A good friend of mine recently sent me an email that included the following. Since I could not agree with it more wholeheartedly, I figured I'd post it verbatim.
"I know that the following has been said a million times and that we've talked about it several times, but it's on my mind so I'm writing it down again.
I'm finding more and more that all I care about in my work life is finding a fantastic group of people with whom to work. Of course I would love to have a triple high of people, project, and market (great people, fun/hard problem, large potential win), but if I had to choose only one of those, it would always be people. A fantastic group of people with a crappy project idea and piss-poor market, in my view, have a much greater chance of success than any other imbalance. The right people will find a way to make something work and be successful over time. The wrong people can take a fantastic product in a red-hot market and drive everything into the ground.
[T]he best advice I have for you is this: UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES make any one of your first ten hires anything less than an outstanding, 10's from all judges, blow your head off superstar. Then tell them to hold the same standard for their first ten hires. And so on. In every case where I've filled a seat under time pressure instead of waiting for the right person, that seat-filler has done far more damage than waiting another few weeks to hire ever would. It's just *never* been worth it.
So, that's the number one thing I'm thinking about when I look at what to do next."
Venture Capitalists look for lots of different things when vetting an opportunity. The market. The technology. The channel strategy. The financial performance. The patents. The platform. The balance sheet. And on and on. But hands down the most important thing is the people. As my friend says, the right people can fix a company that is broken but the wrong people can only break it. At the end of the day, being a successful VC is about betting on the right people and giving them the freedom they need to figure out their own business.
I could not agree more. I founded a company and right after I got funded, the VC guys in my a round put into my Company a bunch of slackers with MBAs. I had to get rid of them all and buy back the company so I could start to build a better team. Your last line about letting the managers figure out the business is what all great Companies do. Sam Walton opened his second store after the first one failed and the third one five years later.
Posted by: Dan Cornish | 04/12/2004 at 07:36 PM
Airpath Wireless is a company notorious for taking advantage of its people. They have churned through many of its employees and still has not learned the points you have made. If employees, customers and investors were valued by Airpath, or any other company it would make a huge difference in its performance. Instead, when people are treated like pawns...everybody suffers...espcially Airpath.
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