Convention often becomes counterintuitive for the entrepreneur starting a business, and this is a fact we see reflected in the stories of some of the most successful and groundbreaking business leaders of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century.
Sure, Steve Jobs may have benefited from TKI certification, but he still managed to build meaningful working partnerships with the right people. However, this type of certificate is fast becoming a staple in corporate environments. As an entrepreneur, your success may hinge on finding your own Steve Wozniak or Jony Ive. What’s more, finding the most suitable employees may be somewhat more challenging than you may expect.
Building something genuinely game-changing, something that will disrupt the market, requires vision, and that is where you come in. What you need to do is find the people with the skill sets to guide and shape your ideas into a business model that is meaningful and market-ready. Here are a few tips to help you get started on the right path.
Your Raw Product
Still using Steve Jobs as an example, it could be argued that he didn’t invent anything. This is both true and too short-sighted. Wozniak designed an essential gadget, which was incredibly impressive, yes, but the product was completely un-marketable.
Jobs stepped in with a vision– a plan on how to turn the initial concept into a business. This initial concept is what we mean when we talk about your raw product. When looking for a business partner, it would be best if you found the minds that can create the raw, unfinished physical product that you can shape and bring to the market.
Ideas Without Direction
There are tons of inventors and programmers who have an exciting product on their hands but do not have the foresight regarding how the product should be presented, launched, and supported. You need only find the idea that works for you, and then bring it into your business model.
You should also never restrict yourself to the most prominent applications of the ideas your team brings to the table. Remember that you are bringing individuals with great ideas on board precisely because they do not see the full potential of their invention.
Resolve Ownership and Rights
Before any collaborative work is done, you must clarify the legalities of the partnership. If they want you to turn their product into gold so to speak, then you need to iron out the details of ownership, shares, and dividends right from the start.
It may seem a bit extreme to demand ownership of the contributions of your team, but this is how business works. These individuals will be working for some incentive, be it a salary, share options, or a final payoff. These are legitimate payment methods. Hence the business owns the IP they generate while working for you.
Designers Whose Work You Appreciate
Jobs rather famously chucked the prototype of an iPod into a fish tank to show that there were still air pockets in it, meaning it could be smaller still. There are two lessons to learn from this.
First, it reiterates the fact that the man who brought these products to the masses was at no point designing them himself; he was exclusively guiding the design process. The second is that there should be no compromises in your vision for a market-ready product.
“No” Is Just A Bump in The Road
In the case of market disruption, “no” is just a word that a soon-to-be-former employee might dare to utter. This may seem both harsh and impractical, but in truth, it is a problem you can circumvent by working with designers and visionaries who understand your insights.
There is a fine line between honoring your vision and blind autocracy, so keep your demands in check with the development of the business and be very careful of exerting authority for the sake of it. It’s easier to lose key staff members than to find replacements.
People Who Inspire
Those whose work with you are an extension of your ideas, so it is very important that you find team members that will support your vision and help you grow to success. Whether the design is for the UX/UI of a new app or the production of a physical product, you will be disabled working with individuals who do not naturally share your aesthetic and practical sensibilities.
By applying these principles to the search for every member of your team, you will have a platform for bringing the right people together. The right people are rarely the brightest or most educated applicants. Instead, they are the members of a greater whole that bolster the success of the company.
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