Joseph Piper, Managing Partner of Integra Ventures, and Janis Machala, Managing Partner of Paladin Partners, gave a great presentation on "Building a Winning Team" at the MIT Enterprise Forum Venture Lab forum tonight. As with the last Venture Lab I attended — on the entrepreneurial passion and discipline required to "Build a Valuable Business" — the presenters merged their presentation slides and took turns sharing their insights and experiences throughout the event. Among the interesting new things I learned were:
- the CEO’s primary role is to be an attractor of capital, human (recruiting) or financial (fundraising)
- financial capital follows human capital — VCs are unlikely to commit funds if the management team has not demonstrated their commitment to the venture (e.g., by giving up their income-producing day jobs)
- hiring the right people involves striking a balance between ensuring cultural fit without requiring everyone to be friends
Toward the end, Janis emphasized the importance of "the little things" — having a czar of fun, various recreational props (ping pong or foos ball tables) or hand lotion in the bathroom. I’ve never worked in a place that had these features … but perhaps my next workplace will.
[Update (2005-03-21): Cem reminded me that we did have hand lotion in the lavatories at Accenture; and if any of my former Intel friends were to read this, they would probably remind me that Sunny maintained a hand lotion "bar" near her desk … but I’m still pretty sure I’ve never worked near ping pong and foos ball tables.]