Tamara Chayo

We are usually used to hearing the bold and courageous stories of founders around the world, who change something, revolutionize an industry or even generate that something so complex becomes part of everyday life.

I know that it always takes the person at the front, that initiator, to unleash change, but we tend to forget about those who are in charge of building and expanding the vision of any founder or company: the team.

The team is the elemental piece for any startup to exist, subsist, grow, impact and finally generate a monumental change. It is THE piece that we often tend to take for granted along the way, but we forget that without a team there is nothing.

Throughout the years in which I have been able to strengthen my vision of the world and where I want to go, I have been able to complement and improve it with several members of my team. They are the ones who challenge me to get out of my comfort zone, and who help me understand what is missing to keep growing.

It is never easy to build a team, it requires a lot of conviction of what is needed, but also a lot of openness to let go of control when the right person arrives, and above all a lot of attention (without micromanagment) to be able to generate leadership and successful execution.

High-performance teams have a couple of things in common: people who are highly accustomed to stress management (they even seek it out in their day-to-day work), highly efficient and productive (they get bored very quickly), proactive and clear. And something I like to add, because it is something that we have achieved at MEDU and that is certainly needed to be able to scale in the most sustainable way possible: it is empathy.

I can say that without my team, I could not have the freedom I have to keep learning, that without them I would not learn as much in my day to day, or question basic things that can change our course. They are the ones who little by little have contributed their vision to make MEDU MEDU today. They bet on a vision together for months before we could even pay them a salary, and that’s what a founder is looking for: a dream team.