Jack or Master: the dilemma between multitasker and domain expert

Every entrepreneur understands that growth is what creates value. The question is, how do you create the growth that creates value? Marketing, the world over has moved from the 4Ps and is primarily defined by the variables of 3Ps – Product, Process and People. They function as the cornerstone for everything your business does.

The best teams are those that have a mix of skills, expertise, and experience where the exact mix is defined based on the problem you wish to solve. To build the best team, start thinking about what it is that will have the greatest impact on your growth like prioritization, hiring or internal movement of the right resources, to fit it into your growth process, and most importantly stop expecting immediate results or dividends – don’t expect quick wins – sustainable growth evolves and then explodes and is not an overnight success.

It is a well-established fact that hiring or selecting the right team is usually not a cakewalk. It is time-consuming, cost-extensive, and can be a tricky business. Having the right team also helps the likelihood of raising investments. From an investor’s perspective, the firm or fund house looks at the four Ts – team, technology, total addressable market, and traction.

The hiring pattern is determined by a multitude of factors like sector, stage, and business model of the startup. While multitaskers are great for a startup that aspires to have a lean team, domain knowledge is an important indicator of potential job performance. Owing to the challenging environment in a startup, founders often need to hire employees who can work across departments and play a variety of roles at the same time. However, once a startup achieves the product-market fit and scales beyond 100 employees, specialists should perform functions to allow the company to solve problems efficiently while focusing on scaling. As a business grows and moves from agility to stability, companies should start moving from hiring multitaskers to seeking domain experts.

To sum up, domain experts and multitaskers are both valuable and critical for a startup. Hiring a candidate for a particular role involves considering factors like knowledge about the sector, pain points, and the solution.