Let’s Hear it for Builders!

Let's hear it for builders!

They're the pioneers who join a startup in its early days, who rally around the vision, the promise, and the founders, and who want to do the work of building something new. They're that breed of curious, problem solving Swiss army knives that founders rely on to keep the plane in the air while they're still building it.

In a startup, everyone is doing everything for the very first time, at exactly the same time. Maybe some on the team will have more experience than others, but no one will have experience in doing things in exactly this unique way.

And while it's true that someone with experience can help a team avoid common mistakes, being in a startup just means everyone gets to make an entirely brand new set of mistakes.

A team of pioneering builders will relish the work in battling through each step, solving problems, removing road blocks, learning, and fixing mistakes. Over and over again.

Founders are an amazing and rare breed of (partly crazy) visionaries that are going to take a ton of personal risks to forge ahead with their ideas, regardless. Regardless of how ready they are and without any real guarantee that they're going to actually be able to pull off what their heart has convinced them is possible.

Builders can frame and give shape to those dreams. They may not mortgage their houses to build the business, like the founders have, but they haven't picked an easy, risk-free path by any stretch of the imagination. They are no less entrepreneurial, and they are vital.

When you're growing your team -- both as a startup, and as you scale up -- hire experience where you can find it and afford it, but always look for builders.