Chapter 29Hiring and Managing Your Team
When I started my first company, DataWare Logic, I (Will) simply didn't understand how critical hiring and managing are. As it turned out, that really didn't end up being too big a mistake since the company blew up before I could hire many people. But, when my second company, Viewlogic Systems, started growing quickly and issues from hiring errors and poor management started piling up, I learned my lesson. Not only is hiring and then managing well important, it needs to be part of the daily thought process for each founder and manager.
There was one incident that solidified this concept for me. I had hired someone for a major project that was an integral component of our first product. They had a great resume and interviewed well. After hiring him, I thought I was on top of his efforts. He seemed to be working hard and getting things done. Months later, another co-founder pointed out to me that, in fact, the person hadn't really gotten anywhere. When we dug in further, we discovered that he lied on his resume and was, in fact, lost in the project. I didn't see it. Not when I hired him and not as I managed him. It was a terrible failure that set us back.
Obviously, I had to improve as a manager, but I needed help. Even though we were a fledgling startup, we made the decision to hire a full-time HR person to take control of hiring and watching out for management issues. It worked out great. The VP of HR made the hiring process much more ...
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