What Startup Resources do you Need?Resources at your startup company can be in the form of many types of individuals. Just some examples are listed below:
Use of temporary or staffing agencies can be a good idea so you can ‘try before you buy’ the person to see if they will fit in with the organization. It’s much easier to facilitate a change when a person is temporary than it is when they are hired as full time. One disadvantage to this approach is that the person can leave to go elsewhere at any time, which could pose a short-term problem, let alone all the time and effort invested in training that is essentially wasted. Sometimes an individual will leave because they were not offered a full time position so it is important to interview this person thoroughly just as you would a full time hire. Here’s a listing of some Temporary Agency websites for reference:
Whether you hire a full time, consultant or temporary individual, the keys are to make sure the niche is filled that needed to be filled, to maximize this person's value to the company and to only hire as necessary to conserve cash flow. Wearing 'many hats' at a startup company is expected and depending upon the skill set of this person, they will be expected to perform many duties. At any given time, I performed the duties of a Buyer, Manufacturing Engineer, Test Engineer, Stock Clerk, Driver etc. I knew that this was a requirement coming in so making sure expectations are understood is important. Having an Electrical Engineer count parts is not the wisest use of this person’s time but having a Buyer perform this function does make sense. Other attributes that are important to consider when looking for resources are as follows:
So who should you hire?Assuming you have an engineering staff in place and your ready to take the next steps into getting your prototypes or pilot units built, then I would recommend focusing on the following resources:
1) Operations Head View Operations Head 2) Buyer/Planner View Buyer/Planner 3) Manufacturing/Test Engineering View Manufacturing/Test Engineering 4) Configuration Management View Configuration Management
You are probably wondering why I haven't included a QA/QC (quality) resource function in this list and rightly so. At some point in time you will need this function but what I have experienced is that if your products are designed properly (DFM/DFT/CDR) with proper documentation in place, quality becomes a by-product of the design itself.
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