You've successfully launched your startup, congratulations! Now you are probably arriving at the growth phase where you may have realized you can no longer take on all the tasks yourself (or even split them between the co-founders). You will need to begin hiring talent into your venture.

This is a key decision that will not only affect your company's production, it can also impact the company culture. As a successful entrepreneur and/or startup you obviously were smart enough to form a great idea and launch it. You may have even left the daily grind because your ideas were not taken very seriously within the previous company. Keep these things in mind as you look to hire on talent. As founder, co-founder or CEO you may feel inclined to hold onto every aspect of the business. This may be a lasting mistake.

As a leader, it is your job to make your venture an ongoing success! This is done by hiring the best talent for your venture. Most ventures look for smart people to fill open positions. This is a first step, however, a better step would be to hire talent that can outsmart you. You would also be wise to hire talent that will be an honest sounding board.

If you are paying someone else for a service or a product, you are generally going to them because they know more about the issue than you. If you don't know enough about cars to fix your own, would you argue with a mechanic or trust him to fix the issue? The same should be true of talent you hire into your venture. Hire them because they know more than you (at least in the specific area that their talent will be realized by the company).

This will have a secondary effect of building trust between roles within the venture. Yes, you as the founder, co-founder or CEO you still need to lead, but it should be with an open mind. Trust the people you've hired to give feedback on your direction. They may have a more efficient or innovative idea to fuel further growth. Remember to hire people that can outsmart you so your company can continue to grow in unique and meaningful ways. If you limit hiring talent that cannot outsmart you, your venture will likely be dysfunctional. Either smart employees will feel unvalued and leave, they will be terminated because they are "unagreeable", or you are only hiring talent that is not as smart as you are.

No one can know everything, but we achieve greatness when others ask us to step up to the challenge and we deliver.