My 1st 100 Days as a Full-Time Startup CEO
So it’s been a little over 3 months since I quit my job at Intel and became the full-time CEO of GrpFit, which is a fitness platform for the Black community, and I couldn’t be more grateful to have learned these 5 lessons below. I wasn’t sure how it would play out, but I took the leap on March 1st and never looked back. I chose to write about my experience because I found a lot of material about startups written in retrospect or from founders whose businesses were no longer operational due to a number of reasons. I hope my lessons learned will help people avoid the pitfalls that occur and provide clarity on the gravity of taking such a leap.
1. Not Everyone is for You.
A startup accelerator director dropped this jewel on me. He gave my co-founder and I, not only, pointers for navigating the startup environment but also challenged our mental readiness by explaining this lesson to us.
GrpFit is tailored to the Black community and it is in the health and fitness sector. Potential investors, accelerators, incubators, clients and users won’t automatically understand our target audience or product market fit. Also, many people and companies don’t understand the need to target the Black community effectively. I know this, but trying to explain my business is a feat in itself if there is a lack of diverse thinking or a lack of knowledge about health and fitness in general. If people don’t understand the potential to combat the health issues in the Black community such as obesity and high blood pressure (76% of us are either overweight or obese; 43% of us have high blood pressure), then they damn sure won’t understand why GrpFit is necessary.
You’ll save yourself a lot of disappointment if you avoid thinking that everyone will understand why your business is necessary. Don’t try to change people’s minds if they simply don’t get it.
2. “Always be learning.”
This is a way of life for a CEO. Throughout your journey, especially in the early phases, you have to be a jack of all trades. You’ll have your hands in business operations, legal, financial modeling, product management and social media management — just to name a few. Learning these skill sets in a controlled environment like a classroom helped me a little bit but I continuously had to learn on the go. The survival of your company will quite often depend on you picking up a book, reading an article or asking for help. Sure you CAN hire an expert but as they say, teach a man to fish instead of feeding him for the night. Continuous learning is also a way to keep your company as lean as possible.
3. Be Prepared to Change Your Mind Constantly.
It is only human nature to think you may have the best ideas or answers to a particular problem. However, do not try to convince yourself of something if your data, users or subject matter experts are saying something completely different. If you’re trying to introduce a new feature or idea, do your market and competitive research first. If it’s an assumption based on a feature that exists already, take a deep dive into your analytics and/or gather some user feedback because the data won’t lie. Sometimes you’ll have to kill your most beloved idea when all signs point to the futility of its continuation. And, if you have to kill something, do it quickly. Time spent being stubborn, arguing with yourself or peers is time, energy and, potentially, customers lost.
4. Sacrifices.
This might seem like a “duh” lesson because of course there will be sacrifices, right? I’m not just talking about the sacrifice in income once you quit your day job. You will forfeit any combination of: social life, vacation, material things, time with loved ones and hobbies. Putting your business growth first requires you to say no…a lot; no to temptation that leads your focus astray. The temptation only grows as time goes along so stay focused. However, don’t burnout, which leads me to the next lesson.
5. Find Ways to Stay Sane.
Burning out is a very possible reality since there is so much relying on the success of your startup and “team no sleep” has become very popular these days. I’ve found these past 100 days to be a rocky road. The downs hurt me, at times, and overshadowed the progress I made. I soon had to find ways to decompress, and you too will have to find your mental reset button. It’s important to not throw your mental health to the sacrifice pile. There is no way to be 100% into your business, a thousand percent of the time but make sure you discern between stress relievers and distractions. Whether it is music, your significant other, the gym or anything else that makes you happy, use it in times of need.
These 5 lessons were invaluable to keep me motivated during my first 100 days as a full-time CEO. Just like I said in Lesson #2, I’m sure I’ll be learning more. As always, make sure you download GrpFit, available for iOS and Android devices.
Richard Bailey is a Harlem native and co-founder to GrpFit. He was previously a Senior Finance Analyst and Business Operations Analyst at Intel and a Software Engineer and Tech Researcher at Vanguard. He graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology with his degree in Computer Engineering Technology in 2011 and from the University of Rochester with his M.B.A. in 2015.
