Building your team

Try to gather the right mix of skills, passion, and shared values among your core team of co-founders and early employees.

Communicating between team members and departments, and balancing commercial and social interests, will be crucial for your long-term sustainability.

For the Flipflopi Project, this led to our focus on heritage furniture rather than building materials like fenceposts or roof tiles, because the community could benefit more from the sale of higher-value products.

We have built a team with diverse skills in:

• Creative design
• R&D
• Business management
• Leadership.

This has led to a collaborative and adaptable culture that boosts morale, builds resilience, and encourages innovation.

Once your enterprise is operational, you will need to manage your team carefully. We have shared more advice on this in Managing operations.