【Lesson #4 - Hire slow, fire fast】
Just as excess fat can lead to clogged arteries and increase the probability of heart attacks, non-performing co-founders or team members can slowly (or in some cases quickly) kill your company if left unchecked. In my recent conversation with Hai Nguyen, founder & CEO of Canavi (AW#20), a tech-enabled recruitment platform based out of Vietnam, he talks about how giving a pair of bad apple co-founders free reign almost led to the demise of his first business, while stressing the importance for first-time founders to foster the discipline required to maintain a lean and entrepreneurial team.
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My first business was a video production agency. After managing to build it up to a decent size, I realized just how inexperienced I was as a founder and eventually brought on two other co-founders with more industry experience to help the company scale. One came from 6 years of experience at a digital marketing agency and the other was previously a marketing director at a large corporate. Now, the typical startup playbook will have you create an MVP first to test out market demand, firing bullets before cannonballs, if you will. But, right off the bat, my co-founders came in guns blazing, purchasing top of the line equipment, hiring new staff, and generally throwing money at problems whenever they arose.
Eventually 6 months went by, with no new clients and no additional growth in revenue. Existing clients felt underserved, staff were not happy, and I eventually found myself stuck between a rock and a hard place. Since I was new to the whole startup game, I doubted myself and thought just maybe they were right, and that perhaps we just needed a little more time for their plans to pay off. But when you find yourself on the brink of bankruptcy, your perspectives tend to change—you go into survival mode. It was my first time firing anyone, and boy did it impact me. I spent 2 days sulking at home, just sitting with those feelings. But after getting past the trough, I went back to work and set our priorities straight, allowing the company to become profitable again after 2 months and eventually acquired several years later by one of Vietnam’s largest media groups.
“Hire slow, fire fast”—everyone has heard of this concept and understands it thoroughly. But when it comes to implementation, many founders tend to falter. Perhaps due to a naive sense of optimism or a natural aversion to pain, or both, first-time founders often put off these hard conversations a lot longer than they should. Firing a non-performing co-founder or team member won’t kill your company, but indecision will, as startups are forever in a race against time. Maintaining a lean and entrepreneurial organization is paramount in maximizing chances of survival at the early stages, and that entails developing the discipline and foresight to endure short-term pain in service of long-term gain.
Applications for AW#22 are now open to founders targeting SEA, AI/IoT, or Blockchain/Defi -> http://bit.ly/386E7In
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