The 7 kinds of employees every startup needs

A company’s success depends on its team members. A team can make or break an idea. The various quirks and attributes of the people on a team are essential for any business. Thus, building a strong team is important. A good startup team can help scale your ideas and stand by you in bad times. A bad team will add to the troubles of running a startup. So whichever domain you may be in, there are seven kinds of people you will always need in your organisation.

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1. The project managers: You may think you’re the project manager. In the first few days of starting up, this is indeed the case. However, as you begin to take charge of the bigger picture, you’ll need someone who can take care of your projects end to end on a daily basis. A good project manager is often a skilled administrator who enjoys working with teams and solving problems.
2. The sales superstar: Some people are just born to sell. It doesn’t matter whether they have a marketing degree or not, they just blend with the crowd and identify prospective customers in no time. What’s more, they turn up well prepared for every sales pitch, even if they have to do multiple meeting in a day. These are the people who will give you the elusive cash flow.
3. The tech genius: today, even startups that are not building technology-based products are still driven by tech. With even hospitals and education shifting towards adapting technology, you need someone on the team who can troubleshoot problems with your technology when needed. Needless to say, if you’re building a tech product, you need multiple tech guys.
4. The media mogul: by this, we mean someone with a good grip on content development and marketing. Web content is the new advertising - be it blogs, infographics, or just a regular tweet. You need someone on your team with a good grip on content development and social media trends. Even better if they have some SEO relevant experience.
5. The optimiser: they may have failed miserably at operations research in college, but these people understand that most problems only ever have an optimal solution. For abstract problems, they can help keep the peace. For more concrete issues such as a client who asks for too much discount, they know just how much you can offer.
6. The right-hand people: perhaps they’re a co-founder, or maybe they jumped onboard later when they loved your idea. They’re the only people apart from you who know everything about your business. These people often have multiple skills - they’re great negotiators, excellent time managers, and often have some understanding or experience in your domain. Never let them go.
7. The number crunchers: If the recent US Presidential election is any lesson, you know now what feeding the wrong data to a system can do. The number crunchers are experts in all things math and statistics, often coming with a degree in the field. We call them data analysts, and they tell you everything you need to know from inventory levels to sales trends in the coming season.

There’s no good business without a good team. Which of these people can you simply not do without?