Sunday, April 26, 2009

A Warm Welcome to PeerFX Guest Bloggers!

Hi Everyone,

Since this blog exists to help other start ups and small businesses by sharing our experiences and stories, I thought I would add an additional element through the help of Guest Bloggers.

Start ups and small businesses face difficult issues right now with tough economic times, but we think there's a huge opportunity for us to get creative and do MORE with LESS.

Our Guest Bloggers will share their experiences and opinions from their fields and you can watch for their posts on Monday of each week. We are starting officially TOMORROW so the purpose of this post is to extend a warm welcome to our first guest - Raymond To.

Raymond To has been recruiting and offering HR consulting to technology companies here in British Columbia since 1992. Applying the training received from his CMA and MBA, he founded GO Recruitment in 2002 and immediately set out to change the way companies could benefit from a different kind of service. He was recognized in 2006 as one of Business in Vancouver's "40 under 40" winner.

His post will be give you insight into the employment industry; I look forward to reading it and I hope you do too!

2 comments:

Raymond To, MBA, CMA said...

Hi all, Yipe. This is Raymond To and I am honored that Florence has asked me to break the champagne on her boat called PeerFX. The last 6 months have been fun working with her and Julien,the other significant part of the team...and this is a great launching topic I want to share with those of you who want to consider working for a start-up. In my 17 years of recruiting and HR consulting, there is only 1 thing that makes any start-up work and that is "you gotta believe". I am not saying the drink the koolaid kind of belief but one based on research, creativity and follow-through.

I am biaised in that most of my clients are start-ups but I really like working for them because the people who work there are in it to change the world! How cool is that? We all have limited time on this earth so why not maximize it by investing your time in changing the world?

Another insight I would like to share is that you have to be a problem solver! This is not a cliche. I hate it when I work with an anti-start-up person who asks me "how do I solve this?" That is the wrong question! IMHO, the right question is "I saw this problem and here are my suggestions for potential solutions. There are pros and cons to each option but I recommend this one"
If you ask any CEO or executive team member of any of my start-up clients, they will tell you this is the type of attitude they expect if you are going to fit in a start-up.

A word of caution: Not all start-ups make it to the next stage for a variety of reasons. 90% of them fail. Most don't make it past 2 years. My attitude though is "so what!?" because the journey is worth it and imagine all of the lessons learned along the way.

Do you agree or disagree? I welcome some insights or debate.

Anonymous said...

Hey Ramymond, I actually concur with what you're saying. I think what's interesting is that most people are taking a proactive approach to solving solutions, always looking towards their CEO or whomever is running the company to solve all the answers. I haven't looked at the stats of the 90 percent myself, but what I find is that those that stay in business...even after two years struggle in the business. Most of the time I think it's beccause the owners themselves aren't out there looking for potential solutions. They trudge along without consideration or are too stubborn to get help. That's my two cents. Looking forward to your input and guest blogs.