Inside Scoop

If you’re starting a company, most likely you’re smart, motivated, hard-working and good at solving problems (even seemingly intractable ones). Chances are, you’re better at many things than almost anyone else.

Since you do a better job than other people, you might be tempted to do everything yourself. If that’s the case, you have three options:

1. Give up and get an ‘attention to detail’ job in someone else’s company
2. Give up your ‘next YouTube’ dreams and enjoy building a successful a microbusiness
3. Learn to delegate

If you really want to build a big business, the third option is actually your only option. No individual has every skill needed to build a big business — no matter how smart, hard-working, talented, motivated and charismatic they are.

Think about any of the huge success stories in the tech world. Many companies have famous co-founders: think Larry Page and Sergey Brin, or Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe. Even the companies with a single famous founder have a co-founder: think Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, or Bill Gates and Paul Allen.

Look a little further into the history of these companies, and you’ll see that they were team efforts: they all grew in company size as they grew in popularity. In any big, successful company, early employees have had a big impact on the company’s products, their culture and their success in the marketplace.

If you’re trying to start something big all by yourself, you’re going to fail. (And I should know: I spent my first year of my last startup working all by myself, trying to get the product ‘just right’.)

If you want to succeed, your #1 priority is to build a great team. If you don’t have that team yet, stop what you’re doing and go find them — it’s the absolute most important thing you could do with your time.