The only constant is that everything changes, but are you prepared to change?
I had the pleasure of attending Founders Friday here in NYC. Founders Friday is a weekly meetup for early-stage startup founders, investors, service providers, and a hodgepodge of tech-savvy individuals gather to network, offer and receive assistance.
There is always a speaker, usually a founder. This week’s speaker was Jimmy DeCicco, CEO of Super Coffee a startup in the CPG space. As always the talk was very inspiring, and there were several points of emphasis. He spoke about the company, how they started. For those of you not familiar with the brand, Super Coffee is a brand of coffee, that is sugar-free, lactose-free, soy free, and gluten-free, with 10 grams of protein. The product was created by the youngest brother, who began making it in his dorm room while in college.
You’re probably wondering where I’m going with this. The youngest brother as the creator of the product was the defacto founder and CEO. However as the brand grew, and the product went from the dorm room, to store shelves, and eventually to a sizeable manufacturing facility, the company’s needs were changing. The rapid changes required that they reevaluated what their strengths and weaknesses were and figure out who was best suited to what amounted to a new role as the company changed rapidly. They needed to redefine their initial role, needed to figure out who was good at what aspect of running a company. He mentioned that each of them had natural or innate talents suited to a specific role within the company. His strength as a former finance industry professional was best suited to the CEO role, his younger brother who created the product was best suited to R&D and operations, instead of the CEO role he had in the initial phase of the company. His middle brother was best suited to director of Sales.
The point of this story is to be mindful that when you begin a venture that your initial role may not be the role that you have in the next stage of the enterprise. You may be best suited to be in sales, even though you started the company, built the product and hired everyone in the initial stage. There is a good chance that the person who will be CEO of your company in the 5th year may not even be part of the team in Year 1. There is also a chance that the woman in charge of recruitment could be the best person to help you raise in the A round. The key to finding out who is best suited for what at any particular stage is communication. Communicating regularly and consistently within the team is the most effective way to assign roles, or reassign functions to best move to the next life cycle of your company.
You have to be willing to assess the strong points and weaknesses of yourself as a founder or CEO and ask yourself a few critical questions.
The first question is what the purpose of the CEO is at this stage of our company? Is it to oversee what everyone else is doing? Is it fundraising? Is its recruitment of talent? Is it speaking to strategic partners to gain a greater audience ? is it to scale?
Once you answer those questions, you have to think about whether those needs fit your skillset. If they don’t then you should ask who in the current group has the skills needed at this stage in your company life cycle. The role of a founder is to regularly self assess and asses the team. Always know that change is the one constant and how do my skills fit the changes my company is undergoing. If you are unable to make those sort of self-assessment, then it is imperative that you find an executive coach, mentor, or advisor. That person can help you figure out your role and whether it still fits the current, or next iteration of your company. Make sure to know what your company needs at every stage in the life cycle. It is the only way to success.
I hope that everyone stays warm we are going to have some crazy temperatures out there particularly in the East and Midwest US.
Feel free to reach out to me fertcollc@gmail.com or find me on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/raulwikkeling/
Let me know what you think, if you have any questions and how I can help.
Talk soon,
Raul
