Team

How should your initial team look like?

It's hard to say. When I started thinking of flyiin as a venture, I had grand plans for the organization's structure—all heavily documented, as you'd expect from someone who had spent (too) many years in large corporations. The reality is that there's no universal formula for structuring your team during the early stages. The ideal setup depends on your business's nature. With limited funds, you should focus on recruiting talented, committed individuals who can quickly drive significant progress in crucial areas.

When structuring your initial team, prioritize roles critical for developing and rolling out the first version of your product rapidly. This approach allows you to validate your vision efficiently while conserving resources. For tech ventures, investing in a core technical team is the natural path—but it does not necessarily have to be a large one. My experience with flyiin showed that a small, well-crafted, and talented technical team can take you far. As founder, handle all other functions yourselves.

One crucial exception though: invest in a top HR person from the beginning. This investment will not only prevent numerous headaches later on, but also play a vital role in implementing a proper hiring process. You must approach this key aspect with utmost diligence from the start. Write detailed job descriptions, develop comprehensive interview questionnaires and technical assessments, and implement a structured system for evaluating candidates. This way, you will increase your chances to select the most suitable individuals for your team. Remember, at this stage of your venture, you can't afford to make hiring mistakes.

During flyiin's first phase, our B2C focus led me to be persuaded that we should heavily invest in product design and usability. The goal was to showcase how our Air Travel Marketplace concept differed from existing online travel agencies and metasearch engines. In hindsight, that was a mistake - resulting partly from my decision to bring a a branding and design person onto the company’s founding team. A simple design and digital experience would have sufficed. The 80,000 euros we spent could have been used much more effectively elsewhere—for example, in developing further tech capabilities, ensuring we went live, and supporting a beta release with our early adopters.

After pivoting to B2B and securing proper financing, my new co-founder and I built our first team. In retrospect, we didn’t do badly. Our technical team became a superb asset, instrumental in finding our way out two years later. This success stemmed partly from hiring a head of talent as our third employee. Her expertise enabled us to effectively screen over 150+ candidates throughout our journey. In contrast, one of the two hires we made before she joined turned out to be a complete disaster, underscoring the importance of a structured and focus hiring process from the start.

Of course, we made some hiring missteps, such as bringing on product managers - and even a salesperson (what was I thinking, really?) - when our product-market fit wasn't established. However, overall, our hiring decisions were mostly successful, thanks to our structured approach designed by our head of talent and the technical assessments put together by the tech team.

Key Takeway #20

When building your initial team, prioritize the most critical roles that will enable you to go to market quickly and validate your big idea with real customers. Additionally, hire an HR professional right away to avoid costly hiring mistakes in the early stages.