Over the last year I have found that everyone I run into has some comment or question about managing a growing business. Matt and I thought it would be good to discuss some of the startup mechanics that are unique to an open source model and those that are the same across any new business. This is by no means a definitive list, just some insight over the last year. More to come in this series over the next few w Over the last year I have found that everyone I run into has some comment or question about managing a growing business. Matt and I thought it would be good to discuss some of the startup mechanics that are unique to an open source model and those that are the same across any new business. This is by no means a definitive list, just some insight over the last year. More to come in this series over the next few weeks. Hiring decisions matter far more than you realize Generally speaking I prefer a flat organization, which is all well and good until you hire someone who is a pain-in-the-ass (PITA for our purposes) and you have to put a layer of management in place to protect the rest of the company from being bogged down. What you are ultimately looking at is if the value of the PITA outweighs the burden on the rest of the staff. The first thing I now ask myself and the team is if this person is going to be a burden on the rest of the crew. Management takes up more time that coding, marketing, sales etc as your business grows. Make the right choices upfront and you will be a much happier person. Market Knowledge Initially we weren’t sure if knowledge of open source was fundamental or just a benefit. For that matter I wasn’t sure if people could learn to understand the model. So far the answer is yes to all. Deep knowledge is clearly beneficial but can also skew perspective. We’re finding that you do need to “get it” in order to make legitimate contributions to the team. This is not exclusive to open source but we are still in an experimental market that requires a lot of thinking. To that end, when hiring you also have to make sure that the candidate understands how development is done and how the business is run. A vast majority of people haven’t run into the new world of open development yet. Productivity I am big on operational efficiency and our team is hyper-productive, so any potential upset of the balance is a huge problem for us. Right now we almost never have this issue because the team as a whole doesn’t allow stupid behavior. Much of this is due to the fact that the Dev team is used to the whole world seeing their code, JIRA etc. and that our sales and marketing team recognize that they have mountains of work to get through. When your organization is transparent everyone knows if you are a lazy jerk. Growing Pains If things go well you will eventually scale the company to a point where you will hire someone who is either a PITA or a clown (see my post from October Hiring and avoiding the clown car). I think Neelan from Interface21 described the growth pains as 2-20, 20-200. John from SugarCRM said that going from 30-75 was a nightmare. It’s very difficult to ramp that fast no matter what your business. Pattern Recognition Rarely do you have enough time to hang out with someone for several days, see how you interact and understand how you might work together. Usually you get a few hours over a few days to establish a relationship and see how things might go. From the startup perspective it really becomes (perhaps unfortunately) about pattern recognition. If you notice behavior or warning signs early in the process then the right thing to do (generally) is to cut bait. Like anything else in life, there are tradeoffs to the various approaches. You don’t want to jump the gun, but on the other hand, an employee who is a burden will sink you. This is even more difficult to manage when hiring outside your local office (or country.) International Hiring We have been very fortunate with our staff around the world, but much of that is because a successful open source project tends to have high-quality people attached to it. We now have development staff in Germany, Argentina, Chile, Malta and the US. Add in our partners Japan and Australia to the mix and all of the sudden you have a UN meeting. One huge advantage of open source is that when hiring developers you can see their activity, projects and overall profile. They are also able to interact with your team before joining in a try-before-you-buy scenario. Links: Hiring and avoiding the clown car Hiring: Talented jerk or ignorant potential? Guy Kawasaki: How to Prevent a Bozo Explosion Open Source