Building a Winning Team: Attracting Human and Financial Capital

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.]