In December, 2020, I made the best decision of my life. I quit my job, and decided to start a mental healthcare platform. I had no specific idea about what to do. I just knew why I wanted to do it. I wanted to make minds lighter and hearts brighter because I knew what it was like to have a dark mind and a heavy heart year after year. And I wanted to step into the light, and see others have their time of day. If Gully Boy says “Apna time Aayega” I wanted that time to be now.
While starting up has its ups and downs, I’m grateful to mindU. mindU’s been my path to healing. I’ve grown into myself and my potential. I not only have fantastic colleagues, but also lifelong friends. I have my same boat support group. And I have my solace.
But this article is not about my journey. Nor is it about the value I place on my team or mindU. It’s about my learnings so far. 11 of them to be precise. Through this article, I’d like to share my learnings. If this article helps, great! If it doesn’t, please tell me why? I always welcome growth!
So let’s get started, shall we?
1. What’s in a team? Turns out, everything!
I think of myself as a team player first, leader second. Because it takes many to change the world. And identifying myself as a team member, on equal footing with others in my team, sends a message to them: it tells them that they too are equally responsible for mindU’s future. Not just me. So whenever someone refers to me as their boss, I get super conscious and don’t know where to look! I even straight up deny it and say I’m their colleague.
But getting to the point…
I’ve come to learn that your team is your biggest driver of success — it’s your biggest asset, and it’s everything you have. Not your ideas, not your vision, not your capabilities. Your team. Period.
Because if you have the right people in the right seats, you can figure out where and how the bus should go.
So take great care building your team. Initially, this may be hard because you’ve either never recruited before or you don’t have a clear picture of the personality you’d like to hire. So what I did is focus on the basics. I asked myself, what’s needed at the core that you can’t teach? What qualities will lead to developing other, desirable qualities? And the answer was simple. Passion, integrity, and grit.
I didn’t focus too much on fancy resumes, I banked more on people’s potential. I paid close attention to the stories they were telling me and their underlying motivations. I tried to understand what makes them tick. And what sets them apart.
After a few months of operation, note down the aspects that make your team truly functional, and the aspects that make your team truly dysfunctional. Based on this list, identify the qualities you want the most in the team members you hire.
Especially when you are an early stage startup, here’s a great rule of thumb to follow: is every individual on your team indispensable? If not, they shouldn’t be on the team. Because the stakes are too high.
2. Great, now you have a fantastic team. But it’s no use if you don’t respect and value them!
Your colleagues are people, not resources. They will do their best work with you if you treat them with kindness, respect and humility. And being kind doesn’t mean withholding criticism. It means being absolutely honest with them and moving forward, together.
To build a resilient team, it’s important to create open spaces where people can voice their struggles, concerns and more. And it’s vital to hold that space. There shouldn’t be negative repercussions if team members open up. Instead, there should be a willingness to listen without interruption, there should be empathy, and there should be solidarity.
To create a safe, open, cathartic space where people can speak up, reflect, and find a way forward, mindU started weekly sharing circles. This internal support group has been the silent force behind the strength of our team.
And setting up internal support groups isn’t just healthy for your team’s mental health, it’s also smart business.
- You will catch things that aren’t working early on — this will help you fix them before things blow over.
- This will also lead to more creativity since team members will not hesitate to voice their ideas.
- Finally, you’ll have more loyal team members, and attrition will be low.
3. If you want to be creative, make it a habit
Each week, mindU sets aside at least 2 hours for brainstorming. We ideate together and make decisions together. This has helped us gain clarity, and move forward with momentum.
4. Don’t dismiss an idea too soon because it usually leads to other, better ideas
Because of point number three, we’ve come up with crazy, wild ideas of alternate businesses we can set up! Even if the idea is outside the mandate of mental health or mindU, I set up a meeting to further delve into the idea because
- It’s fun!
- It further stimulates the team’s creative juices
- It’s a great team building exercise
- You can cross-pollinate ideas from another industry to strengthen your own business model
5. Silos limit creativity and quality of work
Japanese car making assembly lines focus on making small batches without division of labor rather than making big batches with division of labour. So if you were folding invitation letters, putting them into an envelope, sealing the envelope and writing who it is addressed to, do you think it’s faster for one person to perform all tasks or for one person to perform one task? Most people would choose the latter option, but the former is actually more efficient. Because you can catch errors early on, see which step/s are not necessary, and think of better ways of performing the entire process.
mindU has tried this first-hand. While we each have a comparative advantage in one area, we each do work in other areas too. We don’t believe in the rigid division of labour because it leads to more blindspots, and less agility. This style of working also encourages people to be active agents of their career — they see their role as more fluid and can choose what to do to build their profile.
6. Don’t invest in building something if you haven’t tested it out before
This learning has been shared several times before by others so I won’t explain it!
7. It’s no use having the best product if you can’t sell it
You have to get really creative about how you are communicating your brand and connecting with your audience. I’ve heard companies outsource marketing and branding to other agencies. I think this is a huge mistake. You should create and control the voice of your company, no one else.
8. Set a product thesis in stone
I mean it.
If you’ve identified a solution, it should be backed by a strategic reason or unique insight. This will form the thesis of your product, the soul of your strategy, the backbone of your company. Any product worth building will require this. Because if you don’t have your thesis written, you won’t know which features to include, and which to exclude, and your product will in essence be directionless/useless.
So pick a side, and stick to it.
9.Create a relationship agreement with your co-founders
I used this document to help me draft a relationship agreement with my potential cofounder. Aligning yourself on paper is really important because it’ll help you sail through difficult times later on. At least it’ll increase the odds of being more resilient or problem solving better!
10. Focus on what you can do ‘right now’, and not always on what you can do ‘right’
Startups have to capitalize as much as they can on the runway they have. So adhering to this principle is super important!
11. Don’t be afraid of sunk costs — doing so will usually dig you into a deeper and bigger hole
Don’t let a sunk cost get in the way of you thinking or doing something dramatically different. Remember, you have more power than you realize. It just requires the courage to see and act!
With this, I’ll conclude my 11 learnings so far. I hope this article helped you. I’ll see you again soon with more on leadership, growth and wellbeing!
