Small Teams

So here’s an important lesson from my previous company: keep your team as small as possible until you reach product market fit.

First there’s the obvious reason: smaller team means less burn. Less burn means you have more time to iterate.

Second reason: more people require more coordination. This means more tools, more processes, more opinions and feelings, more discussions, and more time lost. What you gain in extra throughput you lose in extra latency. Early on you need to react fast to feedback and not take months to make changes.

Little parable from a friend of mine: ordering pizza for 4 people is much easier than ordering for 20. You got 20 people, you have to have a spreadsheet. You have to collect money, deal with allergies. Not every place can do a 10 pizza order, so you have to order ahead of time, etc. Four people is simple — single order, no fuss, you’re done.

My favorite corollary: ”if you need JIRA and Salesforce before you have 10 happy customers, you’re doing something wrong.”

Third reason: smaller team means you rely on trust and on gut feelings. Wait is that good? Shouldn’t you try and gather as much data as possible before you make moves? I don’t think so. Early on there is no data. Nobody knows what direction to go in. You have to make educated guesses, which means you need to have good taste. More people means committees and a more diluted vision.

If you’re a founder, try to keep your team small. Do less things but do them really well. Find a customer and become obsessed with making them happy. When you can do that reliably, go ahead and scale.