When you start doing your own projects with your own business you’ll start to realize pretty quickly that you won’t get very far on your own. You’ll need some help and when you start it’s not so easy to get. Begin with family and friends that are reliable and you can trust. Give them an incentive even if it is not substantial. The obvious first choice is shared ownership of the company. The challenge though is that early on others may not see the vision of what your enterprise can or will be and want a more tangible return sooner. You may have a tough time convincing anyone to help. So, the next option is to provide reciprocal services. Find ambitions friends and family members who are interested in doing their own personal projects that may be supplementary services to your own. Make an agreement that if they help you out then you will help them out with their projects with whatever they need. Reciprocal services are a good way to start getting others to help out when you are just getting going. Keep these people on as long as you can. Once you start generating revenue be sure to share profits. This is the best incentive but it will take some time to get there. Be persistent especially in the early days as getting help can be a challenge. It may seem like no one wants to help you but all you need is just one person to get going.
Once you’ve gotten commitment ask for specific tasks to be accomplishes and a reasonable time commitment. Keep it simple when you are first starting out.
Once you get your first person to support you grow your network. Keep a spreadsheet of contractors and potential new hire candidates. As you learn from others or what has been successful while working with them document those lessons learned into a knowledge base. Promote and backfill with new hires. Your current team members will then move into roles to mentor and train. Once your first hire has become proficient in one task expand to another.
If you have focus on meaningful work and develop meaningful relationships then you’ll have a big team in no time.
