Guidelines for team formation

1. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Ken Singer
Managing Director, Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology
IEOR Department, UC Berkeley
Entrepreneurship. The Ultimate Team Sport.

2. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Disruption:
• A proposed change in the order of things
• A rejection: that the current way is insufficient
• Threatens the incumbents
• They use their market dominance and power to
keep out new players
“A Startup is an Act of Rebellion” – Ken Singer

3. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
What do Entrepreneurs do?
Learn Innovate / Adapt Teach

4. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
The Entrepreneur’s Journey.
Ideation
Fund Raising
Pilot
Basic Skills / cross training
Prod / Market Fit
Tech Issues
Team Management
Hiring / Firing
Team Formation
Legal
Accounting

5. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
How do you get there?

6. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Together. Entrepreneurship is NOT an Individual Sport.

7. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Diversity is an Act of Survival

8. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Successful Teams Have Many Diverse Skills and Traits

9. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
• Loves to discover how things work
• Seeks insight
• Understands how to apply lessons
• Always strives to improve
• Willingness to be proven wrong
Self-Learning & “Tinkering” Mentality

10. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Listening is Your Most Powerful Tool

11. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Efficient / Effective Two-Way Communication

12. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Sees Everyone & Everything as Opportunities to Learn

13. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Brutal Honesty IS a Business Strategy

14. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Healthy Conflict and Resolution

15. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Find the Right Balance between Intuition and Evidence

16. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Timing is Everything. Luck is Good Too.

17. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Creative in All Parts of the Business

18. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Knows how to delegate work & leadership
responsibilities

19. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Good Execution is More Important than Strategy

20. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Willingness to take risks

21. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Equally willing to Accept and Learning from Failure

22. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Your Team is Your Competitive Edge
PART 2: The Art of Team Formation

23. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Choose Your Team Wisely

24. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Your Team must be able to:
• Ideation
• Team management and grow
• Project Management
• Product and UI/UX Design
• Product development & engineering
• Product marketing & positioning
• Customer qualification
• Lead generation and marketing
• Business and revenue modeling
• Competitive analysis and managing “co-opetition”
• Sales and evangelization
• Customer management & support
• Deployment and system management
• Accounting and budgeting
• Fund raising

25. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
The 3 sides of Team Diversity
• Function
• Roles
• Dynamic

26. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Business Function
• Hustler (sales)
• Hacker (builder)
• Hipster (designer)

27. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Roles to Play
• Idea Guy (“The Dreamer”)
• The Communicator (“The Politician”)
• The Peace Maker (“The Glue”)
• The Problem Finder (“The Detective”)
• The Problem Solver (“MacGyver”)
• Executor (“The Ninja”)
• “Balloon Popper”
• “Puppy Shooter”

28. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Team Dynamic
Clutch AcceleratorBrake

29. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Team Building Begins with YOU

30. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Meet as many DIFFERENT people as possible
who are interested in the SAME subject matter
Coffee Breaks

31. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Leverage next 48 hours to meet potential team mates.

32. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Self Evaluation
• What are your strong suits?
• What are your weaknesses?
• What is your topic interests?
• Why do you want to do a startup?

33. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
Building a Team that Complements
Your Team must be balanced across all
3 vectors of diversity:
• By Business function (most
important)
• By Roles
• By Dynamic

34. THE BERKELEY METHOD
January 2015Confidential Material: Property of Ken Singer
How to Choose the Right Teammates
• Don’t choose members because they are “agreeable”
• Find smart people you can disagree with but can come to agreement
eventually
• Discuss everyone’s strengths and weaknesses early on
• Find teammates whose strengths fill your weaknesses
• It is more important that you choose the best team mates than join
the best idea