MODERN START-UP
Even Virtual Startup Teams
Must Work Closely
By Marty Zwilling
How do you establish and maintain
rapport with people you rarely see?
How do you keep track of what
everyone is doing?
How do you assure effective
communication between all team
members?
Almost every startup is a virtual
team these days, since most don’t
start out with dedicated office
space, and some or all members of
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June 2016
the team work part-time or out of
their own home. It’s a small world,
so these team members may not
even be in the same town, or the
same country. Outsourcing is just
another extension of the virtual
team concept - to people you don’t
even know.
Working effectively with a virtual
team of any sort has many
challenges. How do entrepreneurs
establish and maintain rapport
with people they rarely see, and
team members who have never
met? How do they keep track of
what everyone is doing and assure
effective communication between
all team members?
Experts on this subject, including
Yael Zofi, in her recent book,
“A Manager’s Guide to Virtual
Teams,” has identified eight key
characteristics of high-performing
virtual teams, which every startup
founder should understand and
enable: