Rand Fishkin's presentation from Geekwire's Startup Day, October 25, 2013

1. The Pitfalls of Team Building
8 Painful lessons learned from
hiring, firing, mentoring, managing, losing, and working with
people while building Moz’s 130+ person team.
Rand Fishkin | October 2013

2. No Need to Take Notes:
http://bit.ly/mozstartupteam

3. #1
“You can coach the head.
You can’t coach the heart.”
- Avinash Kaushik (@avinash)

4. Startups often make the wrong choice

5. Startups often make the wrong choice
Many startups
incorrectly hire &
keep these folks
And get rid of these
folks rather than
helping them grow

6. Your Culture Is Not:
“Work hard. Play hard.”
Ping pong tables & beer in the fridge
Inside jokes you have around the office
Where you hang out after work
A list of company values posted on the wall

7. Your Culture Is:
Who you hire, keep, & reward vs. who you don’t
promote or fire (and why)
The criteria you define (or are perceived to have
created) for having or earning influence
The values you choose to prioritize when things
are hard (or when a value conflicts with an
opportunity for revenue/funding)

8. #2
If management is the only way
up, we’re all f***’d.

9. Team members at the
same level should have
similar salaries and
influence – just different
responsibilities.
If Management is the Only Way Up, We’re All F’d

10. How Can I Have Influence If I’m Not a Manager?
Don’t let your role define
your influence.
Let your influence
define your role.
http://sarahbird.me/2013/09/07/influence/

11. #3
Build a recruiting brand beyond
your product brand.

13. Startup communities are tiny
and well-connected.
If you don’t provide a great
experience through this
funnel…
The people who have a bad
time will tell their
friends, colleagues, & coworkers.

14. #4
Beware of bonuses, prizes, & other recruiting
gimmicks vs. just doing the hard work

15. We Tried Big Referrals to Get Engineers
Original Blog Post from Our $24,000 Referral Program

16. It Attracted Some Wrong Kinds of People

17. And Worse, Created “Classes” of Employees at Moz

18. #5
There’s no such thing as
10X engineers
(or 10X anything)

19. Belief in the Mythical 10X Hire Hurts Your Team

20. #6
Build a vision-based framework that’s
clear to everyone at the company

21. Creating a Vision-Based Framework

22. #7
Create expectations for
performance, cadence, and culture
early

23. It’s Easy to Build Process Early; Hard to Change it Later
Why?

24. At Minimum, Answer These Five:
1) What are expectations for performance? How
do we know if and when they change? And how
do I know how I’m doing?
2) Who makes decisions on what, and how?
3) What information will be shared about
company performance, and how often?
4) How does an idea become reality here?
5) What are examples of cultural traits we
encourage vs. discourage?

25. #8
Figure out a mechanism for
regular feedback as you scale

26. At Moz, We First Tried TinyPulse:
TinyPulse

27. We Moved to 15Five, and Love It:
15Five

28. Download the slides:
http://bit.ly/mozstartupteam

29. Rand & Moz on the Web:
We’re Hiring! http://moz.com/about/jobs
My Blog (about startup-y stuff): http://moz.com/rand
Twitter: @randfish | Google+: 111294201325870406922