Startup technology team: who will implement your idea?

There is no standard concept that is uniquely suitable for all projects.

Let's look at the basic composition of the technical team, which can be used as a guide, and depending on the scale of the startup, you will understand exactly who you need.

In ARTJOKER'S article "The life cycle of a startup", we talked about basic team composition depending on the stage of the project.

This article suggests an approach that allows you to plan intelligently and minimize risks at the initial stage.

1. The one who leads the way

Leader. A man who ignites with his energy. In his eyes the team sees a light and gets inspired. A kind of "guarantee" that the startup will definitely materialize and conquer the world.

The leader is not always the one who came up with the idea.

He looks at the project "from above," understands the business model and sees what goal he is leading the team to.

He is the center that attracts people and makes them into a whole.

In our previous article on selecting a team to implement a startup, we talked about how the priority is always to form a team.

And the leader here plays an important role.

Outsourcing companies always have a team leader, who organizes the team's work and communicates the wishes of the customers to the developers.

2. Whoever manages the technical team

Professional developers are good, but a project also needs a person who knows how to manage a team of these techies. He distributes their resources, gives them technical tasks, and monitors the team's performance. Without the technical part, there will be no product; without strong management, there will be no successful promotion of the startup.

3. "With these hands"

The third part is the technical team itself:

• Backend developers deal with the server part of the project. In startups these are usually specialists in technologies such as Node.JS, Symfony, Laravel.
• Frontend-developers are responsible for the external side of the project. These are specialists who work with frameworks: AngularJS, React.JS, Vue.JS.
• Mobile developers are needed when you need a mobile app. More about the mobile development team in our article.
• Designer - creates the corporate identity, draws the interface. Choose a team member who follows design trends (minimum colors and pretentiousness, maximum simplicity). It is important that the designer pays a lot of attention to usability.
• Tester - writes tests for the project, by which the product is tested. This is the person who minimizes risks in development and customers get a good working product.
• System administrator - such a specialist is needed not only in the big office, he also configures the sites, deals with their security.

4. World fame

The fourth part is the people who are involved in the media field. A great idea won't make a profit if the world doesn't know about it.

Copywriter - knows exactly how to write the kind of material about your startup that TechCrunch wants to take to their site.

Marketer - constantly thinking about how to attract the maximum number of users to the startup, developing the project, expanding the reach, looking for new promotion channels.

Bonus: interesting concept for a small startup: "H2D - a hacker, hustler, and designer." Each team should include three basic roles: hacker (hacker, CTO), revenue generator (hustler, CEO) and designer (designer, UX/UI).

Natural Selection:

1. The team for a startup is the deciding factor for investors. It is not as important how cool the idea is as the people who will implement it.
2. There are professionals on your team. Pay attention to the expertise in the technologies you need.
3. Discuss the important points at rallies. Do not think that this is a waste of time, and everything can be solved simply by corresponding. Meetings (albeit virtual) unite the team, form common goals, objectives, vision of the final goal, performance criteria. This is another source of motivation for the team.
4. Document team responsibilities.
5. Implement modern management methodologies. ARTJOKER uses SCRUM. Among the advantages of this framework: flexibility, focus on the client's priorities, dynamic communication, high level of involvement of all project participants, regular demonstration of working functionality by the team. You can read more about SCRUM methodology in this article.

Based on 10 years of experience in developing technology projects, we have derived a special method (ARTJOKER Method) that is optimally suited for startup clients: