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Entrepreneurship is a collective, long-term journey, much closer to a marathon than a sprint. The quality of your cofounders and early talents makes all the difference. Finding a cofounder even before the idea itself, sharing strong values, and building trust can be decisive. The credibility of your team will be strengthened by support programs and by setting up a strategic committee, or even a scientific board. To attract the talents who will open doors to clients and funding, it is essential to clearly define the profiles you need and to activate your network from the very start.
When it comes to entrepreneurship, the African proverb “If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, let’s go together” fully applies. Unless your goal is simply to launch a freelance activity, creating and growing a company requires bringing together a wide range of talents, scientific and technical, commercial, administrative, and financial.
Even startups aiming for a quick “exit” take an average of nine years to achieve it, according to median statistics from the investment bank Avolta. The entrepreneurial journey is therefore much closer to a marathon than a sprint, and it is most often a team sport.
Co-founders and Early Talents
Victor Lugger, cofounder of the Big Mamma Group and the startup Sunday, insists on this point when he says: “Don’t start a company on your own: it’s too hard and not nearly fun enough. First find a cofounder—then the idea.” In his case, that alter ego was (and still is) Tigrane Seydoux, with whom he launched his first company before turning 30, on the basis of an idea quite different from the one that eventually blossomed into the phenomenal success of Big Mamma. Sometimes, the desire to build with an extraordinary partner actually comes before the business idea itself.
In a technology company, the range of skills required is even broader. Customers and partners are more likely to trust you if you have cofounders; starting out alone can even be a deal-breaker for potential investors.
Jointly drafting a business plan, along with the support of training and mentoring programs, can help you build the right team. Like incubators, these programs make it easier to find the needed talents: advisors, employees, interns. Your ability to attract top profiles will make all the difference.
Credibility Threshold and the Values Filter
Identifying and motivating talents depends on a bond as essential as it is hard to quantify: trust. Trust has both technical aspects, the ability to contribute to the project, and moral ones, namely the sharing of essential values. Building with mere mercenaries rarely works: they won’t last the distance and will leave at the first sign of trouble.
This “values filter” is underlined by François Pelen, cofounder of Groupe Point Vision, who met dozens of candidates before choosing his cofounders and main advisors. The quality of this extended team will largely determine your ability to secure funding, or even just to land your first clients if you are self-financing your growth.
A Strategic Committee Before the First Hires
Hiring employees requires a minimum of financial visibility to cover the related expenses. This step is crucial to avoid carrying the company on your own shoulders. To solve the Gordian knot of financial credibility with clients, public partners, or even investors, some entrepreneurs immediately set up a strategic committee, or even a scientific committee. These bodies, which are more informal than the boards of directors of established companies, bring many benefits in terms of decision-making, credibility… and serendipity.
Having the right contacts at the right time is a decisive advantage. It pays to be clear about the profiles you need and whether the collaboration should be occasional or ongoing.
Formalizing the Profiles You Seek
There is a middle ground between permanent improvisation and a five-year Soviet-style plan that is as Kafkaesque as it is ineffective. Many entrepreneurs later regret their initial “make-do” approach when choosing cofounders, advisors, or their first employees. Formalizing the profiles you are seeking becomes essential, and calling on professional recruiters often systematic, in order to reduce the cost of mistakes.
Startup founders are fond of interns to help them manage the many tasks at hand. While such resources can be extremely valuable, it’s best to avoid misunderstandings: just like with a traditional hire, you should formalize the following elements: job title and reporting line, missions and responsibilities, working conditions, skills and aptitudes required.
Networking to Build Credibility
The paradox every entrepreneur faces is that you need to surround yourself with top talent in order to grow; yet at the start, you rarely have the means to pay them. You therefore have to convince them to help by engaging in a form of intellectual venture capital, whether for the promise of future financial return, or simply because the impact of your project is compelling enough on its own.
There may be no universal recipe for entrepreneurial success, but building this critical mass of credibility will open many doors and save you from exhausting yourself as a one-man band, when the essential mission of an entrepreneur is, above all, to find clients and talents.
