So I'm looking to hire 2 new potential lead managers for our new venture and both guys are younger than me (3-5 years younger, I'm in my early 20s). It's still a startup, so we don't have any revenue yet. Which is why the thread is called identifying friends, rather than employees because we know each other quite well. Again, they're not really employees yet but more like good buddies of mine who are working together towards a common goal.
The thing is, both of them are decent colleges of mine (one of them which I know for over 5-6 years now, while the other one is his cousin that I've met 2-3 months ago), and I've told them about the whole thing roughly 2 months ago and they were eager to join as our first employees so we started working together straight away.
Our first step in the process was to start getting leads on social media by dm'ing them and setting up consultation meetings; so we're basically the only sales people for our project at the moment.
2 months later, and I'm having some mixed thoughts about them.
Let's start with his cousin (call him Mr. D for the sake of simplicity).
First of all, Mr. D will probably be fired since he's not productive at all (he tells me he's working very hard but by looking at our company's social media account I can see he only messaged 17 cold leads on Instagram), so that's already a bad sign. And then once in a while, he starts messaging me about payroll, contracts and all of that stuff. I'm like: "Dude, we haven't made any money yet and you're telling me you want 20% of revenue from this?". And again, I don't get the vibe that he got what it takes to be successful. He also comes from an upper middle class family so life is super easy for him. Daddy's money type of kid you know.
And then there's this second dude, let's call him Mr. A. Now, Mr. A is a good guy. He actually got our first consulting client this week (and we've celebrated it already), so it's all good stuff (prior to that, he got me one other warm lead which refused to sign the deal at the last moment, that company was a pain in the a$$ though).
The problem with Mr. A though (even though he's a good kid) is that he can sometimes disclose information/not be transparent which is kind of weird, since we're working together and I basically tell him everything about what's going on when we meet up/have weekly calls and he's just kind of quiet in a way on his contribution. It's like he's maybe just there to gain something from our cooperation, it doesn't feel genuine. I feel like he benefits a lot more from our friendship than vice versa. There was also one particular instance (which took place a month ago), where he told me about this one lead; which he had a meeting with according to him. And his version went something like this: "Yeah, Company X were very interested but then they got cold and stopped responding to me completely". BUT, whenever I ask him about their contact information/social media, he never gives it to me and acts like he didn't saw the message. AND, I've asked him for it 4-5 times during the last month or so, but nothing happens. I hope it makes sense to you guys!
Since you want your employees to tell the whole truth, but then again they're not even employees so maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way.
When it comes to me, I've got a new high paying consulting job in a new country which means for the past two months I haven't really taken my full attention to this venture until we make 10x per month than what I do in my current job. So it's something I do after hours at the moment.
What would you guys do in this situation?
Is he trying to screw me over/steal my clients behind my back? Should I just ignore it and focus until we make our first money and then address it? Or be upfront about it with all of them and tell them they're fired?
Or maybe I should've listened to MJ's advice: "Never mix family with friends". Something doesn't feel right here to me.
The thing is, both of them are decent colleges of mine (one of them which I know for over 5-6 years now, while the other one is his cousin that I've met 2-3 months ago), and I've told them about the whole thing roughly 2 months ago and they were eager to join as our first employees so we started working together straight away.
Our first step in the process was to start getting leads on social media by dm'ing them and setting up consultation meetings; so we're basically the only sales people for our project at the moment.
2 months later, and I'm having some mixed thoughts about them.
Let's start with his cousin (call him Mr. D for the sake of simplicity).
First of all, Mr. D will probably be fired since he's not productive at all (he tells me he's working very hard but by looking at our company's social media account I can see he only messaged 17 cold leads on Instagram), so that's already a bad sign. And then once in a while, he starts messaging me about payroll, contracts and all of that stuff. I'm like: "Dude, we haven't made any money yet and you're telling me you want 20% of revenue from this?". And again, I don't get the vibe that he got what it takes to be successful. He also comes from an upper middle class family so life is super easy for him. Daddy's money type of kid you know.
And then there's this second dude, let's call him Mr. A. Now, Mr. A is a good guy. He actually got our first consulting client this week (and we've celebrated it already), so it's all good stuff (prior to that, he got me one other warm lead which refused to sign the deal at the last moment, that company was a pain in the a$$ though).
The problem with Mr. A though (even though he's a good kid) is that he can sometimes disclose information/not be transparent which is kind of weird, since we're working together and I basically tell him everything about what's going on when we meet up/have weekly calls and he's just kind of quiet in a way on his contribution. It's like he's maybe just there to gain something from our cooperation, it doesn't feel genuine. I feel like he benefits a lot more from our friendship than vice versa. There was also one particular instance (which took place a month ago), where he told me about this one lead; which he had a meeting with according to him. And his version went something like this: "Yeah, Company X were very interested but then they got cold and stopped responding to me completely". BUT, whenever I ask him about their contact information/social media, he never gives it to me and acts like he didn't saw the message. AND, I've asked him for it 4-5 times during the last month or so, but nothing happens. I hope it makes sense to you guys!
Since you want your employees to tell the whole truth, but then again they're not even employees so maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way.
When it comes to me, I've got a new high paying consulting job in a new country which means for the past two months I haven't really taken my full attention to this venture until we make 10x per month than what I do in my current job. So it's something I do after hours at the moment.
What would you guys do in this situation?
Is he trying to screw me over/steal my clients behind my back? Should I just ignore it and focus until we make our first money and then address it? Or be upfront about it with all of them and tell them they're fired?
Or maybe I should've listened to MJ's advice: "Never mix family with friends". Something doesn't feel right here to me.
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