Finding top talent is a challenge for any company, but for a startup it is crucial for success. Traditional methods of finding employees have been replaced, unsurprisingly, with online networking and target marketing. There are several things you can do to increase the odds of finding the right talent to help your company grow.
1. Attend the right networking events. If you are seeking a rock star developer, don’t attend networking events focused on the joy of knitting. Develop a pitch aimed at interesting the right prospective candidate and go where those prospectives are. Startups have to compete against larger corporations that may offer bigger salaries and more advanced technological capabilities, so attending the right networking events is the first step to poaching top talent.
2. Target specific individuals and offer them a personalized benefits package. If you have a developer on your radar and you know that recent events in her life make working remotely a very attractive option, offer that option to her if you have the financial and technological means to make the option a reality. A top candidate can save you time and expenses when timely deployment of your product is a major concern.
3. Tap your personal network. By tapping into your personal network and the networks of your contacts, you can assess the qualifications of candidates who are well known by people you know and trust. This brings the right applicants into the fold more rapidly and cements a team atmosphere.
4. Make your company a great target for highly skilled job seekers. Create a name for your company that draws both consumers and employees to you through your standard offerings and uncommon perks. Establish an internal referral program that encourages current employees to recommend top talent for open positions.
How to Prepare for an Equity Financing
We have covered in past FTTWs how to value your startup and how much capital to raise. Once your startup decides to pursue equity financing, you should start to prepare for the investor due diligence process. On the business side, you will need to prepare a business plan and should take steps such as obtaining management references, interviews and background reviews, customer/user references, technical/product reviews, financial statements and business model reviews.
What Every Startup Needs to Know
On Wednesday, June 26th, Perkins Coie’s Palo Alto office hosted the startupPerColator event, “What Every Startup Needs to Know.” Lowell Ness, a Perkins Coie partner in the Emerging Companies & Venture Capital (ECVC) practice, moderated a panel which included Herb Stephens of NueHealth, Thomas Huot of VantagePoint Capital, Jennifer Jones of Jennifer Jones and Partners, Yuri Rabinovich of Start-up Monthly, and Olga Rodstein of Shutterfly.
Surviving the Series A Crunch: Financing Alternatives
The “Series A Crunch,” which is the significant decline in the number of startup companies per quarter that are completing their first equity financing, appears to be deepening.