创业公司如何选择初期员工

    芝加哥crowdSPRING公司的创始人罗斯•金巴罗夫斯基说：“那些喜欢问‘为什么’的人，往往比喜欢问‘是什么’的人有更好的好奇心和创造力。这样的人通常不会总是让别人听他们讲个不停。

保持透明

    一旦员工加入公司，创业者需要保持这些新人的工作动力、效率和愉快的心情。通常情况下，初期员工加入初创公司是因为他们想成为创业项目的一分子，见证一份事业从零起步的过程。

    “我是Mediaite的第一个员工，”斯科拉说道。“我喜欢在白纸上构思草图的感觉。指着一样东西告诉别人说：‘是我创造了它’，这种感觉非常有成就感。”

    就算初期员工充满激情，创业者仍然需要悉心呵护，保持员工们的热情之火不会因为挫折而熄灭。这往往是创业者面临的最大挑战。

    如何才能做到这一点？玛利亚•赛德曼介绍了她的理念：“像对待共同创始人一样对待每一个初期员工。向整个团队保持透明公开，与他们分享公司的起伏涨落。这样，公司里的每个人都能知道公司的具体状况。如果你在创业中面临很多事情，无法完全掌控，这时，你可以营造一个透明公开的企业文化，放心大胆地让公司团队自发运行。

    归根到底，许多杰出的人才都希望寻找更有意义的工作经历，所以才有人会选择加入初创公司，而不是规模更大、更成熟的公司。许多初创公司的初期员工都愿意为了更有意义的目标，放弃稳定和金钱。“生命匆匆，不容虚度，”曾在AddThis和HelloWallet两家初创公司中参与初期工作的贾斯汀•索普说。“我选择了能让我发光的工作。”

    法兰克•格鲁伯和简•康萨尔瓦是TechCocktail的共同创始人。这是一家媒体公司，为创业公司、创业者和技术狂热者提供活动组织服务。

    译者：周详

    When hiring, Ross Kimbarvosky of Chicago-based crowdSPRING often looks for communication cues to help find the best early employees, "People who ask 'why' questions (rather than 'what' questions) tend to show a greater degree of interest, a more creative potential, and typically reflect employees who don't need to hear themselves talk all the time."

Keeping things transparent

    Once an employee is on board, founders need to make sure those new hires remain motivated, happy, and productive. For the most part, early employees joined a startup because they wanted to be part of a business project where they get to see things grow from the ground up.

    "As the first person at Mediaite," Sklar explains, "I loved the idea of building something completely from scratch. It's enormously satisfying to point to something that exists and say, 'I made that happen.'"

    Even if an early employee has the passion, the employer still needs to manage them well enough to keep that flame going amid the rough patches, which can be one of the biggest challenges for founders.

    How do you pull this off? Maria Seidman explains her philosophy, "Treat every early employee as they were a founder. Be totally transparent with your team and share with them the ups and downs along the way. This way, everyone has context for what's happening, and while there are many things you can't control in a startup, you can foster a culture of transparency and trust which is in itself motivational."

    At the end of the day, many talented people are looking for a more meaningful work experience, which is why some people join startups over bigger, more established companies. Many early startup employees are willing to trade the perception of stability and more money for that added sense of purpose. "Life's too short to feel like you're doing nothing," says Justin Thorp, an early employee with both AddThis and HelloWallet. "I wanted to do something where I was thriving."

    Frank Gruber and Jen Consalvo are the co-founders of TechCocktail, a media company and events organization for startups, entrepreneurs, and technology enthusiasts.