The Five Types of People You Need to Facilitate Innovation

By: Michael Deane

Having the right people on your start-up’s team – especially in its early days – can mean the difference between unparalleled success and embarrassing failure.

The best founders and leaders know that success does not come from one person acting alone, but a team of professionals and industry experts who work together to create something truly amazing.

A Financial Expert

To put it simply, finances are complicated. It can be difficult to understand your own personal taxes, never mind your startup’s finances and the taxes that apply. By bringing a financial expert aboard your team in its early days, your financial records will be kept up-to-date and accurate, taking pressure off of yourself as the startup’s CEO.

A great accountant can help you out with all aspects of setting up your business, too, not just the financial side of it. For example, because accountants have practical legal experience, a great accountant can help you with company formation. Additionally, this person will have years of experience working with other clients operating in your industry, and will be happy to be in command of your company’s finances. If you have an accountant who is not afraid to refuse frivolous transactions, you know you have a great financial expert on your side!

A Marketing Director

Having a viable marketing strategy is essential for your company’s growth and overall success. This is where a marketing director comes in, who will oversee all aspects of your startup’s marketing, whether it is done on social media, through other digital platforms, in print, or through traditional avenues such as billboard advertisements and television commercials.

A good marketing director will set your company’s tone of voice, create viable marketing strategies that are engaging and invoke a response from your target market, think up new initiatives for outreach programmes, and will work with other specialists within your team to develop the company’s marketing vision. Your marketing director will head a smaller team of marketing professionals that will shape your brand’s public image.

An Industry Expert

Now, you may be the person at the head of your startup, but that does not make you an expert. If you are just starting out in your industry, you know a lot less about it than you may think. Of course, all the people within your team should know your industry well, but it does pay off to have one true industry expert within your team.

This person will have specialized knowledge about your industry, years of experience of practical work experience within it, plenty of contacts, and will be better equipped than any of your other team members – including yourself – in staying current with developments and changes within your start-up’s industry.

Your industry expert can keep you ahead of the game by helping your company adapt quickly to changes that take place, and overcome the challenges that come with operating in your specific market.

A Creative Mind

This person will be a strategist, analyst, and visionary who can help your startup develop beyond its initial founding. As a creative thinker, this person will easily be able to come up with new ideas for your startup’s products or services, come up with new directions in which to take the business, or figure out solutions to practical problems your startup is facing.

Then, as a strategist, this person will be able to figure out ways to make their visions and aspirations for your startup happen. Your team’s creative mind has a desire to see your company excel beyond your wildest dreams and help your team reach the end goals of its projects.

Creative minds are typically analytical, too, and will be able to see problems before they manifest into issues, and work with your wider team to solve them.

An Innovator

You may think that being innovative ties into being a creative mind and, while it does, having a dedicated innovator on your team is so important that they get their own place on this list. An innovator is not tasked with being creative in respect to your product or service, but rather an innovator is tasked with finding new and creative ways to do things and make your startup more efficient.

An innovator is never satisfied with the tried, tested and trusted ways of doing things. Instead, an innovator will bring in new ways to do things for all of your projects, making your team more efficient and motivated. A good innovator, working with the creative mind and your marketing director, can really help your startup stand out from the crowd and set you apart from your competitors.

Whilst your creative mind may have some really great ideas, it is the innovator who helps those ideas transpire into reality through ways that are new and exciting, as opposed to old-fashioned and outdated.

You may be wondering where this leaves you. After all, it is your startup. Well, you are the team leader; you are the person who sees your company’s projects as a whole. You oversee the development of products and services, changes in strategy and policy, or the breaking into new markets from start to finish. You help create a productive working environment in which your team can flourish and have an overriding desire to see your start-up turn into a success. Without you, your team would not exist and your projects would be but an idea in your head.

 

By Michael Deane