Imagine as a start-up being able to engage a Michael Jordan level specialist skill to score a few points and coach your (basketball) team at the same time, whenever you need a healthy injection of specialist skills, energy or knowledge. Sure this increases the chances for start-up success beyond 3 years.

Keep this thought for later.

The fight is on

For the strong hearted ones who decide to start their own businesses, the fight is on even before day 1.

With the knowledge that half of start-ups fail just in their first year, the odds are not great. Founders have no option to ease off on the entire basket of things that simply have to operate to a certain optimal level of harmony in order to succeed.

There’s no doubt though that we are all in for start-up success.

Why start-ups fail

The truth is that many do not succeed though. So much so that there is a mountain of research and analysis of why a start-up fails. CB Insights offers one such research paper showing that of the top 20 reasons.

2 of these reasons coming in at positions 12 and 3 related to teams.

This is unsurprising.

HR is the last thing on the mind of a Founder. A Founder focus is trying to swiftly build customers, get returns and the right skill-sets – all external focus areas.

However, dealing with developing an internal working culture and high energy teams who work well collectively should as well be an area of focus.

In the long run however, the internal, essential skills and team integration factors, prove to be as important as any others.

Learn from the winners

Netflix values effective teamwork so highly, that they get rid of those super intelligent employees, but who happen to be workplace jerks. They also do the same for average performers within great teams.

While some companies tolerate these in the hope that the average ones lift their performance levels to that of the herd. Netflix feels the opposite is more likely and that the team performance, overall, suffers.

Given the importance of building effective teams for business, a start-up needs to ensure that the formative period includes a deep focus on ensuring its people not just have the right skills, which is complex in itself to determine, but also are a good fit with the company’s working style, and indeed each other.

Founder burnout is a thing!

There are many resources out there to help a start-ups with this. Unfortunately none to compensate for the most valuable resource in a start-up – that of its founder’s time.

Founder burnout is also one of the top 20 reasons in the CB Insights research paper.

It seems unfair to also ask founders to dedicate vast amounts of time to interviewing and assessing for their startup teams.

Fortunately, they don’t have to, and neither do they need to allocate budget towards hiring HR teams to undertake these important assessments and integrations on their behalf.

By using contingent or freelancers over platforms that provide assurance and top quality advisory, new businesses can tap into global HR expertise as needed. And at a fraction of the cost of a regular hire, or using a traditional consulting firm.

Why HR on-demand

These on-demand platforms are great for a start-up success not just for the ability to get Director / Partner-level expertise at junior consultant rates, but also quality assurance and, paradoxically enough, also consistency.

As freelancers over platforms like One Circle dip in and out of projects, they retain the internal knowledge of that company’s intangibles, like working style and culture.

This is akin to banking change specialists with intricate company affinity “in the cloud” to draw upon whenever needed.

Most importantly, with these obstacles removed, a start-up can build superbly integrated teams from the outset, which will allow them the fastest route to succeed.

Start-up success beyond 3 years suddenly becomes more probable.

Save your funds for what drives growth

With reasonably priced access to the best HR skills to support them, founders and investors can rest assured that the cost of talent flowing into their operations yields the desired returns, sustainably, over the longer term.

While all businesses aim to make profit, doing so with a multiple approach to the definition of “capital” is paramount to meet the challenges of future generations.

You don’t want to necessarily spend your funding money on big consulting brands if you can get hands-on consultants directly to get the work done. Right?!

For new business owners and start-up founders, using these platforms is like being able to engage a Michael Jordan to score a few points coach their (basketball) team at the same time, whenever they need a healthy injection of specialist skills, energy or knowledge.

They will also significantly enhance the teamwork factor in startup companies, which is a not-insignificant contributor to startup failures according to research.

This should be of great interest to investors as well, as it de-risks their investments in startups if less of them fail.

Reach out

Small business owners, REACH OUT to get a personalised consultation on how to use a platform to get your teams build solidly, effectively and, most crucially, collegially!

To get you started, here’s our Start-up Guide – When to Hire HR Expertise.