I recently had the opportunity to attend a talk given by Fred Schebesta, founder of finder.com.au (among other ventures) and MQ graduate, given at the Macquarie University Incubator.
Fred shared his perspectives on hiring people and how this evolves as the entrepreneurial venture grows and changes. The following few points provide a brief summary of his perspectives:
– At first, ventures need “Swiss Army Knives”; people who can do a bit of everything but don’t necessarily specialize.
– Over time ventures require individuals with deeper, more specialist skill sets.
– Fred states that he has fired himself from every role in Finder as new people were brought on board, and spoke about the difficulty he faced in stepping back from day to day operations as he was no longer what was best for the company. He sees himself as the right guy to start things, but not necessarily to continue to act in a managerial capacity when the venture has reached a more mature stage.
From a practitioner’s perspective, other interesting points were when Fred discussed the importance of being a “Phoenix” and consistently reinventing the company to maintain relevance, and his belief that you should maintain as much ownership as possible over the venture so that when/if you decide to sell there is some sort of reward there for your hard work.
Theoretically speaking, Fred seems to be an example of the existence of the parenthood metaphor of entrepreneurship. He spoke of “giving birth” to Finder, and the emotional toll that “letting go” of a venture can take on the founder.
Fred is a wonderful storyteller and provided incredible insights entrepreneurs at any stage of their journey can learn from and resonate with. His mind seems to move in a million directions at once, which would no doubt explain his incredible creativity and ability to juggle the varied demands of building a successful new venture.