I’ve been lucky enough to have had not one but two shots at building a team from scratch in 2025. What did I learn from Decalmania at Riverbed, and what am I carrying forward into marketing at WiPS?

When I prepared to start Women in Publishing Society Hong Kong’s marketing sub-committee, I retraced my steps. What did I do during Decalmania, Riverbed Collective’s last project, and what have I learnt? What could I apply to leading marketing at WiPS?

I’ve already spoken about the big-picture management of Decalmania’s team in Baby’s First Managerial Role, so this piece will focus more on the details of jumpstarting a team.

Building a solid foundation

Expectations for a team

At a base level, anyone who creates a team is seeking extra support. The exact kind of support can be highly variable, which influences one’s expectations for the team itself.

After our co-founder Izzy’s departure from Riverbed Collective, my other co-founder Akko and I decided to bring new people on. The workload was a major reason, as listed in Baby’s First Managerial Role, but it certainly wasn’t the only reason.

The thing is, Akko and I think very similarly, which is wonderful for team cohesion, but, as my mentor Mei Mei Ng pointed out, won’t lead to dynamic, long-term growth. Akko and I agreed on every single thing, so we’d always be doing things the same way. We needed additional voices and perspectives to crystallise our vision for the collective.

Therefore, on our team, not only did we need people with experience running similar projects, we also needed their own perspectives and a vision. To put it bluntly: I needed people to disagree with me.

Finding the right people and creating the right roles

I remember relaying Mei Mei’s insight (regarding our need for more people) to Akko, calling my friend Kayla, and Akko calling his friend Loup all within the same night. Kayla and Loup went on to work with us during Decalmania. Such is the nature of start-ups, I suppose; so much excitement united under a shared goal.

Since Akko and I knew Loup and Kayla personally, and we knew of their professional work, we could estimate the degree of business, mission, and cultural fit between the four of us. (I didn’t know those terms until Michael Tsai (of iCanStudy) and I spoke for the first time.)

Colloquially, everything from the why behind our work, to our schedules and plans, to whether or not we vibe—that all had to line up.

(Also, timelines-wise, Elke and Alisha were later additions to the team.)

Job descriptions, not requirements

I used to think that the only way to hire was to draft a specific role, a description of a dream person, and then hire someone who fits those exact requirements. While I know that happens out of necessity—I’m looking for a very detail-oriented Chinese speaker at Riverbed, for instance—through conversations with Michael and Grace Chan (global brand leader and marketer), I’ve realised that roles, especially at pivotal points in an organisation’s life, can be extremely mutable.

As I was brought onto the WiPS committee, I had multiple conversations with Grace. We spoke about how, sometimes, we’re more keen on hiring a person as a whole—a combination of skills, interests, and experiences—than someone for a specific role, especially at pivotal points in an organisation’s lifespan. In transitory phases especially, a role can and should be developed alongside the needs of the company and the needs of the candidate.

Therefore, I’ve tended to start with having conversations with candidates to understand their motivations and strengths, then graduating to hiring interviews.

(Although, with start-ups and volunteer work, it’s often your friends and whoever you manage to get your hands on. So incredibly fun, honestly!)

Culture and creating connections

Time for the nitty-gritty details of jumpstarting a team…

The actual introductions

If I’m starting a team without knowing enough information about each individual to briefly introduce them, I’m definitely doing something wrong. Since my teams have all been virtual, my strategy so far has involved, to put it simply, adding people to a chat group, briefly introducing them, and doing icebreakers until there’s something for a conversation to latch onto.

Rapport and trust takes time to establish, and I’m still trialling several strategies with Riverbed’s current core team. I think I’m seeing progress. Check back in a few months.

Establishing and clearly communicating work culture

• Handbook: having a handbook provides clarity, sets expectations, and creates accountability. This protects our staff members
• Setting the tone through interpersonal communication: back in May 2025, when Decalmania’s team was forming, Akko and I didn’t have a staff handbook ready. We relied primarily on setting the tone by acknowledging others’ expertise, always welcoming dissent, and always thanking people for their efforts

The differences between Riverbed & WiPS

It’s about time I actually introduce what Riverbed and WiPS are.

Riverbed Collective is an artist-led social enterprise celebrating creatives, their unique styles, and their shared stories. We’ve done this through several collaborative projects, the most recent of which was Decalmania, involving 72 artists from ~20 countries. I’m a co-founder, the director, and I’m working on building out our core team with my associates Alisha and Kayla.

Women In Publishing Society Hong Kong (WiPS), the oldest literary organisation in the city, aims to unite people in words and work. It’s both a professional network and an inclusive community of literature enthusiasts. I’ll be on the committee and will be leading WiPS’ marketing team.

In the context of running a team…

Similarities (plus caveats compared to other teams out there)

• International and virtual: we have a significant lack of live meetings! Therefore, we have to develop ways of performing asynchronous communication
• Passion-driven: for the most part, these roles are volunteer roles (at least for now), so each team member’s primary motivations will be different to that of a paid role

Differences

• We’re not building from complete scratch at WiPS. WiPS has been around since roughly 1990
• WiPS is less about deciding on an overall direction—that’s already fairly solidified, though this kind of thing is always subject to change—and more how we can use marketing to execute on values
• WiPS involves leading a subcommittee, which means we’re less agile than at Riverbed, but also means I will get to learn from/be supported by the steering committee
• As of March 2026, Riverbed has a smaller spread of ages on the team
• Prior to March 2026, most people at Riverbed started out as my own friends, which means team building strategies were different between WiPS and Riverbed

Going forward

From finding the right people to shaping the right roles, researching work cultures conducive for growth to establishing team norms, I’m excited to see what 2026 has to offer for both WiPS and Riverbed.

Lastly, one small (unrelated) experiment: it sounds ridiculously simple, but I’ve been matching my language to the desired outcome—calling vision meetings ‘crystallisation meetings’, for example, or telling my team they’re ‘co-authoring WiPS’ image’. Maybe it seems ostentatious, but I truly believe that’s what they’re doing with me.