I was having an amazing coffee with Nathan Sampimon and Ross Hill the other day, talking about life, business and (often) the new book rework by the guys at 37signals. But one topic that kept resonating in our caffeine laced discussion was one of getting the team together. I’d like to discuss this idea a little more here today
For me, the idea of getting the team together (think – we’re getting the band back together!) is something quite powerful. Pulling the team together is normally done in light of creating something meaningful and making good stuff happen. Nath does it with Inspire9, Nigel did it to win a national HPV event and even Tom Peters (the ‘uber’ management guru) suggests finding a ‘freaky friend’ to have coffee with before unleashing your new idea on the world. Pull your team together and begin working on it, secretly, until you’re ready to release something to the world.
So how do you pull the team together? Chances are, you already know who you want in your team. They’re probably #samehumans. Have coffee with them. Discuss the merits of the idea (and the scope!) and talk about all the things you WON’T do.
It’s easy to pull together the team when you have fireworks to offer: cash, equity, funding etc etc.But most people don’t have any real ammunition in their belts. Nor, I’m guessing, do you just yet. And that’s ok. You don’t need it.
So talk about the simplest thing that you will do together. Talk about how that will take you to the minimum viable product of what you want to achieve, and then figure out who else (if anyone else) you need to on the team to help make that happen. Don’t let the team grow to big – you don’t want to deal with that just yet. 3-4 is plenty and 2 is probably best. Agree on what you’re going to do, and then do it. And, as Sivers says, keep it secret.
Chances are, pulling the team together will help make something amazing happen, even if you’re not quite sure of what that is just yet. Don’t fret – just start with a coffee and see how it pans out.
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