Photo by William Bout on Unsplash
- The title doesn’t matter in the early stage.
- Your focus and team management skills do.
- The job of a CEO is not to constantly raise funds despite what media or some investors want you to believe.
- It’s to take the company to product-market fit and beyond. And the fastest way to do that is to build a product that solves a real problem.
- Tech CEOs can sometimes take more time to reach product-market fit because they try to infuse tech even when it’s not necessary. Like I did with AI in 2016.
- Commanding developer respect is important and so even if you don’t code anymore, spend time with them when you are a small team and keep yourself updated with the technology landscape.
- People will keep advising you to consider bringing an outside CEO if you feel very passionate about the tech side of things. Don’t listen to them. Only work on their criticism and improve. Founder CEOs are the coolest.
- Media is not very useful early on. Only spend time with customers and team.
- Even with investors onboard, you are mostly on your own. Figuring out your shit is solely your responsibility.
- Good communication can solve a lot of problems. Talk to your team and customers all the time.
- Hiring is hard. You make mistakes every once in a while. Don’t procrastinate the decision of firing a bad fit. This will be good for both of you.
- Always hire for character. Not just for skills. Skills are cheap these days but the character is harder to find.
- Don’t hire your friends or family. If you do, keep the relationship away from the office. Hiring your friends has pros and cons. Optimize for pros.
- Never expect your team to do what you can’t lead by example. They follow your moves without you knowing it.
- Your tech or product - no matter how cool - isn’t the glue that holds the team together. It’s the culture. Invest in building a culture that empowers individuals.
- Detach yourself from your team and business every once in a while to have a wider perspective. That helps a lot.
- Build a culture of empathy. Your engineers, designers, PMs, marketers and others must have empathy for each other. No one’s role is more important. Startups are a team sport.
- Take care of your health. Don’t make your startup an excuse to look unfit.
- Avoid going to random startup events and parties. And you don’t have to consume alcohol just to look cool like other founders, CEOs or investors. Be yourself. I still drink only juice.
- Good advisors are useful. Bring them onboard early on.
- Dream big. Your big dreams inspire your team to dream bigger.
Note : I recently wrote a follow-up to this post. Here is the link: 21 More Things I Learned as a Startup CEO on Way to Product-Market Fit.
PS: I’m aware that this advice is not completely valid for all the startups out there. I’m talking from the vantage point of a SaaS/B2B tech startup. Still, I’m sure that some of this can be adapted to other forms of businesses too.
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