The Soul of Startups

CHAPTER 3The Talent Acquirer

Every time I read the startup news, I find a unicorn popping up or another startup that has outgrown itself in the shortest period. We all become so excited about these new businesses when we read titles like,

N26 reaches 1000 employees in 6 months.

Elemy reaches unicorn status, at 1000 people in 17 months.

New unicorn startup Hopin triples its employees in mere 8 months!

What does this tell you? It tells me that these companies have gone through tremendous growth and are labeled as massive successes to their investors and the public. There is a constant stream of demand for their products. And their capital is secured by growing the teams building these solutions.

There is absolutely no shame in this. However, I find these articles to be incredibly misleading. What we fail to notice is that these companies get a head start with this good publicity. They talk about how much they've grown. Then, we see headlines like “Uber's culture takes a hit as we witness mass exodus this summer.”

Every time I read a piece of news like this; it makes me cringe a little. My skin crawls because I have lived through it. I've experienced this from the inside many times. It feels like this type of evolution is doomed to repeat itself again and again. My usual reflex is to do a little bit more digging. I do this by asking the following questions.

• How many employees left before they hit the first 1000?
• How long did it take them to get to the first 1000?
• How big is ...