In 2019 the failure rate of startups was around 90%. My guess is, that the number was even higher in 2020, amidst the pandemic. In any case, those numbers are quite staggering and, quite honestly, also one of the reasons I have an endless amount of respect for the steadily growing amount of entrepreneurs that are fearlessly jumping head-first into ambitious projects. Some of which have the potential to change the world.
So what separates the people who fail, from the 10% that actually make it? The truth is that many factors go into it, but to me, one of the fundamental ones is the team you surround yourself with. Granted, as you first start, you’ll be wearing many different hats until you find the right people to help grow your business. But, quite literally, the people you involve in your startup will be key for your growth, from business partners to co-workers. The foundation you lay is so vital. And if I’m being honest, it’s something I didn’t fully realize up until AvalonKing was founded. Heck, it even took some time in this company, too, before the other co-founder and I eventually sat down, virtually, and had a 3-hour conversation about our beliefs, values, and mission.
When I look back now, it’s one of those things that I can’t believe that I’ve never done to a similar extent in any other startup because it’s easily the thing that’s helped transform our company into what we are today. Below, I’ll go through some of the vital values we believe in and why they’ve transformed our organization.
But before we get into that, I want to tell you the story of how I met David Hall, a very business savvy and creative individual, who would later become my business partner and friend.
My short dropshipping venture
Let’s start with a bit of reference. It’s mid-2017, and I just launched a dropshipping business a few months ago. If you’re not aware, dropshipping is a business model where you basically sell other manufacturer’s products on your own website as it was your own. When the order is paid for on your website, you use that money to purchase the product with the manufacturer and have them send the order directly to the customer. It’s a model that allows you to start a business very frugally.
A combination of Facebook Ads and hard work turned my dropshipping business into a success, which got it acquired after only 3 months. Primarily because I wanted to build a business that actually provides real value to its consumers, and quite frankly, that is almost impossible to do with a dropshipping business for a multitude of reasons.
How I met the other co-founder, David
After I sold my dropshipping business, I was looking to start something new but wasn’t entirely sure how it would look like yet. Then one day, I see a post in a private Facebook group for entrepreneurs. David posted a video of a piece of clothing with beautifully branded packaging. It got my attention right away, mainly because he carefully described the process they followed to produce them.
You see, I’ve always gravitated towards people that provide value first, without asking anything in return. It’s the same model I follow, and it’s a characteristic I often see in very successful people. So not because of the beautiful branded packaging, but instead because David took his time to help others, I had to message him and give props for doing so. Over the next few weeks, we spoke about business and ideas. As we had similar business acumen, eventually, we arranged to meet up in Düsseldorf, Germany, for a few hours to go through a business plan that would involve a certain ceramic coating brand.
Since my flight was going back only 5 hours later, we stayed the entire time in the airport to work out how this entire thing would work. After about 4 hours, we had loosey planned how we would commence, what we would focus on, and how the structure would be. We said our goodbye’s and a few days later, AvalonKing was founded.
Throughout the conversations, I had with David, not only online, but offline, he struck me as a calm and down to earth guy, with a strong understanding of how business works. And especially his ability to creatively put together strategies around subjects and ideas.
Since we’ve been business partners, I’ve been reminded so many times of how egoless he is, and why we compensate each other’s competencies so well. A feature I’m especially proud of in him is that he will always do what’s best for the organization long-term, regardless of his potential personal preference.
So when you look for a business partner, make sure that you’re a good fit personally, and understand what you are — respectively — good at, so you can cover as large a work-area as possible, without outsourcing or hiring someone right away.
Putting together a team
Creating a homogenous group is not an easy task and not something that should be taken lightly. Personally, I draw a lot of parallels to a soccer team and how a team is constructed of 11 players that need to have each position covered. From the goalkeeper, defenders, midfielders, and forwards. Each position needs someone who’s an expert at primarily one thing, and understand their role on the team, in order for them to succeed. If we dig a bit further with the soccer team analogy, you often see the superstars of a team be visually demanding of the remaining teammates. That’s how it is in business as well. If you want to build a superstar organization, you have to hire A-team players only. The best people demand to work with like-minded individuals, and not slackers. If you don’t, they will look for new challenges before you know it.
If you want to build a superstar organization, you have to hire A-team players only.
The values we look for
I can’t tell you what values you should add weight to because if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it is that it needs to be authentic. You can’t just copy/paste the mission statement from your favorite brand and call it a day. If it’s not authentic, your customers or colleagues will see through it right away. That said, it’s always a good idea to see how the bigger brands formulate their vision, mission, and values, so you may have a better idea of how to formulate yours.
Here are some of the universal values we look for in A-team players.
Passion
Have you ever spoken to a salesperson who just didn’t seem authentic? How in the world is a person like that going to sell a product if he/she doesn’t even fully believe in it. Try this exercise for a second. What are you most passionate about in life? Maybe it’s your family, friends, hobby, job, or something else. Now think about if you had to explain why you’re passionate about it or them, to someone else. Regardless of how you would approach that, I’m certain, that it would be very authentic, and the sparkle in your eyes would show. For those same reasons, we want people that believe, what we believe.
You can be the best salesperson in the world, but if you don’t fully believe in our values and mission, it’s never going to work out.
Ever heard the quote by Mark Twain, “find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life”? While that statement — in my opinion — has its flaws, it definitely holds a lot of truth. Passion is one of the first things we look for when hiring. It’s the glue that holds everything else together. You can be the best salesperson in the world, but if you don’t truly believe in our values and mission, it’s never going to work out.
If you want more context about working with purpose and passion, I can strongly recommend watching this shortened TED talk by Simon Sinek.
Tenacity
Life isn’t defined by the times you fall down but by the times you stand up again. Some have it harder than others, and that’s just how it is. The way we get on about things and refuse to look at ourselves as victims is — to me — a way of showing what you’re made of, and that you’re tenacious, regardless of your situation.
If we circle back to professional athletes, it’s no coincidence that they succeed when so many others don’t. Yeah, sure, talent and genetics can play a big part, but talent will only take you so far if you’re not willing to sacrifice for what you want out of this life.
Try this. Think about a colleague, friend, or family member, that you have worked with in the past, perhaps on a project or a job, that just wouldn’t take no for an answer, and would always find a way to get something done, even if it meant sacrifice on their end. Now tell me, if you’re starting a company tomorrow, and can only hire a few people, would this person be someone you’d put your trust in? I definitely would.
Tenacity is probably my single biggest trait if I had to single-handledly attribute one reason to where I am today.
Curiosity
I will never stop learning. It’s the first thing that our Creed says, and it’s the most important line. There is always more to learn, and the enemy of this, is thinking you’re right, putting too much weight on your experience, or passing up an opportunity to understand someone’s point of view.
As humans, it’s so easy to get caught up on past experiences and get complacent. Understand that there is no such thing as a status quo. Every decision you’ve made in your life, hopefully, you have made with the best information you had available at the time. But if we’re always trying to learn, then our future selves will be infinitely better suited to discern and decide a course of action.
Bill Gates reads more than 50 books per year, and while I personally only read about 10-15 books per year, I wholeheartedly understand why he — and so many others — are curious by heart, and define themselves as students of life.
Communication
It’s said that communication is the oxygen of a distributed company, like ours. We all work from the comforts of our home, and while we see each other a few times per year, almost all of our communication happens over text, which means that everyone needs to be excellent writers.
We pride ourselves to have a very open mind-set and let anyone within our organization, raise constructive and respectful criticism. Actually, we encourage it. The conversations that offspring from it, will eventually lead us to be better. That said, everyone must also understand that once a decision is then determined, upon welcoming critique, they commit wholly.
The way I communicate is also very important. The more precise I can be, the better. As I wrote in my previous blog post, if I can get my point across in 5 min, instead of 10min, by communicating concisely, I have effectively saved almost an hour with our current team size.
Rounding up
When determining what’s important to your business, take your time and make sure you can align with the values. They need to be authentic. You can’t just half-ass this and think people won’t notice, because a business or a leader is only someone other people will believe in if you wholeheartedly believe in it yourself.
If you would have asked me about this 5 years ago, I would have given it little importance. My old thought process was frankly, that any company just needed to focus on selling products and making money. Not worry about values or a mission. And while you may get away with that in a small organization, I can guarantee you, that you won’t be able to in a mid to large size organization. People are too smart and want to feel part of something, that needs to be authentic.
Think about how you determine which friends you want to be part of your life long-term. What values do they have? My point is, that you already know how to determine what you want in your life. Now go put it to use, professionally.
At the end of the day, I now understand that in order for us to grow into what we want to be, our team needs to make it happen. And when I realized that, the whole approach revolves around getting the right people in, and how they fit into our culture. And I can honestly say that I’m really proud of each of my colleagues, as they’re all had their part in our success. But we’re still getting started though!