Startups: “Hire fast, set it on fire faster” Wait ¿what?…

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The most important lesson you’ll get from the startup world and businesses, isn’t a fundamental secret, but it conceals secrets that will be confirmed to you by experience, and experience will reveal insights that no one teaches you because even though they can be told to you, the lesson is absorbed at practice. That lesson is, that the most important thing isn’t the website, not the logo, not even a catchy slogan… what’s most important is the people you surround yourself with.

Fortunately I’m surrounded by talented people, and also by fortune I was raised to respect and be interested in the well being of others; and that has granted me unique opportunities without looking for them way too much, but they also didn’t fall from heaven while remaining sit watching television and doing nothing. Since 2006 I decided to stop watching television entirely, just as I decided in 2017 to stop opening Facebook entirely. I’m not saying it’s a sin either, but whenever you turn the TV on or open Facebook, it better be for a good reason; just like your real friends will reach out for you in and out of social networks, the real news are on the streets: and it’s on you to search for the ones that are relevant to you within your contacts and those information services which have a good reason to be aligned to your best interests.
The opportunities that came to me, frequently were opportunities that arrived to friends of mine whom approached me to ask for my advice because I always help, enlivened to do so. It is important to respect and for others to respect you, more than a title on the business card; to hell with business cards. The opportunities became projects and some of those projects transformed into enterprises. That is the natural blessing of trusting good friends.

In Silicon Valley’s startup world there is a very popular motto that says ¨Hire fast, fire faster¨, its benefits are easy to predict, however, we know the local labor landscape is different. The title of this article besides being clicarnada [¿perdón?], was conceived to convey that something that sounds good within a foreign cultural context doesn’t always work when translated to ours… but that shouldn’t stop us from looking for alternate methods to achieve the same benefit: I like looking at all times for the ˆhow yesˆ (anything can be achieved, how then?), and I’ve designed alternatives and strategies that obtain the same benefits while mitigating the negative impacts, respecting the worker and never abandoning them, but just the contrary; workers and citizens likewise, sometimes need rehabilitation. These techniques and strategies protect the individual, at the same time liberating a company or a team, removing elements that are not giving results internally. Thus making a positive impact on our industry’s labor culture.

This practice is accepted without fear at Silicon Valley because they understand that people with failing experience have a lot of experience with triumphs that are not so evident and experience with the most dangerous obstacles for the health of growth rhythm, the veteran is like a time traveler that lands at the new modified dimension that another person’s enterprise is.
Since I started to read related topics now several years ago by sometimes following clues left by Peter Thiel and other semi-public figures, I understood that the globalization economy isn’t born inside dark rooms where a few politicians gather to make secret world domination and oppression agreements like many would want to have you believe. Globalization is a natural phenomenon that results from 2 powerful combined factors, realities that spawn from other circumstances, realities that are accepted because they already are, they’re there, they exist:

1. Mitigation of artificial & excessive control barriers: Which we call peace treaties.
2. Channels of international transport and communication: Which we call shipping and internet.

An existing 3rd factor was not mentioned because it doesn’t fit within an equally balanced line and it isn’t exclusive to globalization, it is a factor that touches every human activity and is not understood by reading blog posts and notes but by approaching experienced people, this factor is life itself.

At some given time on my own I dedicated myself to translate some of Paul Graham’s texts to Spanish in order to obtain more focus in understanding the challenges of importing startup culture, and to absorb the vision of their people I participated at Y-Combinator’s Hacker News. After that, I worked at a startup operating with offices at Monterrey, MX and Mountain View, CA. A startup that was part of the 500 Startup incubator (Batch 12) and I had been reading Dave McLure notes too. Curiously enough, our Mountain View’s office was located at the same street segment than Y-Combinator’s, one could arrive there in less than 10 seconds just by crossing to the other side of the street and some alumni visited us to assess the option of sharing office space with us. During that time we built and launched a new product and I got to skate at 3am around those quiet streets and alleys on a longboard that one of the co-founders was cool enough to let me borrow without a second thought, those were exciting days. The opportunity to work at CareerDean, which we later transformed into Wiselike, arrived in the same way, by a Freelancer friend that approached me to ask for my guidance as a negotiator, knowing that I already had little experience getting an investment deal for a previous confidential startup, but above all, with the confidence that I would look out for his best interests. With the help of my advice, his family’s and his own proficiency, he got to have the Co-Founder title along with a substancial equity stock for his valuable contribution which was primarily technical since the beginning of the project. As that adage well says ¨ˆThose whom do not speak up, won’t be heard by Godˆ¨ and ¨ˆIn the asking relies the givingˆ¨; knowing how to ask is a must. And if you don’t know how to ask, reach out to those who can advise you. Don’t live in the world of innuendo, leave that to the pre-pubescent at Facebook; approach directly and show your face.

The encounter between two worlds can cause a destructive crash or it can nourish the mutual environment, the key relies on the mindset we conceive and adapt our strategies with. The executives who gather behind closed doors to discuss globalization, don’t do so to do ilegal stuff or because they’re evil, they do so to leave the noise outside just as with the famous third last call at the theatre. Noise that is sometimes coming from those very same people who think badly and judge everything to be wrong. Executives gather to find ways for those worlds to not collide in their encounter, because with globalization the thing is not about two meeting worlds alone, it is a matter of plurality and multi-cultures.
Analogically to the water cycle, the rivers always flow into a larger mass of water, movement is life.

During my experience at tech startups and other ventures I tested and ascertained that when it comes to the productivity of a team, 1+1 seldom results in 2, and that in the right environment, individuals can even achieve a multiplication of their performance. Finding an ideal element for your team involves much more than a list of technical requirements and knowledge. And fitting in our culture is just one more factor for thee who avoid narrowness of the heart and are capable of at least glimpsing the more complete picture with an open mind.

Withonor is an initiative that was born from always observing the need to reconcile cultures and find growth opportunities at the diverse transitions into a global economy, which is not imminent, it isn’t the future, we’ve always been inside; it is a natural reality to which society was always destined for.
And if you noticed the triple repetition in that paragraph like I accidentally wrote, it means you are observant: to the observant, to those who have learned to read in-between lines to find their peers, I remind you we are all peers.
The repeated word is ‘always’, to always be with God results in always being alive, don’t take too long to sync with justice, remember that ¨ˆEven saints cry over lost timeˆ¨. If you are going to step into the theatre once the play has already begun, do it with lots of respect and the gatekeeper in turn could get a good seat for you or even a backstage pass. The doorman is your peer too.

I have more texts ready to keep publishing and they will be released every three weeks. But I’ve got more productive lessons to share in person and live, with those who’ve approached me with respect, they deserve my time. And while we keep on playing this capitalism game, that respect is also expressed with capital and manifested alive. For you, for me, for ours, for everyone. Life is not to be played with.
Cheers to all those who have been getting closer and have been reciprocal to the respect I offer whenever I get closer.

This was, the third flare.
Salud for igniting and being always enlightened.

Jorge Arturo.
Founder
Withonor