Imagine having a bad husband as a woman or a terrible wife as a man, that is just how terrible it is to have a bad employee for a start. They set a bad example for the kids , I mean the employees-to-come.

How do you define bad , in this case, bad is when you do not follow or flout any of the following rules while employing the new guys that will form the initial workforce of your startup.

Mind you: This rules are opinionated , but not highly opinionated. They are inferential facts made from the right and reasonable decisions many unicorn companies made during their startup years.

1 - They must be Passionate, like first-time lovers

Business is like marriage, the first few years usually come up with unforeseen scenarios, unless you are not being daring or innovative enough.

Sometimes, you could run out of funds.
Sometimes your holy grail idea might refuse to milk out profits just enough to pay salary.
Sometimes, you might be forced to make certain decisions that somewhat hurts the company on the short run but helps it on the long run.

When any or possibly all of the aforementioned happens, there are only two people that can still be happy working in the company: A stupid or a passionate individual.

You sure don't what to employ a stupid person, we'll come to that later (maybe in another post) but then only a passionate individual is ready to stay and watch things go south while he or she still works with a smile in optimism for the better days to come. I have seen employees like this, trust me, they exist.

How do you describe a passionate person?

They care about the company and its goals. That is the more reason why I consider it very ineffective to coin the goals and mission of your company all alone without the inputs of your staffs, if not all, at least , the most important and strategically positioned ones.

The little trick to detecting the passionate employee is if her (or his) intentions are not for money alone but for the satisfaction she or he receives for working with you and not for you. There is a twist there, We will talk about that later.

2 - They should be versatile

When a company starts, one thing is sure. You will, most likely, won't be able to afford to pay for all the empty positions. The only time when you think you can pay for all positions is when you possibly can't recognize the empty positions.

A new company needs a marketing executive, a front desk officer, an admin officer, a lawyer, an accountant and much more but even if , you are given a million dollar, it pays to still start with staff members who can double up on positions and then grow slowly into having employees with individual roles.

When you have a versatile and passionate employee, you don't feel over-labored by your company work.

At anytime, you are absent, there will be enough hands and skills to cover up.

3- They must be Innovative , Informed and Sharp Minded

Firstly, Innovation is a culture. When you start your company with boring individuals that wants to stick to their status quo , you are practically laying the foundation to raise more non-innovative employees. In fact, you might unknowingly be destroying the innovativeness of the employees to come. The innovative one might end up being the bad egg while the dull minds become the kings.

Information is power, but that power lies in the brain muscles of your staff. More so, being informed is a character-based act that stems from the habit of knowledge addiction. When the employed doesn't feel a need to be informed, they will make you their information source. You will have to think for them, when you talk, they will nod,when you don't , they won't , when there is a problem, they will wait for you.

The sharp mind is the one that attacks a problem like a challenge while the blunt mind sees it like stress. The sharp mind is calculative, logically and proactive in the face of complications . These are the things you should look out for when employing such.

I will stop here today, more to come, in the next post.