The best journeys are ones where you have a partner to share the experience with, and while there are single founder-led companies I feel it's far more enriching to make that trek with someone by your side.

In the course of my startup journey, I've seen (and taken) different routes that bring together a founding team. However, the ones that end up working well tend to have a couple of core traits that bind them together, ensuring that the ride to get to their destination isn't too bumpy - and maybe a little fun.

So how do you decide what traits are important to you when building your core team?

  1. Trust - The foundation of any relationship (business or otherwise) that ensures regardless of the issues of the day you have each other's backs. I've seen (and experienced) founding teams fall apart when they start questioning intent behind decisions taken. This can easily be traced back to a lack of trust or a lack of communication.
  2. Shared values - There are certain things that transcend formal conversations, presentations, and strategy - shared values. These are fundamental to who you are as individuals and forms a base upon which your organization culture is built. Attracting people who share the same values is critical, as it plays a huge role in how your organization actually ends up running. During the early stages of your company, it's important to define what your value system is so that when you start recruiting that message is front and center.
  3. Roles & Responsibilities - In your early days there will be instances where you might have to step out of your role to assist a partner, the "roll up your sleeves and dive in" part of startup life. However, this should not be an excuse to avoid building a framework that defines ownership and accountability. The cost of avoiding this results in expensive decisions in the short term and worse, a culture of passing the buck setting in.
  4. Leave your ego at home - If you've succeeded in defining a culture where your values allow open questioning there will be situations where people tell you what you’re doing is wrong. If you've been successful in defining a culture of trust and shared values you ought to know the feedback comes from a good place and in the best interest of the business. So take that feedback at face value, ego has no place within a founding team. 
  5. Communicate - We all communicate differently, some of us tend to speak our minds more than others. However, that does not mean the people around the table are any less smarter than you. As a founder, you should be focused on communicating better, but equally important - understanding what the other person is trying to get at. This is something that generally takes time as you start to build an understanding of how the other person operates. Regardless of these nuances, which can be frustrating at times, you have to make it a point that you're all on the same page otherwise the company will be pulled in different directions.
  6. Healthy debate - There has to be a level of healthy debate and tension maintained within your founding team. If you aren't pushing each other outside your comfort zone you aren't learning as much as you could be or pushing the business to be the best it can be. Again, if you've ensured the traits above are firmly in place the debate remains where it should be - in a healthy, respectful zone. If not, the conversation invariably devolves into an argument.
  7. Work - Your ass off! There is no substitute to consistent hard work and hopefully, that's ingrained into your culture and your founding team.

While these traits are intrinsic to building great partnerships they could be applied equally to the teams that you are trying build.

So, what traits do you look for in a founding team?

If you found this article interesting, there are links to others below. Feel free to share!