Formulating the right mixture of talent and skill set to create the right team might take time. We talked with Matthew Abeles cofounder and managing director of BuiltWorlds Media, on how he approaches hiring and firing.
Name some people who have inspired you.
My first mentor, Michael Silver, was inspirational as he introduced me to the excitement of the entrepreneurial world. He was a 2008-2009 Entrepreneur of the Year winner for his sale of Equis, which was later sold to UGL, then DTZ, and is now merged with Cushman & Wakefield. I ran his family office after the sale of his company.
The hero in life is my father, Randy Abeles. His drive and competitive nature to succeed in all he does are the reasons I have been successful in all of my endeavors to date. The 5 a.m. workouts every day and working at all hours have rubbed off on me in a big way. At 61 years old, he just marked three years in a row of working out for at least 90 minutes every single day. I hope to be like him at that age!
Talk about how you mentally approach building a business.
The willingness to work harder than anybody else for an unknown reward is something you must be up for if you want to succeed in a young business. I believe having a competitive nature in everything from sports to sales has been at the root of why I have been able to thrive in an unknown business.
Talk about your hiring method.
Hire slow and fire fast. As a young business, we did not practice these traits and had a lot of turnover early on because of it. Now we have a much more rigorous process in place, as we had hired poorly in sales, accounting and social media early on.
Best money advice to early-stage startups?
If you are passionate about what you do, the money will come — I promise!
What’s the one thing you make sure to do to build your business?
Utilize your network and never underestimate the power of quality relationships.
How do you define success?
Being able to grow and prove a concept at a young stage so well that you can compete with leaders in your respective industry. Everyone is always improving what their definition of success looks like. It’s important to have many small and large goals on your journey. As you keep hitting those, success will come.
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