As our little company nears our third birthday, our proudest accomplishment thus far is the team that we’ve built.  We’re up to ten people now (eleventh starts today), and while headcount in itself is not a good measure of success, the caliber of that headcount certainly is.

This team is as committed as any team I’ve ever worked with; We work hard, have fun, and all share a common vision for what we collectively can accomplish.  And this team that we’ve assembled is no accident!  It has taken a lot of thought and hard work to get the team that we’ve got in place, and given that, I figured I’d pass along some lessons that we’ve learned along the way.

Lesson 1: Always be recruiting.

We never view hiring as a transaction, but as an ongoing process that never stops. As a result, while we may have a specific role in mind, we are always making an effort to get to know the smartest people we can find with relevant skillsets and mindsets, even if they are not in the job market at all.  The best people are rarely out actively looking, and if we don’t get them now, we figure we may get them eventually. Not to mention, if we build relationships with them and make them fans of what we are doing, it helps build our local brand (see more below), we get to know more smart people who can be valuable sounding boards as questions arise, and it becomes more likely that inbound referrals will come of qualified people for the roles we are looking to fill.

Lesson 2: Build your brand locally and globally.

As a consumer service with a global userbase, of course building our global brand is important to us.  But what may be less intuitive is that building our local brand is just as important, for different reasons.  We’ve made a point to invest in this area from the beginning by getting to know local thought leaders, serving on panels, speaking to classes at local universities, and otherwise investing time/energy in the local startup scene.  This was especially helpful early on, to get us a loyal following of advocates who could help evangelize our brand on the social web (globally), and also really helps for hiring by positioning RunKeeper as a cool place to work in the local startup scene.

Lesson 3: It’s not about convincing, it’s about fit.

There have been a few instances along the way where it felt like we were dragging people kicking/screaming over the goal line, and in those cases, we’ve done a good job of not chasing too hard.  While we absolutely need to work hard to convince people to join our growing squad, if it is truly a good fit, they should want us as much as we want them.  Otherwise we will constantly be convincing them along the way that they really do want to be here, and we have WAY too much to do to be spending time doing that week in and week out.

Lesson 4: Process is over-rated.

Especially as an early stage company, we don’t have time to put people through four rounds of interviews and a personality test (for example).  We try to identify people that we like, get them in front of the right people on our team, dig into their relevant functional skills, get to know them as people, peel back the onion to get to the root of their underlying drivers, motivations, timing, etc. and make a decision.  When we know, we know.  And if we aren’t sure, bringing people in for round after round of interviews because we don’t have the guts to pull the trigger or let them go wouldn’t do anyone any good.  We try to trust our instincts, and to be thorough without slowing down.

Lesson 5: Don’t play games.

Once we know we like someone, we don’t play games.  First, we try to get all of the facts on their current situation, timing, compensation, skillset, etc.  Then, we look at the role we are bringing them in for, the depth and breadth of their experience, internal parity, etc.  And last, we present an offer that we truly believe is fair for all involved.  We try to avoid (and have avoided thus far) lengthy negotiations, once we mutually decide that someone is a fit, we try to get things done as quickly and fairly as possible for all involved.

Lesson 6: Create an environment where people want to work.

Our most effective recruiting tool of all has simply been to build a company where people like to work. We have tried to hire self-starters, give them the tools and support to be successful, cool stuff to work on and hard problems to solve, and then get out of their way.  In doing so, it becomes easier to attract others as they peek inside and see these bright, ambitious people working on interesting things and having a blast doing it, and they want to be part of it too.  Almost (but not) all of our hiring thus far has been from people that work here recommending their friends and former colleagues.

To be clear, we are only eleven people and this is my first startup.  We still have a lot to learn about scaling a business through all of these next phases of growth.  But for anyone who is trying to navigate through the earliest stages of team building, I hope this post can be helpful by shedding some light on one company’s process.

What other tips can you share from your team building experiences?  What did I miss?