In The Trenches with Startup-O Featuring Bilingua
In The Trenches with Startup-O Featuring Bilingua
Building a Strong Team:
Interview with Guillaume Catella
It would certainly be entitled, “The ultimate startup environment to attract the best talents”. But it could also be “the extreme lean startup methodology”. It would emphasize how our new generation prefers self-development, tough challenges, being surrounded by geniuses that support them, and working remotely with freedom and control over their lifestyle, rather than just a large paycheck.
Designing the best working environment for your beloved team will attract the best talents across the globe. And the best talents will build the best products if you empower them. And in turn, the best products will serve the best people!
Our team first! And secondly, our vision and what we have accomplished with nearly nothing. The Bilingua crew is fantastic and detemrined. They are striving everyday to reach a higher quality, and I’ll feel confident. Even if our idea is wrong, we can just pivot. Having the right team means we’ll succeed anyway once we find the right product/market fit.
Then, our vision. All the good we can do, bridging cultures together: through bilingualism, I am convinced we can contribute to a world that is more tolerant, educated and thus better.
I will give 2 of each!
1) “Fail fast fail cheap” is one of the most important ones. In 1 year with Creatella, I have failed with my team many more times than I did in my past 10 years. By welcoming failure and speeding it up, we learned incredibly fast, allowing us to get better.
2) “Less is more”. Whether applied in a “lean startup” way to avoid waste (in finance, recruitment) or in the actual work (less code, less calls) or even when designing our projects (simpler UX, easy flows…), the “less is more” is present every day in our minds, particularly with our extremely lean approach to work.
The advice I learnt to disregard:
1) “Focus, focus, focus” It might be a good advice for many others, but if you know what you do, I’m convinced “being spread” can be turned into a strength, allowing us to capture more positive opportunities and failing faster with a lower risk.
2) “Treat others like you want to be treated” Leaders have to (reasonably) adapt to each person’s culture, personality and preferred way of communication. Don’t communicate with others in your own communication style. Adapt to theirs and understand their perspective.
Believe in yourself and do this leap of faith! Don’t wait several years in the same company hoping they’ll plan a good career for you. Just create it yourself! 😀
How do you give back to society? (either currently or how do you hope to / plan to?)
We wish to bring people together across cultures, bridge the gaps and contribute to a better education. In those times of ideological and religious conflicts based on opposite perspectives where parties get entrenched in their isolated point of view, I am convinced that bridging cultures via language learning will make this world a better place.
Definitively the week we hired our first 3 members, very quickly followed by 7 more!! We had been working for months, up to a year, with nothing (no revenues). So, the week I realized that was it, we could create jobs and pay salaries to the team that deserved it so much!! I felt as if a part of my reason to be here was fulfilled.