Startup success depends less on ideas and more on assembling a strong, strategically aligned early team that can execute, adapt and scale. Strategic importance of your first hiresEarly teams, including co-founders, shape the company's trajectory, culture and future hiring capabilities. Teams with more than one founder outperform solo founders by an astounding 163%, with 25% higher startup valuations. For early-stage startups, experience alone cannot predict team success. Ethnically diverse startup teams raised significantly more investment capital.