Dope Teams: Why they’re important

This is the first piece in a mini series on Dope Teams! The purpose of the mini-series is to highlight why teams are dope and some best practices in leading dope teams! Pretty cool right? Jk, I know this is nerdy, but read on if you’re interested and I look forward to hearing your feedback!

The first thing I did when I decided to launch a startup was build a dope team. This move was informed by my childhood. Growing up, I loved playing sports. All day long I would play soccer, baseball, and basketball, and then at night I would dream about what my future might look like if I could craft my skill well enough and become a professional athlete. Baseball in particular was my favorite sport, because I was actually pretty good at it.

In baseball, you depend on your team arguably more so than in other sports. I played several positions growing up but at the peak of my career (Junior Varsity in high school), I was a pitcher and a catcher. I liked being in those positions because both had so much control over the sequence and pace of the game. I especially liked being a catcher because they are uniquely positioned to see the whole game in front of them and, as such, are one of the team captains.

Being a catcher, and a pitcher, I had lots of control over my actions, but I needed my team to back me up in the field. Sometimes I’d leave a curve ball hanging, or threw a fastball right down the pipe and the batter would just hit the s*** out of it. Most of the time, my team had my back. They made the plays, and helped me when I made mistakes.

What I realize as I write this is that I was taught at a young age, through sports, the importance of building solid relationships with others if you’re trying to take on a project or, in my current work, build a new organization from the ground up. So that’s what I did, and a little over a year into the development of our organization, I believe building a strong, dope, team at the start was the most critical step we took. The team is what has allowed us to make as much progress as we have, and will allow us to have a real impact in the world this year and in the years to come.

Here are a few reasons why teams are really dope:

1. Network

This may seem obvious, but having a good sized team expands the network of the organization. We started as two people, grew to eight within the first month, and now have a team of 20, plus 9 advisors.