You can’t be a one-man show - Startup Hiring

Everyone should visit the kitchen of a big restaurant. There is a main chef, a sous chef, and many others working under their guidance. You’ll not find the head chef single-handedly trying to do everything. He delegates tasks, keeping in mind the higher objective of getting work done. It is not possible for one person to know everything about everything.

When my company was in its nascent stage, I had this mad urge to know everything about everything. I went about trying to learn everything about print production, retail marketing, public relations, sales – you name it, and I wanted to master it.

The result?

A whole lot of buzzing in my head from the information overload. I started performing awfully at work. I could not concentrate on the work at hand, and I had a constant headache – let alone my fear of not knowing something gnawing away at the back of my head. I finally came to a realisation: even if I am good at a whole lot of things, I can never be the best at all of them. I need to prioritise, focus, and know what I am supposed to do. There will always be someone out there who will know more than I do. A lifetime’s too short to excel at everything. So, I decided to play my strengths, and hire people to complete other tasks. After all, it is the quality of the work that matters, not who gets the credit.

When I hired people, I found out that they know a lot more about many things than I do. And this ensured a long-lasting healthy relationship of learning from each other. I suggest everyone should hire people who excel at something, who know more than them about something. Being the smartest bloke around will just  stagnate your mind, as you won’t have anyone around you to teach you anything new.

In fact, all entrepreneurs ought take a leaf from Zinepak’s book. Zinepak is a fan magazine for those obsessed with music, pop culture, and entertainment. They have a small core team of six people, each with his own area of expertise, and dozens of freelancers.

So, go ahead and hire the experts – you’ll learn loads out of it!