You know the old adage: Business is people. Technology has changed, but this wisdom remains true. The people you choose to help in your business will determine your success or failure.

What can you to get the right people in place?

Choosing the right team starts with you. In effect, you hired yourself when you decided to start a business. And if you’re planning to launch this thing, you can’t exactly fire yourself. But you still need to assess whether you’re up for the job. You still need the self-awareness to know your strengths and weaknesses.

That’s so you can work to your strengths and hire against your weaknesses. When you’re aware of what you’re good at, and where you need help, you can bring people on board to cover your back.

This may even include giving someone else the role of CEO. If you look at other businesses, most of the big success stories were started by people who handed over the reins early in the company’s life cycle.

Don’t let your pride stand in the way of your success. So you want to do everything yourself? Is that because you genuinely believe it’s best for your business? Or because you’d struggle to trust others to help out? Perhaps you believe you’re the best at everything, and that others will do a substandard job. You need to challenge those beliefs.

You’re going to have to bring others on board eventually, so if pride stands in the way of you hiring a team, you need to get over that. That’s right. Get over it. Control freaks rarely make successful business leaders. Even when they manage to make a business profitable, it’s hard to call their business a success because everyone around them is secretly miserable.

Here’s what you need to think about as you hire your dream team.

• Hire people who are better than you at the job you’re hiring them for. This sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised at how many entrepreneurs want to be top dog at everything. If that’s you, you’re putting your business at risk.
• Don’t be ashamed of recognizing your weaknesses, and don’t be afraid of stepping down as CEO. In the early days of Google, Sergey Brin and Larry Page handed over control of the business to Eric Schmidt, who led the company to exponential growth.
• Know that giving others major roles doesn’t change your ownership of the company, unless you want it to. You’ll still have influence over key decisions when it matters.
• Watch for when your team hits it limits. You’re going to be growing fast as you launch. As your business grows, some team members who excelled in the early days may no longer be a good fit. You will need to hire extra help.
• Check with your hires that they’re okay wearing multiple hats and working hard and fast. You need them to be as flexible in their work and committed to your business as you are.