Chief Executive Officer
(CEO)
I’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking about what it takes
to be a great Startup CEO that is also a founder. Here are some of the traits
I’ve found.
BE A KEEPER
OF THE COMPANY VISION
The CEO is the keeper of the company’s
overall vision. I’m not talking about the vision for the next few months, but
the larger road ahead. The CEO needs to be able to keep things on course for
the current quarter to make sure that the large overarching vision of the
company can be achieved. The takeover the world vision of a startup usually
can’t be achieved in one year or even in some cases, like Google, in a decade.
It takes a great startup CEO to keep the company on track to achieve that
vision. A great startup CEO will often judge upcoming initiatives to see if
they fit in as a piece of the large puzzle for the bigger vision.
ABSORB THE
PAIN FOR THE TEAM
A startup CEO needs to be the personal
voodoo doll for a startup. They need to be able to take on a strong burden of
stress, pain, and torture all while making level headed decisions. You can’t
have the troops stressing and worrying about the difficult challenges at hand.
A good startup CEO will absorb the stress, so the rest of the team can carry
on. He also needs to be able to mask this pain and stress. Not that he should
hide or lie to the team- I’m not encouraging that. Most of the day to day
nuances+stresses of a startup aren’t worth having the entire team worry about
and the CEO needs to bear that pain.
FIND THE
SMARTEST PEOPLE AND DEFER ON DOMAIN EXPERTISE
A startup CEO has a great knack for finding
talent. The key is finding people that are smarter than you on specific topics.
It might be technical team members/leaders or it might be a new VP of Biz Dev.
A startup CEO has to have the ability to find these people and make relatively
fast decisions to hire them. They also have to be able to show the fire and
passion to convince them to leave what is most likely a better paying and more
secure job to join the company. The real key to hiring as a startup CEO comes
after the hire. A great startup CEO will be able to trust the hires that they
make and defer to them on areas of domain expertise. It’s hard to let go, but
you have to learn to, especially when the company grows.
BE A GOOD
LINK BETWEEN THE COMPANY + INVESTORS
Whether you want to believe it or not, you
are not an investor’s only portfolio company. Even if you are a superstar, they
have a handful of other companies to help and a ton of incoming potential
portfolio companies. A good investor will pick 2-3 new companies per year to
work with. A good startup CEO will be a good link between progress, issues, and
areas where they need help with investors. A good portion of early stage
startups that raise money will have a board comprised of 3 people: the CEO
founder, the investor, and an independent board member. You are the lone
representative for your cofounder and other employees.
BE A GOOD
LINK BETWEEN THE COMPANY + PRODUCT
I have this unwavering belief that the best
companies are those that keep a founder as CEO for the long haul. Not because
the founders have the right to be CEO, but because the CEO needs to be close to
the product vision of the company. Founding CEOs understand this the best and
can carry out that same unified vision over time. To fill in the management
gaps a great COO, other board members, and heads of divisions will come along.
It’s a strategy that Facebook has employed and why Apple has had a great
resurgence with Steve Jobs at the helm. It’s all about keeping the CEO as close
as possibly linked to the product.
BE ABLE TO
LEARN ON THE JOB
Most startup CEOs didn’t start out with an
MBA or some background in growing a company from nothing to something. The best
have an ability to learn along the way and embrace their failures to become a
better leader. The best startup CEOs will surround themselves with smart
mentors to be a sounding board along the way.
NO
EXPERIENCE ALMOST PREFERRED
It’s almost better to have a blank slate of
zero experience as a startup CEO. If you come in with preconceived notions and
block out the scrappy methods of a startup founder, it actually hurts you.
Traditional education often trains you to be CEO or manager for a much larger
company, not for a startup of under 50 people. It’s a different kind of
leadership and company.
HAVE AN
UNCANNY ABILITY TO SAY NO
You will be inundated with a list of
requests from potential partners, investors, employees, and more. They will all
sound absolutely wonderful. As you grow, you will also have the resources to
execute more of them. Don’t. It’s easy to say yes, but so very hard to say no.
By having an uncanny ability to say no, you can keep your company on track with
the large vision you maintain. It will also keep your team members (notice I
don’t like to use the word “employees”) laser focused and feel more rewarded as
they are able to focus on one thing for a good chunk of time. I’ve seen too
many startups sink because the CEO keeps changing what the head of product and
engineering should be doing.
HAVE SOME
TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLSET
A good startup CEO shouldn’t be afraid of a
little bit of code and a text editor. They don’t need to be diving into the
source code on a daily basis, but they need to understand the technical
requirements. It’s easy to say “go build this”, but it’s a whole other ball
game to understand how to build it. What seems simple may be a huge mountain of
a technical feat that just isn’t feasible with the given resources and
deadlines. It can also help lend some street cred with hiring early technical
team members too.
BE ABLE TO
BREAK THINGS DOWN INTO SIZABLE CHUNKS + MILESTONES
Remember that huge unwavering vision that
you are the keeper of? Odds are it only makes sense to you and your cofounder.
You will need to break it up into sizable chunks and milestones for the rest of
the team to understand it. You also need to be able to pick when and where to
conquer things strategically. What is the past of least resistance so you can
gain traction? What can you do first with your given resources?
HAVE THE
ABILITY TO CALL AN AUDIBLE
Nothing goes according to plan. Things fall
through, people quit, shit happens, servers crash, and other random things go
bump in the night. You’re going to have to deal with it and fast. This is a
football term:
“Seen when the quarterback goes up to the line
of scrimmage, sees a defensive alignment he wasn’t expecting, and adjusts by
yelling out a new play.”
You’re
going to come up against things that you didn’t expect and just be able to call
an audible. Launch faster, spend more money here, or even abandon a project.
CAN
MOTIVATE THE TEAM THROUGH DESPAIR
People love to talk in this business.
People love to talk even more when you’re company isn’t fairing well. A great
CEO will be able to take those moments of public despair and keep the company
focused. They will be able to debunk the rumors or even approach them head on
by keeping the members of the company focused on the bigger mission at hand. It
can come in simple 5 minute talks or motivational emails. The worst thing you
can do is avoid the situation and be passive aggressive. I repeat: DO NOT WUSS
OUT.
BE A GREAT
COMMUNICATOR
You need to be able to portray the energy
and passion that you feel into others…over and over and over and over and over
and over again on a daily basis. As a startup founder you need to communicate
the vision and hope for the future of your startup to the rest of the world.
You need to be able to break down the overall vision of the company into
something that mere mortals can understand. You can’t speak in crazy technical
jargon or industry terms. It needs to be simple, clear, and compelling. You
also need to be able to argue your point. Many will pick “fights” with you just
to see how strong willed you are. Be respectful, but be very confident in your
answer. Often wrong, but never in doubt my friend.
sumber : http://jasonlbaptiste.com/featured-articles/14-ways-to-be-a-great-startup-ceo/
