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Entrepreneurship comes with a steep learning curve, and the statistics are sobering. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that nearly 20% of small businesses fail within their first year, and the failure rate rises to 30% by year two. Everyone sets out to become one of the lucky ones, but the way you shape your team, in sync with the rhythm of your business, can change the odds in your favor.
In my 24 years of experience across the ecommerce and financial technology sectors, I’ve discovered that while there’s no universal blueprint for success, one principle consistently stands out: understanding your business’s center of gravity and that you’re going to need to evolve it over time. This core isn’t just the foundation — it’s the engine that drives growth at every phase of your business.
No one-size-fits-all recipe
Every startup is unique, and there’s no single operational framework that fits all. However, for technology-driven enterprises, staffing your business lifecycle typically follows a pattern involving key phases: engineering, product development, marketing, sales and customer support. Transitioning the business’s center of gravity from one phase to another requires steady leadership, sharp instincts and cohesive team effort.
Building the core team
In the earliest stages, lean teams with cross-functional expertise are essential. In most technology companies, engineering is at the heart of the operation.
At Wildfire, for example, our founding team consisted of seven people, five of whom were engineers. Today, our sales and marketing make up 60% of the business team. This shift in team composition is natural, and even necessary, as a business matures.
In the early stages of a technology company, when everyone is focused on building an exceptional product, it’s essential to build a core team with T-shaped skills. A T-shaped individual has broad knowledge across multiple areas (the horizontal bar of the “T”) while also possessing deep expertise in a specific domain (the vertical bar). This type of team member is perfect for a small startup environment where everyone has to do everything.
As the business matures, however, the need for specialists grows. Once the company reaches a certain scale, it’s more effective to hire individuals with narrow, deep expertise in areas like marketing, business development, client success, operations and finance. Specialists bring focused knowledge that enables the business to fine-tune in their area and drive growth in increasingly complex environments. Striking the right balance between generalists and specialists at different phases is crucial for sustainable growth.
Related: A Step-by-Step Guide to Achieving Organizational Alignment
Beyond the product: Scaling and timing
After launching your minimum viable product (MVP), the product itself naturally becomes the business’s center of gravity. The focus shifts to product management and enhancing the user experience in order to grow the user base.
The timing of when to introduce marketing and sales is more art than science. But typically, it coincides with achieving product-market fit. As Marc Andreessen famously wrote, “Product-market fit means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.”
Once product-market fit is secured, marketing usually becomes the focal point, followed closely by business development (BD) and sales, especially in B2B contexts. After successfully transitioning to a BD-driven model, the focus shifts again — this time to finance and operations. At Wildfire, we’re currently at this stage, with a hiring focus on operations and finance as we look ahead in 2025.
Hiring strategically
One of the most important lessons for any startup is efficient resource allocation. Every hire must be strategic, aligning with the company’s phase of growth or hiring slightly ahead of the curve. For example, you don’t want to hire a junior product manager before you have a strong product foundation or a sales team before the product is ready to go to market.
Likewise, it’s acceptable to sell slightly ahead of the curve, provided you have a clear understanding of your sales cycle and can manage expectations. What you want to avoid are scenarios where you’re either selling too soon — without the ability to deliver — or waiting too long, both of which would just waste valuable time and resources.
Leadership and culture
Finally, smooth transitions between these phases require a collaborative, non-political culture. If executives are too territorial and resist the inevitable shifts in focus, it can create dysfunction and harm the business. We have a zero-tolerance policy for “brilliant jerks.”
A highly functional executive team that works collaboratively across all phases is key. They need to be able to communicate with each team so everyone in the company can understand the overall roadmap and the current position in that plan.
Related: 10 Simple Steps to Build an Exceptional and Efficient Team
The importance of a shifting center of gravity
A business’s center of gravity is not static — it moves as the organization grows. Recognizing when and how to smoothly and naturally shift focus ensures the right allocation of resources, drives better decision-making and prioritizes what matters most at each stage of the business lifecycle.
