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Ask HN: Anyone hired a whole team to build a new startup?

3 points by danieltillett ↗ HN
I am wondering if anyone has ever hired a whole team to build a new startup based on an idea and if it worked? I am in the position where I have a number of very high quality business ideas, the money to fund them, but just no time to build a new startup.

Rather than just let these ideas rot, my thought is to hire a team to build the startup(s), but I have a feeling that this might not work well in practice. I want to create a true startup and share the equity, but I worry that all I will end up with is some poorly supervised employees working half-heartly on an idea they don’t care about.

Has anyone ever tried this approach or heard of it being a successful strategy?

13 comments

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ctimberlake
I am CTO of a company that handles these kinds of problems. We work with investors and operate as a start-up incubator. Not every company is the same, and I can't speak for others - But we don't take a project we don't believe in and i'm intimately involved with every project. We don't actually assign people to it - they kind of choose it themselves. So there's always passion.

The hardest part is communication. You solve that, as we have, and you're golden.

danieltillett
Thanks for your comment. It sounds like your company is involved in solving similar problems, but have you dealt with a situation like I am inquiring about?
ctimberlake
If you're talking about hiring an external team - Yes. We are an external team someone would hire. Otherwise we have numerous internal projects our people work on - We let them pick and choose what to work on.

Before my business partner and I started our own business, we were brought in by companies to handle their marketing and development problems. We would help pick individuals to join the team and be involved in setting up the internal team.

On-top of that, I also work at Red Hat as a Consultant, so i'm often flown in or brought in to help internal teams with projects and integrations.

So, Perhaps not the exact same situation. But I've been involved in similar situations and problems.

sharemywin
This is the closest I'm come across.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealab

There's a little bit of an overlap with a startup studio.

danieltillett
I have thought about creating a startup studio, but this doesn't really solve the problem just shifts it to a new location. Instead of not having the time to start a startup, I now have the problem of not having the time to start a startup studio :)
sharemywin
you might try to find someone who has "the same" idea as you or close enough to come to a common vision. But, I think it's important to find someone that "takes ownership of the business" regardless of how much equity is in the deal.
danieltillett
I hope someone doesn't have the same ideas as me :)

I agree that for this to work the team needs to "own" the idea, but how to achieve this? My best idea so far is to find teams that have the passion, but who are working on crappy ideas and somehow convince them that there is a better option. Has this ever worked?

brudgers
To me it looks like you've hit the problem on the head. Not having the time to build a startup boils down to not having the time to vet the candidates for its workforce and not having time to create a company culture. Looking to outsource an entire team suggests not having a rollodex deep enough to bring in cofounders...or rather bring in obvious cofounders.

In the end, the problem is identifying people who are likely to build a successful company and in terms of maximizing the chance of success, broadening the potential investment beyond companies developing one's own ideas looks rational.

Good luck.

danieltillett
Yes for this to work the people involved need to take ownership of the projects. How to achieve this is what I am struggling with and would like to know if anyone has achieved success trying to create a startup like this.

I am an Angel investor and I see heaps of great teams working on totally terrible ideas and I want to say to them "drop what you are doing and come and work on this project". I don't of course do this, but everytime I see one of these teams I want to.

brudgers
Maybe an alternative is to hand off responsibilities at the existing established company to free up time for new ventures. Those ventures could either be external or within the framework of the existing firm. One potential side benefit is that such strategies fit into a the development of a succession plan at the established company.
danieltillett
I have actually started to do this, but if you have been running a business for a long time this is not easy as almost all the processes are built around you. My expectation is it is going to take me at least 18 months to get the business into a state where I am not needed.
brudgers
That sounds more sound than trying to outsource everything while running another business.
danieltillett
Sure is - the problem of course is the other projects just rot in the meantime :(