This is a guest post from Alida Miranda-Wolff, the Director of Platform at Hyde Park Angels.
John Higginson has had a storied career developing product and building technology teams at mammoth companies like Applied Systems, FTD, and Wheels. Now as CTO of Enova, John manages one of the most effective and cohesive teams in the digital technology space.
As a Hyde Park Angels (HPA) member, he provides valuable insights into growing technology companies to portfolio companies. In a recent episode of the Hyde Park Angels People First podcast, he shared some of these insights with Managing Director Peter Wilkins, as well as a few salient points for ChicagoInno readers on hiring tech talent and scaling teams.
Listen to the full interview below, or read on for highlights.
“One of the earliest lessons that I learned was that once you get to a certain point you have to think about what you don't have. You have a core team that will get you to that initial point, and then you have to think about what you need to grow,” said John.
To do this successfully, John recommends asking these questions:
- What does it mean to get three times bigger?
- What would it mean to have customers in different countries?
- How does the app function when it moves from servicing a handful of people to a million?
- What skillsets don’t you or your existing team members have?
By taking a close look at these areas, you will understand your technical talent needs, which is one of the most critical components of the hiring process. Once you identify who you need, you can go about how to find them. An essential step is to look at what prospective candidates have built before.
“You definitely want to talk to someone who has built something analogous to what you are building. Have them point you to their portfolio so you can look at their sites and apps and play with them to see what works and what doesn’t,” said John.
Past experience is critical, but so is a candidate’s ability to learn and apply logic. That means to bring on the very best technical talent, you have to include testing in your interview process. For technical hires specifically, John recommends using HackerRank code tests and a diverse set of logic tasks to measure problem-solving abilities. When you evaluate candidates, you should always try to measure how they learn, and how that might fit within your existing team and company.
Finally, once you onboard your new technical talent into your team, it’s important to create a space where everyone can contribute. Too often, the loudest voices dominate the conversation, and those voices don’t necessarily belong to the best thinkers or your new team members. That’s why John is a proponent for the rule “Best answer wins.” In every meeting, there’s an understanding that personality, status, and tenure come after creativity and good ideas. It doesn’t matter who you are, if you have the best answer, you will have the support of everyone else around you.
