What does it feel like to be the CEO of a start-up?

Its more like running a marathon — all the way uphill, without any markers and end!

I have been a founder and CEO of 2 successful companies. The first time out, used to be a SVP Sales for a large corporations and started the first cloud computing company in year 2000, the first lesson learn was being an Entrepreneur and CEO is not about “selling”.

Suddenly found myself surrounded by a world class management team, I was the youngest, and never learnt how to manage people, other than to produce sales — and now was supposed to lead these executives, including ex-SVP of Marketing for Oracle NA, ex-CIO of Amdahl, ex-VP Operations of Novell, ex-VP DataCenter and Database Ops of Quantum… I guess in the “fever” of things you learn everything, and learn how to empower others or not. Decision making is guided by the startup spirit, I really think there is one.

I worked everyday for at least 14hrs, including weekend. Was I happy, proud or any of that, the answer is “No”, I was just doing things, probably like a marathon runner, putting one step in front of another. Tons of flying around, speaking at conferences, great number of articles, front cover of tons of known magazines, tons of dinner, great wine etc… all seemed tasteless, and another thing that needs to done.

Oh the other thing was not really clear or understanding anything about the product or the technology stack completely. I was clear that I would never comprehend it completely, and here I was facing a barrage of questions from customers, journalists, financial analysts telling the story… Did I doubt my team, not really but always was left with what are they not telling me. Our customer service was incredible, and I knew one thing that we would take care of any customer issues, and I would not tolerate that.

The pressure of decisions, the impact of the decisions does create a new persona, I am not sure a good one… The only friends I had were the ones who worked in the company… I would say the satisfaction for me was in seeing people thrive, fulfilling on the opportunities given to them, and carrying the torch of the mission in front of them.

Eventually the company was acquired. It took me roughly 3-4 months to decompress, and start relating to people, create new relationships etc… The last 3-4 years was a haze, people who worked with me came over and wanted to share the war stories, and for me they were also a haze. To this day that whole experience lives in a twilight zone.

Five years later started a chain of doggy hotels, as far as I could go from technology. Loved the inception of it, creating a culture of customer service, trust and passion, and everybody, I mean everybody empowered to do the right thing by the customers and their pets.

The first one opened in Sacramento, it was awesome, the employees were great we created the largest hotel ever, twice as big as the biggest in the world. People loved us, drove 35 miles to drop their dogs of. Its still incredible and great.

Then came building one in San Francisco, I found myself completely out of depth dealing with construction, the city and everything else around that. Took a year to open from signing the lease. People were amazed that we could do it in a year, but the toll of working with a completely new set of rules, takes a huge toll.

Financing was another pressure, I was building and financing for a long time with financing everything on my credit and credit cards, till I raised some money. Eventually raised around $12 million all from friends and family. I will never do it again, it really takes a toll on you.

Again everything becomes tasteless, the capital raised, parties, dinners, huge media coverage etc… I think the only saving grace was how many places I heard people talking about the company, and how they could leave fluffy there with a complete peace of mind. These snippets kept me going, in one year we made it into a brand in San Francisco.

The biggest thing for me to keep the service level as good as their first experience, and at the same time bring operational efficiencies. Its a painful process one that needs to be done.

I can go on rambling, but I will never exchange being a CEO of a start-up company for anything else. I am happy to share my experience with any other CEO of a start-up company, or you are debating… I can always be reached at ritu@ritu.us.

I wrote this orginally as an answer on Quora. http://j.mp/13D89zd