BENGALURU: It took eight years for Flipkart to become a big organization, from a mere e-commerce startup. Co-founder Sachin Bansal is now sketching strategies that can let Flipkart continue their growth pace. In a technology conference, the Flipkart Executive Chairman said “We are entering an interesting phase where Flipkart is not a small startup anymore.”

After the steep growth to an established business, Flipkart can no longer compromise on its momentum and success. Hence Flipkart requires hiring potential employees essentially in the management team in order to handle the business at different growth stages, reports Economic Times.

Bansal said, "It's a different ballgame scaling a company from 10 to 100 to 1,000. We have made sure we have retained some values across the board but don't get hung up on old ways of doing things."

Flipkart rectified its management team recently where Bansal became the chairman and will lead focus on fund rasining strategies. Co-founder Binny Bansal will be responsible for daily operation of Flipkart with designation of Chief Executive. Alterations have been made in position right next to the Bansals with the aim to hold on to the success story.

As startups are now heavy funded, it’s important for investors to pick the right talent. Venture capital funds like Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners and Matrix Venture Partners have respective teams to fetch the right set of people for their company.

Experts believe that it depends on the stage of the startup, on what kind of talent acquisition it requires. At the initial stage, startups need more of flexible heads and people eager in experimentation and building remedies to critical problems.

Founder of entrepreneurship platform GrowthStory, Ganesh Krishnan, said, "Then you need people who have experience of having done this before."

Krishnan recalls that after a series of B-funding raise, the  management decision GrowthStory had hired a Chief Operating Officer for their venture, TutorVista. Later, this decision became a disaster for the company.

Krishnan added, "Not because he was not good - he was a top performer used to running thousands of people. But the TutorVista model was not proven. Running thousands of people is different from trying to prove the model."

Again, Krishnan makes mention that year later hiring of five people from top B-schools with minimal work experience made long term contribution to the company. TutorVista, the online tutorial company is now sold to Pearson Education Services for $213 million in 2013.

Krishnan further comments, "If a startup gets people from multinationals too early in its lifecycle there is the danger of a misfit. They are used to certain ways of thinking and are used to some size to grow business further.”

Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma considers the risk of right recruitment as a person’s capability of taking hard decisions in the least time using least resources. Sharma said, "Big companies have the luxury of time and data, which small firms don't." 

Sharma believes that for leadership roles in startups, people horizontal specializations makes more sense than those with vertical skillsets. Sharma said, "The role of a person will change over time, especially in the early days. CXO-level hiring should always be done slowly and with caution," he said. Relevance is key. "Every two years, the company that I was running is run by someone else in my team."

Paytm recently hired for many top openings. The list includes Vikas Purohit from Amazon India, Abhishek Rajan from Myntra, and Varun Khullar from Boston Scientific, a medical device firm.

Founder-director of Talent Advisory Services, Gita Dang said that she always finds a gap between companies want and need, in case of senior roles. Dang said, "The second disconnect is what the venture capitalist, who has funded them, thinks they need."

Dang added, "No harm thinking about (hiring) a superstar but you must know when to bring him in.”

Hector Beverages CEO Neeraj Kakkar said  "Do I hire for current business capacity or next year or for three years down the line?" solves every entrepreneur’s scout for senior executive.

Entrepreneurs prefer to inculcate apt culture in case of senior positions. In 2012, InMobi shot from 200 to 1000 employee strength but was still in trouble, recalls founder Naveen Tewari. InMobi in the same year faced deceleration and no new products were launched. Loopholes were discovered in the vast hiring that happened in the company at the same time. 

To modify the situation Tiwari started a simple ule in InMobi, He quotes, “Let’s do and treat people as I would treat myself. This meant, I trust myself, I will trust everybody. I hate being questioned, let's not question anyone else. And I'd hate it if my board sat down and did a performance review. Let's not do it to our people." The formula worked and in the next year, InMobi launched SmartAds, followed by native ads in 2014 and Miip, a mobile commerce discovery platform in 2015.

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