You have to be a little crazy

I’m sitting at my desk that looks out on downtown San Francisco and there’s currently a Bollywood movie playing on the top of the Salesforce tower. Not a bad background as I write this blog post.

Anyone that has worked at a small startup will probably tell you that the most important thing in growing the company is the people you hire. That experience has held true so far in my two years here. We haven’t been perfect in our hiring, but I feel like we’ve done a damn good job overall.

There’s no one right way to hire, but there’s a lot of wrong ways to hire. One trait that I am always looking for in people is what I call the crazy trait.

You have to be a little crazy to be a difference maker in a startup.

If you think about what you will be subjected to on a daily basis, this starts to make a lot more sense. There is generally no structure. You are told to execute on something and expected to do that task at a high level. There are also no rules. In the world of disruption, you can bend or break the rules to accomplish your task. On top of all this, you have to deal with a constant oscillation between highs and lows sometimes on a daily basis.

Yes, you have to be a little crazy to want to do this at a high level for a long time.

For those that love and embrace the grind, Secfi is an amazing place. It’s not for everyone, but I’m as excited as ever to start finding the next wave of “crazy” employees.