PART 4: BUILDING TEAMS
Passion. Expertise. Drive. These are some of the qualities our entrepreneurs say make for good teammates. But how do you find them?
Finding willing team members can be easy, but finding good team members who compliment your strengths and counter your weaknesses can be difficult.
THE ENTREPRENEURS
BRANDON SHUEY
Shuey is the co-founder and chief technology officer of Fliphound, an online tool that manages digital billboards and connects marketers, advertisers, billboard managers and more. Shuey considers himself a serial entrepreneur, as he has been a software developer from an early age and is constantly looking at what's next.
JOHN HARRISON
Harrison is the founder of Filimin, a unique, wi-fi enabled touch lamp that allows users to communicate across distance with a simple touch to the lamp. Harrison has a background in music and engineering and originally created Filimin as a personal gift to his family before taking it onto Kickstarter.
FRANK HOPKINS & LEVI FITZMIER
Frank and Levi were the F and the L in FNL Denim, a premium custom jeans shop and online retailer that recently closed after a little over a year in operation. These entrepreneurs are currently looking for their next adventure.
Photo by Kevin Wildt for We Are Wichita.
Here are a few extra insights from our entrepreneurs:
You have to have people who are willing to deal with the chaos, that can take that chaos and find tasks and find things that they can reach for and accomplish systematically.Brandon Shuey - Fliphound
I think partly as you communicate with people, it will become clear to you who you're really comfortable speaking with and who you aren't comfortable with. Sometimes the discomfort is because they are coming from a slightly different place where they have a slightly different background where they use different words to say the same thing. So being willing to be comfortable with that discomfort is the key.John Harrison - Filimin
We find people who can do things that we can't but who will also be willing to go along with the journey with us. Obviously if we make it, they make it too in a sense that we can pay them more money to do these things.Levi Fitzmier - FNL Denim