Startups are notorious for having long hours, a lot of bumps in the road and many projects occurring simultaneously. When times get tough and your team is down, here are seven ways to keep them motivated. In many ways, startup employees are easy to motivate early on in a company’s life. Like founders, the earliest team members are hungry for a challenge, passionate about their product or solution and eager for knowledge and financial rewards. Nonetheless, it takes a significant amount of time for a successful company to develop, sell and iterate. Most companies are not Mailbox (which famously sold to Dropbox a month after launching). This leaves founders (and startup managers) with a big question: After months or even years of late nights and weekends, how do you keep your team motivated? Based on my two years of managing experience with Travefy -- an online group travel planner -- here are seven budget-friendly tips to keep your startup team motivated. Related: 10 Insights on Building, Motivating and Managing an Exceptional Team 1. Reiterate your vision. Then, reiterate your vision. When starting your company, you likely recruited talent not with the promise of dazzling six-figure paychecks or state-of-the-art facilities but rather with a strong vision of your company or product. The pay cuts and long hours are made worthwhile because of a belief in what you’re building and a desire to be a part of something new. Nonetheless, as time goes on, many founders stop sharing their vision or roadmap as they themselves get into the weeds. Don’t fall into this trap! Constantly share with your team the ever-changing visions and goals of the company. Remind them of what you’re all building towards and let them feel the excitement. 2. Remember that equity aligns interests. To this end, make sure that all interests are aligned by giving your team true company ownership -- through an employee stock options plan. Equity changes the employee mindset from “going to a job” to “being an owner.” This feeling of ownership can be an intense motivator throughout the long startup road. 3. Never create false urgency. Credibility is established over time and lost in an instant. False urgency or deadlines are a huge deterrent to morale and an easy way to lose credibility. Related: 7 Motivational Quotes Entrepreneurs Need to Live By By sharing your vision and roadmap, as well as ownership, you can organically ensure everyone understands the race against cash burn that all startups face. Don’t create burnout and distrust. Save those chips for the real times an insane deadline pops up -- because they will. 4. Recognize the power of food. Among the countless extrinsic motivators, food is inexpensive, universal and easy to manage. A weekly team lunch (or dinner for staying late) is a relative drop in the bucket compared to the goodwill and motivation it will create. Moreover, having food is also literally a productivity booster. The time employees would normally spend leaving to buy and eat food will now be spent as team bonding and a good meal will keep your team alert for the remainder of their daily tasks. As a note, this does not mean you need to hire a Google-style executive chef. At Travefy, we’ve had fun team barbecues with hot dogs and chips for eight people for less than $10 total. 5. Celebrate wins. While every day feels like a race from one project deliverable to the next, take the time to celebrate wins and milestones. Whether it’s a big development release, a customer-engagement milestone, or even a new skill mastered by a teammate, acknowledge it. Additionally, celebrating milestones helps put the overarching progress your team has undoubtedly made into perspective, which can be difficult on the day to day. 6. Plan non-work “team days”. From free things like a day in the park or an in-office video game night to budget friendly golf or beach outings, take the time to plan social “team days”. Everyone needs time to rejuvenate and social activities encourage friendships among coworkers. Don’t forget to invite families to team days or even those boyfriends and girlfriends who are also affected by long working days. 7. Be flexible . Look for opportunities to be accommodating to your team. This not only shows you trust your employees but allows people to focus on work product – the most important thing If it’s ever helpful for your team, let employees do things like work from home, time-shift hours or take an ad-hoc family day. Happy employees, who feel like their company has their best interests at heart, make for productive employees.
In response to Top 1% Received 121% of Income Gains During the Recovery I received a couple of emails from readers that I would like to share. Reader "Gordon" wondered how it was possible for a group to get 121% of income gains. Here is the example I sent Gordon. Mary, Tom, and Joe work for the XYZ Corporation. They are the only three employees. Mary's salary rose from $100,000 to $200,000. Tom and Joe were informed of hardships in the corporation and their salaries fell from $100,000 to $80,000 each. In the above example, net salaries rose by $60,000. Mary's salary rose by $100,000 (more than 100% of the total). Quantifying Inequality Reader "Z" writes ... " Inequality in the US has been rising since the 80s. How do you justify your theory that inflation benefits the wealthy? Not qualitatively, quantitatively. " First, let's take a look at inflation as measured by the CPI (any alternative measure of inflation would suffice for this example). CPI Percent Change From Year Ago click on any chart for sharper image Except for a brief period in 2009, price inflation has been positive. The question is "Who Benefited?" I claim it is those with " first access to money " namely banks and the already wealthy. A few charts courtesy of Doug Short at Advisor Perspectives will prove my point. Nominal US Household Incomes From the above chart it appears the average and median households income has been growing nicely since 1967. If that's what you believe, think again. Real US Household Incomes In "real" (CPI-adjusted) terms, 50% of households are no better off than they were in 1988. Let's dig a litter deeper. Growth in Real Household Income by Quintile The above chart shows percentage income growth by quintile since 1967. Since 1988, the bottom, 4th and middle quintiles (a combined 60% of households) have negative real income growth. The next chart shows the same thing in a different way. Real Household Income by Quintile No matter what your timeframe, only the top quintile did well. And from 1980 until 2000 the top 5% got the lion's share of income gains. Ponder on that for a bit, then consider the following charts on total net worth. Nominal Total Net Worth Real Total Net Worth Total net worth includes stocks, bonds, real estate, pensions, etc. I cannot precise quantify quintiles but we all know (at least we should) who has the assets and who doesn't. The top 5 or 10% have most of the assets, the next 15% or so are OK and nearly everyone else is asset poor and high in debt. Millionaire Households The Wall Street Journal has some interesting stats on the Millionaire Population . According to the Chicago-based Spectrem group, there are now 8.6 million households in the U.S. with a total net worth (minus principal residence) of $1 million or more. There are now 1,078,000 households worth $5 million or more and about 107,000 people worth $25 million or more. The report also broke down today’s millionaires by occupation and former occupation if retired. Managers make up the largest group, with 17%, followed by educators (12%), corporate executives (7%), entrepreneur/business owners (6%) and attorneys and accounts. The $5 million-plus crowd, is dominated by senior corporate executives (17%) and entrepreneurs/owners (12%). Household Net Worth Chart from Spectrem Group There are about 114 million households. Of that number 8.6 million (7.5%) have a net worth of $1 million or more. 37 million households have a total net worth of $100,000 or more. Thus, 77 million households (67.5%) have a net worth less than $100,000. Counting underwater houses, I suspect most of them live paycheck to paycheck and have minimal if not negative net worth. So who did inflation benefit? The answer is those with assets and those with first access to money: the banks and the already wealthy. The poor do not have assets, they have debt. In spite of the often-heard mantra that "inflation wipes away debt", I suggest otherwise. Income typically does not keep up with expenses, and most have too few assets to inflate. The poor (last on the credit totem pole) overpay for their assets with cheap credit given to them at precisely the wrong times (as happened right before the housing bust). Inflation Clobbers Those on Fixed Income In case you missed it, please consider Hello Ben Bernanke, Meet "Stephanie" , my response to a reader on fixed income attempting to live on Social Security plus interest on a $16,000 CD. If routine price inflation did not benefit the banks and the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, we probably would not have it. The word that best describes the process is "theft". Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com "Wine Country" Economic Conference Hosted By Mish Click on Image to Learn More Thanks to Mish from globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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