Team – Page 2 – Helge Seetzen

Entrepreneurship , Tech Entrepreneurship

Career Advancement in a Startup Environment

Startups are an environment full of both opportunities and challenges for career advancement. The opportunities usually come in two distinct stages: founding and scaling. During the founding stage anybody can take any title and that’s often precisely what founders do. I have previously written about how this is generally...

March 14, 2012July 4, 2017

Entrepreneurship , Tech Entrepreneurship

Ownership versus Leadership

Any organization should be continuously on the look-out for talented people who are capable of taking on leadership roles. In this context you hear the word ‘ownership’ a lot, in reference to ‘owning’ a function, project, or deliverable. The words are often used interchangeably but, I believe, have very...

February 14, 2012July 6, 2017

Entrepreneurship , People

How to Spot Untrustworthy Leaders

In a recent post on startup ethics, I emphasized the fact that employee equity is an investment like any other, and it is unethical for insiders (CEOs, select investors, etc.) to structure deals in order to screw employees out of their equity shares. I also hypothesised that character traits...

December 16, 2011July 7, 2017

Entrepreneurship , People

Why Employee Equity is an Investment like Any Other: Entrepreneurship and ethics

There’s been a flurry of articles and a Hacker News Poll, highlighting entrepreneurs who despite, or maybe because of their success, turn around and screw their employees, collaborators, partners. Just look at the last few big deals this year: Zynga and its CEO (personally worth billions at the expected...

December 8, 2011July 7, 2017

Diversity , Tech Entrepreneurship

Confronting our Prejudices to Drive Innovation

A couple of weekends ago I witnessed a lively debate around the issue of racism in Silicon Valley (ok, ‘lively’ is an understatement). I’m a firm believer that racism has a devastating effect on innovation, but I think we are all prone to these kinds of biases, and need...

November 15, 2011July 7, 2017

Entrepreneurship , Tech Entrepreneurship

Invention, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship: Different processes, different people

Invention, innovation, and entrepreneurship are words frequently thrown around by politicians, theorists, and entrepreneurs alike to generally describe the act of bringing a product or idea into the world. While easy to confuse, each concept is distinct and requires specific skills. When it’s time to choose the right...

October 25, 2011July 7, 2017

Diversity , People

Why and How to Introduce Diversity into your Start-up

A few days ago I was at a “high society” party amongst captains of industry, political leaders and artists of renown from around the world (clearly as a “+1” to my spouse…). The crowd had two things in common: cowboy outfits (it was on a ranch), and pale...

August 11, 2011July 7, 2017

Entrepreneurship

Leaving Your Mark

Last week I witnessed ancient treasures in London. No, not royal family and their wedding antics (London was a mess…). I am talking about old prototypes from past university collaborations of mine. That reminded me of the first mark I left in the world a long time ago… My...

May 11, 2011July 10, 2017

Entrepreneurship , People

Start-Up Titles are Dangerous

I got a few questions about titles after my last post on hiring. Titles are always tricky, but particularly dangerous in the startup environment. I am not just talking about the rapidly de-valuing titles such as “Founder” (you aren’t one until you have actually created an entity and business), “CEO” (you...

February 7, 2011July 12, 2017

Entrepreneurship

Hiring is Hell

Hiring is really hard! Not just the process of find candidates, but the rate at which hires turn into great employees. Over the last decade I have hired upward of a hundred people into new organisations (start-ups or new departments within a large company). Looking back, 10-20% of those turned out to be great performer,...

January 17, 2011July 12, 2017

Tag: Team