Startup From The Ground Up: Practical Insights for Entrepreneurs, How to Go From an Idea to New Business by Cynthia Kocialski

Author:Cynthia Kocialski
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-06-12T06:00:00+00:00

Good part-time employees are difficult to find. They are more dedicated than volunteers because they are paid and feel obligated to be productive. The best part-timers I’ve ever dealt with were the attorneys who negotiated one of my start-up contracts, licensing agreements, and partnerships. These attorneys were fabulous — they were highly skilled, responsive, focused on being productive, and efficient. I dreaded whenever our work was moved to a full time partner; the service declined as my start-up didn’t get much attention. On the other hand, I hired a part-time engineer on the recommendation of one of my better engineers. This part-timer had a day job and wanted to moonlight. He would spend extra hours at his full-time day job, then he wanted to play on a soccer team or act in a local community theater, then he wanted to spend time with his family—and only then was he willing to work. He would turn in time cards with only a few hours a week recorded, much less than the required 20 hours per week. Not only did we have to let the person go, but we had to recover from the lack of productivity. If the part-timer has another full time job, then pay for deliverables, not by the hour (regardless of whether payment is cash or equity). Part-timers work well when they are seasoned and don’t have another full time job. If the company’s regular employees come into an office, require these team members to do so too. If they don’t want to work in the office, consider paying on a deliverable basis.

Part-time employees or volunteers are used in marketing as well. Marketing requires the person to be out among the customers and industry gatherings, and this is difficult to do on part-time or volunteer basis. It’s difficult to track people down, set up appointments, and attend meetings on limited hours. Appointments that could normally take place in a week stretch to four or six weeks. Only the rare individual has the discipline to work from home effectively or to perform the volunteer role in additional to their normal day job. The best odds of succeeding with this type of work force are in roles where the job function requires little collaboration and the tasks can be broken up into small segments. Even then, it’s best to have an office where they are scheduled to come to work at specified times. Like it or not, workers without paychecks aren’t committed. While the approach works with unpaid interns, these interns are supported by their parents. An intern is looking to gain experience. While it still won’t make the situation as good as full time, paid employees, it’s the next best alternative.

As much as most people don’t want to admit to the uncomfortable truth, we all engage in what I call unconscious discrimination. People hire people like themselves. If a company was founded by an immigrant, the majority of the staff will have the same ethnicity. If a company is founded by Ivy League school graduates, many of the staff are Ivy League graduates.

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