Attracting great people to your company

You may have a great vision for your company, but you can’t get there in isolation. But surround yourself with talented, passionate and enthusiastic people and that’s 90 per cent of the battle won. However, while many entrepreneurs believe hiring great people is one of the most important contributors to success, start-ups and small companies usually to have to find alternatives to sky high salaries when it comes to incentivising employees. Here, CEOs from some of NESTA’s portfolio companies discuss how they find top talent and keep their teams happy.

David Excell, CEO, Featurespace:

"Company culture is important. Make it an innovative environment so people enjoy the problems they're solving rather than viewing their job as bug fixing. Holding social and team events within the office is another way of creating a positive working environment.

"Then there's the stock option plan. That's the ultimate way of making people benefit from the growth and success of the business and incentivising them to stay."

Alicia Navarro, CEO, Skimlinks:

Ian Macbeth, CEO, eoSemi:

"The obvious advantage of joining a start-up is the ability to share in its fortunes. You can join a new business early on and grow with it. Share options have a different significance in a small company to a big one in terms of growth potential.

"The culture of a small company is always different too and that can be very rewarding and attractive to some people. When you join a small company you get involved in more aspects of the business and see the results of your efforts more quickly. Anyone joining a small company will feel that difference in the environment as soon as they walk through the front door."

Juan Lobato, CEO, Basekit:

Edward Bullard, General Manager, Dexela:

"We used share options and also paid quite well. We're quite flexible in terms of hours and avoid implementing lots of procedures that hold people back - it's quite a fast moving environment."