Teambuilding and business construction with Rakesh Yadav

Conversations · Self-Management, Startups

This summary was largely done for my own note-taking, sharing it just in case it adds more value to other people.

This is a summary largely taken for my own reference, and may contain errors. Mistakes are mine, credit for the good stuff is entirely Rakesh’s

Context

Why is it important: Rakesh talked about how to build a team as a technical founder, how to realign your business vision as it goes through various phases, and picking the kind of business that you want to run

Keywords

Team Building, Fundraising, Business Evolution

Rakesh’s background

Rakesh worked as a Senior Staff Engineer at Google as part of a 14 year stint at the company. He started a company called JarvisML in March 2021, which helps enterprises increase their revenue via machine learning driven nudges aimed at users

Teambuilding as a technical founder

Rakesh is still very closely involved with engineering
You should eventually scale up and delegate. But at the start, just do it yourself
You will attract different kind of talent once you have that kind of programming cred. Being a good programmer that really knows what they're talking about and why they're doing things in a certain way leads to talent that really wants to work with you
Have a personal and organizational pursuit for excellence in tech and team-building. Best way to attract crazy amazing talent
Rakesh has helped people build up their career for a long time, so he has a lot of credibility with his team. They know that he has their best interest in mind. That's where young founders (like me) have a uphill battle
Currently, Rakesh spends one week a quarter coding. But is involved with everything and has a lot of visibility. He prefers to code out infrastructure himself because that has the best leverage

Getting the right partners and mentors

For technical people, the struggle will often come from hiring non-tech people
Rakesh's personal hack => just leverage the right partners and mentors on board. But don't get random advisors who don't give you time

On constantly realigning the business/vision, and pitching to investors

Spend a lot of time thinking about what the real problem is and whether it's worth solving. Do this due diligence every 3 months
Crazy important to pick a problem that's big enough. Don't not take a salary. Don't sacrifice your personal life. Biggest challenge will be scaling the business
In terms of "tactical advice", the only people that really matter are the customers that are paying you. Don't listen to anything that goes against what you're getting from your customers
If the market is right, you can negotiate a lot more. So you don't necessarily have to wait for revenue before raising
Revenue matters a lot less in the early phases. Strategy/market/team matters a heck of a lot more

On picking the kind of business you want to run

Two types of businesses: lifestyle and venture
Revenue matters a lot more for lifestyle businesses
Startups are built on promises (specially at the early stage). Market size and strategy has to be there
If you don't have cash in the bank but find a promising market and start generating revenue, someone who is better funded can just copy and kill you (and undercut you on price). So secure the bag first.
Either do lifestyle or do startup. Don't do anything intermediate

General operational advice to me as a technical founder

Don't ask people to work part-time for. You'll burn your relationships if you do that if this causes burnout in them
Secure the money first, then hire the people you want to hire
Drop all the technical work you're doing right now, and focus a lot more on fundraising instead. You are good at tech and can build the product whenever you want. Instead, focus on hiring a great team (for which you need funds). Teambuilding is not an "I owe you" kind of teambuilding – build a team with the right structure. Give them a decent salary. Just raise some damn funds.
REALLY need to find someone on the business side. Very difficult to do both business and tech together