witness them focus more on sales, product, etc., and hand-over operations to a reliable operations person.
- Fragmentary Sales Person
Every start-up demands a person who knows how to manage superior-level sales that enhance your company’s stature. This salesperson needs to be scrappy and willing to dive into the details no matter the sales deal size. They must have the ability to schedule and hunt deals.
The salesperson will have little support in discovering leads than working for a well-reputed company, and they must get creative when hunting new prospects. Other than that, pipeline management is crucial for sales prosperity, and the salesperson must update and use your recruiting CRM dutifully with pertinent information.
- Data Scientist
Businesses today are grappling with the question: how to make sense of an inordinate stack of disparate data?
The ability to convert an ocean of data into usable insights can significantly impact business decision-making – from thwarting and identifying national security threats to predicting a new diabetes treatment. That is why government agencies and businesses are rushing to hire data science experts who can help do that.
Your start-up will not survive without a data scientist. These experts are big data wranglers, analyzing and gathering massive chunks of unstructured and structured data. Typically, their work involves making sense of messy information from sources such as social media feeds, emails that do not fit into a database, and smart devices. Furthermore, a data science masters salary is $100,560 per year. Ensure sure your team includes such a professional; otherwise, you’ll have nobody to handle stacks of data when there’s too much data to process.
- A Content Writer
The above roles may seem a bit more obvious, but an exceptional writer is just as necessary. Your content writer will craft rich product descriptions and web content, assist with writing SEO-friendly content, write email marketing campaigns, etc.
Your writer will help the founder communicate their vision to the outside, allowing your marketing and sales pros to design compelling emails that contain the benefits of your product. Beyond creating exciting product benefits, your writer must possess technical writing abilities for internal policy writing, user manual creation, internal process documentation, contract creation, and other technical writing duties.
Basically, content is everything, and without a good writer, you’re doomed!
- The Growth Hacker
Growth Hacker is another essential role that must be a part of your start-up.
This person is responsible for promoting the company’s service or product. Growth Hackers should be analytically-focused and data-driven. This professional aspires to know how customers think, how the start-up should appeal to them, and what the customers want. Unfortunately, this role is frequently cast aside, particularly during the early-stage progression.
Start-ups tend to put all their effort, energy, and time into creating the service or product they’re selling and then attempt to “market” themselves. The problem is, entrepreneurs often have limited knowledge of what marketing entails – that’s when a Growth Hacker comes in!
A Growth Hacker focuses on the bigger picture and thinks differently about the service or product, and iterates frequently. It’s safe to say that your start-up won’t survive without a Growth Hacker!
- Customer Service Representative
Indeed, customer service is paramount for every business’s success. Creating positive relationships with your clients and customers is the cornerstone of your brand.
It doesn’t matter how fantastic or beneficial your services/products are; if your business isn’t communicating effectively with its clients and customers, you have nothing! Therefore, having a professional who can handle customer concerns, calls or questions can boost your reputation. This is a role you’ll want to fill immediately.
The Verdict
The search is over.
There’s a lot more we can do in the start-up community to boost efficiency, but hopefully, these roles will help you fire up the engine.
By hiring skilled professionals to fulfill these roles, you can cover the basics for the time being and focus on your start-up’s growth. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth the efforts.
2018 ·