Building a winning team

Companies, even the ones driven by the most powerful ideas, are not the work of one person alone. Sooner or later, every entrepreneur must come to grips with the need to build a team that can build a dream into a successful reality.

Freshbooks has been on a recruiting tear lately, bringing in talent like Saul Colt , who was behind the launch of ZipCars in Canada, and Mitch Solway , the former VP of Marketing at Lavalife .

In this video clip recorded at Third Tuesday Toronto , Freshbooks founder Michael McDerment talks about the effort that should go into recruiting and hiring and the rewards from doing it right.

“We hire for fit. … You’re building a team. You want an extension of yourself and somebody you can trust has got your back. We spend an inordinate amount of time hiring. That makes some of the other things a lot easier. If you find people with shared values, who are smart people and get things done, then I don’t have to worry about it. … I’m constantly trying to put myself out of a job. My goal is to have nothing to do. Everyone else is doing stuff. Me, doing nothing. … It comes down to hiring. And if you can find people with the right fit and shared values, they will make financial decisions and others that make sense.”

Interested in more about Freshbooks’ appearance at Third Tuesday Toronto?

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