{"id":38891,"date":"2023-10-20T14:59:31","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/five-tips-for-building-the-perfect-startup-team-from-envato-founder-cyan-taeed-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:59:31","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:59:31","slug":"five-tips-for-building-the-perfect-startup-team-from-envato-founder-cyan-taeed-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/five-tips-for-building-the-perfect-startup-team-from-envato-founder-cyan-taeed-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Five tips for building the perfect startup team from Envato founder Cyan Ta’eed – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Cyan<\/div>\n

Before it became one of the world\u2019s largest creative communities and Australia\u2019s coolest tech company for women, Envato was a tiny online site operating out of a garage.<\/p>\n

Founders Cyan and Collis Ta\u2019eed put everything on the line to build the startup, with the pair living in Cyan’s parent’s basement to work<\/a> on what people at the time called a “bizarre” idea.<\/p>\n

Ten years later Envato is a multi-award winning tech company operating some of the most trafficked sites in the world and generating millions of dollars in sales for creative professionals around the world.<\/p>\n

Both founders have remained with the company, and\u00a0Ta\u2019eed\u2019s focus on diversity, empowerment and flexibility<\/a> has led Envato to be named Australia\u2019s coolest tech company for women.<\/p>\n

Getting to this stage has taken a lot of education, learning and self-confidence, Ta\u2019eed says.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a long time we felt we were imposters,\u201d she tells\u00a0StartupSmart.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt took us a long time to realise that this business is building because of the decisions we\u2019re making.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ta’eed says there are five key principles that help Envato to excel at people management.<\/p>\n

1. Hiring for the future<\/h3>\n

Ta\u2019eed says one of the ways she keeps\u00a0Envato ahead of the curve is by hiring people now to meet future needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got your one year runway, your two year runway and your five year runway,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s thinking that far ahead about what am I going to need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thinking ahead when hiring and structuring their teams has helped Envato grow smoothly, Ta\u2019eed says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got better at this over time,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cHiring the heavy-hitters before we actually needed them.”<\/p>\n

2. Being truly flexible<\/h3>\n

When it comes to flexibility at work, Ta\u2019eed says it\u2019s not simply about workers with child caring needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a completely flexible, results-driven work environment,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they work doesn\u2019t matter and where they are doesn\u2019t matter, what matters are their skills, their entrepreneurialism and their eagerness.\u201d<\/p>\n

By offering workers the freedom to pursue interests out of work, she says Envato has\u00a0built a highly engaged and happy workforce.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t found that people take advantage of it at all,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey get to have lives out of work.\u00a0We understand they need flexibility because stuff comes up.\u201d<\/p>\n

This \u201cstuff\u201d could be anything, Ta\u2019eed says, from pursuing a sporting hobby and needing to go on tour through to taking the day off because your sewage pipes exploded.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re living big lives, I personally want to hire people who are doing a lot of stuff,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

But creating a flexible work environment that is highly functional takes strong leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople need active management and support especially at the size that we\u2019re at,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

3. Proactively learning how to manage people<\/h3>\n

Bringing the best out of people takes skill and experience, and to help her become a strong leader, Ta’eed\u00a0undertook formal training to help her\u00a0wrap her head around what it takes to empower people to thrive and be their best.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing a manager in and of itself is a really complex, high level thing to excel at,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s taken years.\u201d<\/p>\n

4. Putting purpose at\u00a0heart<\/h3>\n

The Envato leadership team actively tries to engage every employee in the Envato story.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is quite simple, it\u2019s to help as many people in the world earn as much money doing the things that they love,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople who really get that and are really excited about that are the people we want to hire.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s more about purpose than about profit, then you\u2019ve got people that are really excited to go the extra mile.\u201d<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s world, Ta\u2019eed says it\u2019s incredibly important to formally integrate \u201cgiving back\u201d and purpose into the business.<\/p>\n

\u201cGive them a reason to get excited and get up in the morning,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

5. Leading by example<\/h3>\n

Ta\u2019eed says she also takes her leadership outside Envato to inspire young girls and women about the possibilities in tech.<\/p>\n

Speaking to about 900 school girls recently, Ta\u2019eed said technology today enables people of all different backgrounds to create impact on a global level.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can start something out of your living room and it can reach an international audience,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cStarting in our garage and growing to 7 million members, that\u2019s one in 1000 people in the world, that scale is unprecedented in the whole of human history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em>\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0SoundCloud<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before it became one of the world\u2019s largest creative communities and Australia\u2019s coolest tech company for women, Envato was a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1,26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38891"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}