subject: An Interview with Russell Armstrong: Tips for Aspiring Entrepreneurs [print this page] An Interview with Russell Armstrong: Tips for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
You can't do all the work in a startup yourself. In fact, it is impossible, and you absolutely have to scale. However, it is not all about people and employees, despite what common sense (or your gut) may tell you as a founder of a fresh company.
As a founder of his own company, and having worked with hundreds of startup organizations, Managing Director of Crescent Financial Partners, Russell Armstrong, has a few wise words for aspiring entrepreneurs.
I sat down with Russell to get his feedback on the best ways to build your business, organization, or brand in a way that is both smart and scalable.
talkTECH Communications: How important is human capital, and how much focus should be on the people in a startup organization?
Russell Armstrong: For a bootstrapped startup, it's often challenging to find people who are willing to put in the hard work with little return. With current technology available, additional employees may actually be more of a hassle than simply holding on to your core team of co-founders and tackling problems yourself. But good people, and by good I mean effective, are hard to findso if you find one, hang on tight and make them part of the startup process.
talkTECH Communications: Are tools are imperative for the scaling process?
Russell Armstrong: Build tools and products to do the work for you. Every single product in the world is a type of scale. Google and Facebook are incredibly automated, without which they would have employees in the hundreds of thousands. Consider the following quote from Yishan Wong, who worked with Facebook when it had
