so you need to build a startup team and you don't have enough money to pay salaries how do you attract people to your company when you can't afford to pay them that's what we'll talk about in today's video hi i'm steve morris and i use this startup sos channel to provide practical how-to advice for new entrepreneurs building a growth company so it's a common scenario you need to build a team because there's a lot to be done and you don't have all of the skill sets required to do everything that needs to be done but
you don't have enough money to pay salaries so what do you do how do you attract a team well first of all it's important to realize that it certainly limits who you can recruit okay there are certainly people out there who can't even consider joining a startup unless they can get paid a salary now fortunately there are people who can afford to go at least for a while without receiving a salary that's who you'll be focused on but that's a subset of the potential population out there of people with the right skill set to join
your startup so you're going to be addressing a smaller set of recruits it's going to take longer it's going to be harder but is it doable sure it's certainly doable happens all the time it just takes a lot of work to recruit a team when you can't pay salaries so let's dig a little bit deeper into who you can recruit you'll be looking for people who can afford to forego a salary typically for one of two or three reasons number one they have the ability to keep their day job whether that's a full-time job or
a part-time job and that allows them to earn what they need to live on so they can afford to work on your company as sort of a side project now that's got the drawback that they're not going to be working full-time for you but hopefully they have the opportunity to convert to full-time once you're able to actually pay them a salary so that's one option another one is that they can simply afford to go without pay at all for a while because they have saved up the money or they have a high enough net worth
and that can be attractive because of course then they can hopefully work full-time again at least for a while without any pay one other option sort of a subset of that second option is someone whose net worth is high enough that they can actually not just work with no pay but possibly even be an investor in your company that's always an option to keep your eyes open for because that's a nice combination someone who doesn't have to have a salary for a while but who can also invest in the company to help you cover those
things that you do have to write a check for so those are some common scenarios in who you can recruit when you don't have enough money to pay salaries so what is it that you can offer when you can't offer a salary well i think the most important things that you can offer are number one an exciting vision a vision of the potential of the company and of course number two ownership a way for the team member to participate in the success in the company implementing that exciting vision so the combination of those two an
exciting vision and how they'll participate in realizing that exciting vision those are key things that you have to sell so what exactly goes into an exciting vision well i think there are a few things that make uh for an exciting vision number one a big opportunity uh an opportunity that's big enough such that in the future if the company does well and gets bought then the founders will do very well so that's the financial opportunity another part of an exciting vision is that the company is doing something important something that will help people or help
the planet something that makes the team members feel good about what they're doing that's an important part of an exciting vision another part of a vision is a sustainable advantage a reason to believe that your team can win in this market over other startup teams or other entrenched competition this is a very good thing for you to think through not just to attract a team but to convince yourself that you can actually win in this market what is your sustainable advantage do you have some patented technology do you have some knowledge that you can protect
as a trade secret that will give you an advantage do you have some key customer relationships that are an advantage or key vendor relationships that give you an advantage what is it that gives you an a sustainable advantage so that you believe you really can win in this market it's clearly an important part of pitching a prospective team member the other part of an exciting vision is a truly compelling unmet need and unhappy customers unhappy enough that they're willing to actually spend money on a better solution now you can talk theoretically about how you believe
that there is an unmet need because you've looked at the products in a particular market and you think they're lacking you think customers want uh something better but you have a much more compelling story if you can actually tell customer stories the kind of stories that come from doing customer discovery so i'd strongly suggest before you go try to recruit a team go do customer discovery talk to prospective customers understand that they are unhappy about what they have now and why they're unhappy and and make sure that they really are willing uh to spend money
on on a better solution if you have actual customer stories you'll have a much more compelling vision you'll have a much more compelling story to tell prospective team members than simply saying you believe there's an opportunity out there so do your customer discovery and come up with those stories that will really strengthen your exciting vision so that's what i'd suggest uh for your action plan to recruit a team when you can't pay salaries is create the most exciting vision you can by first of all sizing the opportunity convince yourself that it is a big opportunity
number two be really clear on why this is an important thing to do why the team will feel good about being involved in your company number three understand what your sustainable advantage is both so you can pitch your team members but also so you can increase your odds of success do your customer discovery so you have those stories from customers compelling evidence that there is an opportunity here and of course then create a compelling ownership offer that might be stock options it might be stock grants that probably vest over time whatever it is you'll need
to include in your compelling vision how it is that the team members will participate in the success of this compelling exciting vision so those are some ideas on how you can approach the challenge of building a startup team when you don't have enough money to pay salaries if this was helpful please click the like button share with other entrepreneurs leave a comment if you have any feedback or questions and if you haven't subscribed yet please do that and click the notification bell so you don't miss the next video coming up from startup sos that's a
wrap for this one thank you very much for watching
