“But facebook was built by someone who did not have any professional experience and no benchmark salary”

Hi

We started APPITSIMPLE about two weeks back. (WE= Piyush & Me, CITY= Ahmedabad, IN= products that solve Indian problems) (We meet through the Rodinhoods and via another rodinhooder Anil)

All the way we talked about ideas but just 5 days after starting APPITSIMPLE, we realized it’s much more about the execution team than the idea. Why team, because a team can make an idea superb by doing an excellent execution.

So, we decided that in the first few days we will concentrate on building one of the best products team in Ahmedabad. BEST MEANS SUPER BEST. A team of only 7-8 people who are entrepreneur in themselves, super smart, super intelligent, thinkers and just out of this world. (As Alok would have said- Awesome people)

Another 5 days and we could understand why building a team (recruitment as armies around the world have named it) is one of the most difficult task in a start-up.

So, while meeting a few people to build our team, we meet Viral Thakar (another rodinhooder and co-founder of carodoc.com). Viral fitted the criteria, but asked us for an increment of almost 50% on his reimbursement. He really felt he was worth that. Now we do too, but at first we were a little taken a back.

“He is good, but how can he ask for a 50% increment on his current reimbursement.” “He is good, but this is absurd.”

We had to fight ourselves. And then Dhruv said something which helped us find consensus. (Dhruv= our 3^rd team mate, our advisor, designer, friend ,a 21 yr old boy who is much ahead of where we were at that age.)

“But facebook was made by someone who did not have any professional experience and no benchmark salary. How can we benchmark these excellent people on what other companies have been reimbursing them? If we do so, we will become like many other companies in India without a soul.”

The issue we faced now was how to judge people if not by previous salaries, their education institute, etc etc.

We now have the solution. It’s a structured questionnaire kind of a thing. We now get it answered from people who want to help us make our team better by working with us. Their score in the questionnaire helps us decided their reimbursement (range). (We also have a discussion over coffee where we tell more about us then ask, so that our next team mate can take a more informed decision.)

We write this article –

1. To know from fellow Rodinhooders if our approach sounds right 
2. And also to find other better methods of evaluating a future team mate, now that we have decided not to depend on the traditional resume

Also, if you think you are a misfit in your team, or know a friend who can get a perfect score in the questionnaire (there is no perfect score though), then do get in touch with us or forward his contacts to us. We work from Ahmedabad. 

Visit us- www.appitsimple.com