Why diverse teams are crucial for a scale-up
- Emin Askerov
- Jul 24
- 2 min read
“Emin, this is bullshit! It’s never gonna work!” I often heard these words from my deputy. And I was grateful for them. I tend to come up with wild ideas, and I needed someone sceptical and independent-thinking who could stress-test them. And stress tests there were! This diversity in opinions and views allowed me to avoid many mistake
When Polina Vasilenko started building her team at HelioRec, she did what many technical founders do: She hired people who were highly capable, experienced… and strikingly similar to each other.
At first, it felt like a strength. Everyone got along. Everyone came from the same kind of background. No one questioned the basics.
But soon, that surface-level harmony became a drag.
The team moved slower than expected. Designs stayed inside the same conceptual box. And when execution problems showed up, they showed up everywhere—because no one had looked at the work from a different angle.
Eventually, she realised the issue wasn’t individual competence. There was a lack of difference.
“I had to restructure the team. Not because they were bad, but because we were all thinking the same.”
It’s a common trap, especially in hardware-heavy fields like cleantech. You look for people you can trust quickly, who share your technical language and who seem aligned from day one.
But aligned doesn’t always mean complementary.
What helped HelioRec move forward was precisely what made it harder to manage at first: Hiring across cultures, sectors, and personality types. Bringing in a COO with deep oil & gas operations experience. Letting go of the comfort of easy consensus.
It wasn’t smooth. But it unlocked real progress.
From my own work with cleantech teams, I’d add this: diverse teams don’t just outperform because of values. They outperform because scaling requires friction. And friction only happens when different ideas collide.
If you want to build a product that scales in the real world, you need more than people who agree with you. You need people who see what you don’t.
For early-stage founders building technical teams: Are you hiring for comfort, or for perspective?
