The Most Essential Skills for Startup Hirees

Building a startup does not only require a personality full of ambition, ideas, and an impressive amount of talent, it requires an excellent team.

Unfortunately, no startup founder or business owner possesses all the necessary skills, and they should not pretend that they do.

Building a close-knit, functional team is as vital to the success of the business start-up as the founder’s skills are.

When you are building a team for your business, it is extremely important to understand what jobs and skills are in the highest demand, that way you will know where to focus your efforts.

Beyond plain ambition and drive, there are many learned and innate skills that are essential for potential hires to possess in the startup industry. 

Is it possible to make up for skills that the founders lack in employees? 

As we have mentioned, one individual can’t possess all of the skills required to build a successful business. It is also impossible to project what skills will be crucial in the future.

For these reasons, it is extremely important to build a dynamic team that can address different challenges and changes in the industry. 

It is possible to build the essential building block of a business on employees of the startup rather than on the founder. To successfully do this, startups need to actively seek out the best talent in accordance with the skills they need.

To do this, there needs to be a great effort to establish a great recruiting network. Startups should always be engaging passive talent, meaning searching for the best candidates whether or not they are looking for you.

By searching for the best talent and utilizing a solid recruitment process will grow your talent pool and really allow your talent to build upon your already started foundation to make your startup that much more successful. 

Why is it so important to carefully build a team? 

Carefully and meticulously building a team is essential to the success of your startup because like we have said, it is impossible to build a successful business on your own. You need to have successful and brilliant talent all around you.

Building a team does not always mean searching for brilliant people, but sometimes searching for pieces of a puzzle. Finding people that will work well together and bring different talents and skills to the table. 

Startups usually begin as a small business, meaning there are not a lot of employees. This means that each employee is even that much more crucial to the success of the company. Finding the right people to build this cohesive team is the most important part of this process.

As we have mentioned, the biggest challenge is not just finding someone who possesses the skills you are seeking but hiring that person and keeping them committed and interested in your mission. 

What essential skills do startup founders generally lack? 

Startup founders are usually full of ambitions and ideas, full of drive and vigor, but no one, not even the most talented founder, possesses all of the skills necessary.

There are a lot of skills and jobs that are relatively new to the job market.

As technology and software change and new only ones are developed, it is important to have people that hold those new and dynamic skills. As new software is developed, it can be hard to come by someone confident and skilled in their use.

That is why you need a team that is talented and gifted with skills that apply to many different areas of technology. 

Aside from the technical skills and talent that a startup founder may be lacking, there is the whole operational side that they cannot hold down alone.

Having a strong and cohesive operational team full of customer service representatives and salespeople is as crucial to a successful startup as the technology is. 

The most in-demand skills: 

Startup founders across the board all tend to agree about the most in-demand essential skills. The most in-demand essential skills for startup hires are tech-related.

According to a LinkedIn study, the most in-demand skills for startups are data analysis, python, Java, Salesforce platform proficiency, social media marketing, and beyond that are design, sales, and business development. 

• Data Analysis 
• Python
• Java
• Salesforce 
• Social Media 
• Design, Sales, Business Development

All of these positions are important and none should be regarded as less important than the rest. For a startup to function successfully, they need to possess talented people in each one of these roles. 

The demand for data scientists

According to the LinkedIn study reported in August of 2018, there was a significant shortage of around 151,000 data scientists. Past this, demand for data scientists is expected to grow a staggering 28% in the coming years. 

The reason for this is startups and other businesses produce and rely on a lot of data. Having a data scientist in your team that can measure, analyze, and finds key takeaways from huge masses of data is extremely important.

Whether or not you are looking to analyze this data on your own startup or compare it to a competing business, it is important to have a team member that knows what they are looking at.

Startups generate data from every single click and view by users, so there is always going to be a lot of data to analyze. As software changes, it is increasingly important to have someone who can keep up with these changes. 

Software Engineers 

It is no secret that software engineers are in high demand for many businesses and startups. In the next few years, the use of mobile devices is expected to increase more than six-fold.

In turn, the demand for software engineers is predicted to grow almost 25% between now and 2026. Finding a talented software engineer that fits in your team is a valuable team member not only to tech startups but to non-tech companies as well. 

Having a team member that is confident in using various software like Python and Java is crucial to the success of a modern-day startup.

Without having a software engineer on your team, it can be expected that you will be missing a piece of the puzzle and need to find one to hire.

It is worth it to focus on your recruiting to find someone that fits your team extremely well and will be valuable for a long time. 

Mobile and Web Developers

As tech is evolving so quickly and there are more and more platforms available and ways to reach clients and potential customers, it is important to have someone on your team that can keep up with the changes and is quick to develop and manage technological updates to the business. 

In addition to developing new mobile and web platforms, mobile and web developers are crucial to building applications, debugging software, and even understanding the major programming languages that don’t make sense to the average startup founder. 

Jobs in SEO 

It is essential to a modern-day business model to market your agency to your customers in a modern way. SEO management remains an extremely important aspect of management and marketing.

Search Engine Optimization is the process of strategically getting your products to appear higher on search engine results through basic, yet technical trends.

Hiring individuals with a high understanding of SEO practices is crucial to product management and promotion.

Reaching your target in product sales relies heavily on your SEO team member and their understanding of technical web trends. 

At M Accelerator, especially in the Startup Program Virtual and in Los Angeles we guide participants through a customized approach, so you can transform your business strategy into effective SEO tactics. The same tactics we have been perfecting, since ..long time ago when it was possible to get 1st on the SERP with just hiding keyword in the HTML pages 😉

SEO practices offer an economical way to increase online business and allow entrepreneurs to launch your products and your idea. Without having a team member that is capable of learning new trends in SEO, startups will hinder their business success.

Though simple, these trends are international and present an easy to learn how to elevate the cash flow and brand identification of your startup. 

Other In Demand Jobs 

Aside from the tech skills that are highly sought over in the startup world, there is also a growing demand for operational positions. These jobs consist of both behind the scenes and customer service jobs.

The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that demand for these operational jobs will grow more than 25% between now and 2026.

These customer service jobs are important parts of any business as they improve customer satisfaction at a time where there is a decrease in face to face interactions. Having a strong customer service team keeps that connection between the startup and the customers. 

These jobs also work towards creating an organizational structure that allows startups to reflect on their processes and make it more affordable. Working to understand the different roles in an organization are crucial for creating procedures and guides and focusing on quality control.

It may seem like these positions are easier to fill and this may be the case due to the reduced qualifications needed compared to engineers, but finding operational team members that work with the company is crucial and no less important than other positions. 

Much like the operational jobs, salespeople cannot be overlooked.

Every successful startup needs to both market itself and sells itself to potential clients and customers.

Without people working in sales, a startup will not be successful.
A successful salesperson will be able to sell software to retailers and have the ability to pitch the idea to virtually anyone. 

Though this is a crucial position and there are no shortages of salespeople across industries, it is no less important than other positions to find a successful salesperson that fits the team well.

More difficult is to have salespeople well integrated into a startup sales engine.

A recent trend shows how sales and marketing are consolidating, especially in online startups with limited resources. Done well, this integration is very helpful for the overall goal of better understanding your market.

As the need for more advanced technological positions increases, it is becoming more and more difficult for startups to fill the more operational roles successfully. 

When thinking of ways to keep your startup going, you have to think about what team members will make the business flourish. When thinking about this, you cannot forget the operational jobs, 

• Customer Service Representatives 
• Salespeople

These individuals are extremely important to the business and you must remember these roles are ones that lead to long-term success and an easy trip down the road later on. 

Learning Important Skills 

If you are looking to get into the startup industry as an employee, this article should help you learn what skills are most valuable and sought after in the sector.

Whether you are going to school and set on learning tech skills that will land you a job as a software developer or an engineer, or looking to learn how to do some new skills through experience and at homework, it is possible in this industry.

Many different jobs require different talents. Growing skills in customer service or sales are valuable skills for roles that many entrepreneurs and startups find difficult to fill. 

It is not only important to identify your team’s needs and recruit a perfect match of an individual, but also to keep those employees.

To keep employees satisfied and interested in your work, it is crucial to pay them appropriately and communicate with them to keep their work interesting enough that they won’t take their talent and highly sought after skills elsewhere.