How to Hire Co-Founders in a Startup Studio

Knowing how to Hire CoFounders is critical to the success of startups generated by a Startup Studio.
In this article, you'll find some tips to manage in the best way the recruitment process for Co-Founders to make your startups flourish.

Before starting here a quick recap of past articles:

• The Startup Studios advent in Italy
• History of Startup Studios Model: a 30-years journey
• Types of Startup Studios
• What’s the difference between Accelerators, Incubators, and Startup Studios?
• Startup Studio approach to market
• The Startup Studio Benefits
• How startups are crafted by a Studio
• How to validate an idea according to Jake Hurwitz
• Idea validation according to Brent Freeman

Now let’s take it a step further. Let’s dive into a new topic: hire suitable Co-Founders for startups created by the Startup Studio.

Some questions before starting to hire CoFounders

Co-Founders are critical for the success of the Startups created by a Startup Studio. You have the best team, you generated and validated an idea that works and you have dozens of investors. However, the Co-Founder chosen is not the right one. Then you will fail miserably.

That's the reason why it’s essential to choose wisely the next manager for your startup. Fortunately, or unfortunately, no employment agency for Co-Founder or an organization will provide you CVs and resumes; so you have to find the right channels to select and recruit them.

Before starting the selection process we suggest you think about the following questions:

1. Are you looking for a business person or an expert in product/service development or in a specific industry?
2. Do you need a veteran in the startup ecosystem?
3. Do you want to test the person on other Startups before becoming a Co-Founder?
4. Finally, is prior experience as a Startup Co-Founders a must-have?

Focusing on these points will help you to organize your hiring process and avoid assessing out-of-target profiles.

Tips on recruiting Co-Founders

Recruiting Co-Founders is not an easy job; He/she is not an employee, instead is a business partner.

Obviously, the Studio track record can make it easier, but if your Studio is at the beginning don't expect to have a long queue of people wanting to join your new adventure.

Remember, you need a trustworthy person to build and grow the new startup.

Some tips on recruiting:

• Be clear about what you and your team need
• Clarify the development stage of the idea/company
• What are your short-term goals?
• Find out needs and goals for the Co-Founder?
• Define together goals and milestones
• Seduce, convince and persuade. He/she must fall in love with the startup

Builders has identified some benefits to be offered to a future Co-Founder by the Studio. The aim is to attract the best people offering the most attractive conditions:

1. Hire experienced Co-Founders in managing startups and scaleups
2. Give the flexibility to focus on the most important things instead of wasting time on unuseful issues
3. Secure funding for the early stage phase
4. Provide a team of smart, competent, and passionate people
5. Offer compensation and equity
6. Operational and practical support provided by the Studio
7. Network of experienced advisors
8. Ongoing support for recruiting, accounting and finance.

Anatomy of a Co-Founder

There are no fixed rules to select the best cofounder. However, according to Alex Malexi, Managing Director of Idealab, some characteristics are really important:

• Knowing the right team he needs to develop the startup.
• He/She must concentrate on recruiting the right people.
• Being able to manage a team. As a good leader, he/she knows how to manage interpersonal relationships: unhappy people will leave the startup soon.
• He/she has to be a good storyteller. Storytelling is important to attract stakeholders (talents, clients, investors, etc.) that believe and invest in the project.
• Managing Fundraising. The future Co-Founder must know how to fundraise and how to deal with investors.
• Being passionate. Having passion and dedication is essential. Make sure your future partners have this characteristic.

According to eFounders, a good Co-Founder must have the characteristics listed below:

• Have the right ambition to bring a new product to market and make it scale
• Long Term Vision and ability to engage with team members, investors, and stakeholders.
• Have a deep product knowledge to deeply understand the entire development process
• Innovation focused to disrupt the entire industry
• Languages Proficiency to develop communication with foreign stakeholders
• Having an established network, even better if verticalized in a specific industry

According to Builders Startup Studio, the must-haves skills for a co-founder are:

• Passion for entrepreneurship
• Good knowledge of the startup world and the ecosystem
• Down to heart, problem solver, and proactive strategic thinker
• Being a strategist
• Being able to deal with the management and board
• Team management skills, make teammates flourish
• Fluent in English
• 5+ years professional experience
• Track record in a scale-up and/or startup, even better if international

Now you know how to hire CoFounders!

Questi consigli ti saranno certamente utili per il futuro. Tienili a mente e ricordati: fidati del tuo sesto-senso ma non troppo, ci sono alcune prerogative che proprio non si possono non avere per fare gli imprenditori!

Are talented people aware of their uniqueness? In many cases not. They are ambitious people, who always push their limits, who don't settle and aren't afraid of change, they are always waiting for it.

If you can't turn off your brain because too many ideas are floating in your head, if you don't identify yourself in a specific role, if your mantra is to learn something new every day, you're the perfect talent for our Dojo!