More Overlooked Traits of Successful Startup CEOs
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New here? I’m John Gauch – a seasoned fractional COO, sales coach and mentor. Over 20+ years, I have applied my growth and operations skills to help dozens of startups, building one high-impact venture to nearly $100M in revenue and a second to exceed that benchmark. I began my career as a tech lawyer in New York City. I developed my expertise in progressive roles in business development, finance, sales, marketing and product, working along the way with companies like Amazon, IBM and Microsoft.
This two-part post is about about critical, often-overlooked traits of startup CEOs (also, entrepreneurs, founders).
In the first post, I wrote how possessing the first three characteristics below is important but not enough to improve your odds of building a successful business.
Creativity and vision.
Passion for the product.
Leadership skills.
Perseverance.
Risk-taking.
Speed.
The following three traits—perseverance, risk-taking and speed—are also commonly associated with startup leaders. Reasonably so, but you must reconsider and expand your understanding of these ideas to be at your entrepreneurial best.
Sometimes, hard work doesn’t get you anywhere.
Challenges and hardships on the entrepreneurial path are inevitable. You do need to be strong and stick with it. Building a startup is an exercise full of uncertainty.
During the Build phase of a startup, there are many unknowns before you achieve product-market fit and solidify your business model. You have a hunch about what might work, but you don’t know with certainty how to reach the desired outcome. You may have it right, sort of right, or completely wrong. Blind dedication to an early hypothesis may get you nowhere.
Rather, you must be resolute and simultaneously open to the possibility that the path forward differs from what you think. Successful startup teams are experts at making unknowns known and reducing uncertainty. In the fastest learning loops possible, figure out what you need to know to solidify your business model. Focus on discovering what is right versus being right—quickly.
Get comfortable with uncertainty over taking huge risks.
You need to be comfortable with some risk if you are building a venture-backed startup or bootstrapped business with similar ambitions. You are taking on a mission into the unknown with many uncertainties after all. So you need to be okay with all that.
But successful entrepreneurship isn’t about gambling or making a single guess, chancing you have it right, and it will all work out.
Entrepreneurs must have a temperament that tolerates uncertainty and a drive to minimize risk—not take risks. Minimize risk by becoming a learning expert. Figure out what isn’t working, what might work, and test it out.
Another way to reduce risk is to carefully steward your resources by raising the capital you need, acquiring early customers and managing how you spend what you bring in. Give yourself and the team as many at-bats (i.e., as much time to learn) as possible.
Make time for what doesn’t seem necessary.
When you ignore or shortchange (or are bad at) the people side of your business, you’ll reduce the odds of your startup succeeding. If the team breaks down, all could be lost. If you succeed, you’ll either create a place where people hate to work or need to spend a lot of time and money later to fix a mess.
Instead, consider the organization a top priority or even your “first product.”
Culture results naturally from what we prioritize and how we do what we do every day. Build the organization daily by simply behaving the way you want the team to act. Be today the way you want the business to be tomorrow.
Remember the four Cs to start if you’re unsure how to do this. (I added one final C to Edgar Schien’s original three). Be curious, caring and committed when interacting with others, and be competent in your work. You’ll create a trusting environment where people want to work that will become self-sustaining.
Read part 1: Overlooked Traits of Successful Startup CEOs.
If you’re curious at all about me or what I do, see how I help startup CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs on my services page.