Before CES took over our newsfeeds this week, we found this video (at the bottom) from Forbes. In it, Sean Parker gives some WorldChanging advice to two young entrepreneurs. Three times, Parker reinforces that above all else the most important thing for an entrepreneurial startup to possess is a TEAM that can execute on a vision, whatever that vision might be.
The two young entrepreneurs, a nanotech hacker who has discovered a way of reclaiming the carbon from manufacturing exhaust and another who is using Facebook groups to facilitate the connecting of recipients and blood donors during times of crisis, got the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a chat with the serial co-founder. For some unexplained reason, the discussion occurs while standing in a desert-like setting.
You may not be directly familiar with Parker, but you're definitely familiar with the product of his work. Parker has been the co-founder of Napster, Plaxo, and Causes. And as if that wasn't enough, he was also the founding President of Facebook - a contribution made infamous by Justin Timberlake in the movie, "The Social Network". "A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? A billion dollars." Yeah, that guy.
In the video below, the two aspiring founders tapped Parker's wisdom and asked about the three most important things venture capitalists look for when evaluating young startups. Parker responds with:
- "Team"
- "Team"
- "Team"
Parker goes on to elaborate that a team is most important because it gives VCs and the rest of the investment community confidence that the team can execute on the vision.
- "Build a complete team around what you are doing. You shouldn't be stingy about it. Your biggest challenge as an entrepreneur, is not concealing your idea from others or keeping it a secret - it's convincing people that you're not crazy and that you [have a team that] can pull this off."
When asked how Team could possibly be more important than the startup's particular approach to solving the problem, the serial-cofounder-turned-investor helped us to understand that often, with startups, the vision changes from the original proposition (see Groupon & Paypal). In these cases, startups need a team that's agile, nimble, and talented enough to create a compelling new vision and then execute the revised one. Young startups often need to change their vision as their implementation and monetization plans begin to materialize and as the market begins to respond to the early versions of the product. Only those with a solid team can survive getting sent back to the drawing board.
Naturally, in every startup, the balance of skillsets needed is slightly different, but in every company you need a complete team. In Parker's opinion, and we can't disagree, a complete team looks like this:
- The Visionary: An agile & nimble leader who can come up with lots of ideas.
- The Core Technologist: A hard core developer who can build the initial technology.
- The Engineering Lead: Someone who is not the creator of the technology, but who can scale the technology team.
- The Operator: Someone on the team who can watch over the business, do deals, manage Human Resources, operate the company, & deal with Legal.
Thanks, Sean Parker and thanks to Forbes as well for sharing this with us. Now, can your startup Change the World?
