Pretty interesting - I'd love to hear more about the "how to scale as individual piece below"?
I have highlighted a relevant excerpt below.
My experience is that a lot of this has to do with the cohesiveness of the founders. If there are 2 or 3 founders and they all acknowledge the necessity to scale, engage support, and seek out mentorship, there is potential to scale.
Alternatively (and more frequently), one founder (let's say the CEO) may be able to scale a bit more than others (story-telling, pitching vision can grow overtime) or could benefit from bringing on experienced leadership to replace founders/other leaders.
In this case, early employees/forward get hired over but they likely have an equity reward relative to the risk (joining early). Wouldn't it then be best for these early employees to hone in on roles and opportunities to scale as opposed to trying to scale into roles they probably aren't qualified to do overtime (but were owning early on -- i.e., engineering, operations, HR, product, etc.)?
"You’re heading a key function at your 25-person startup. Maybe you’re head of engineering; maybe you run marketing. Hell, maybe you’re the CEO. You kick ass and your startup grows fast – and with that growth, the needs of the company evolve. Things in the new world are now going okay, but perhaps not optimally. Eventually, the CEO and board of directors get in a room to discuss what to do.
I can tell you what will happen in this room. The board will discuss your performance, and compare it to the performance of other, hypothetical executives – just as if you were interviewing for your own job. In your favor: you are a known quantity, presumably viewed as talented, and perhaps even a close friend. Against you: you haven’t done this before, and we need results now."
I have highlighted a relevant excerpt below.
My experience is that a lot of this has to do with the cohesiveness of the founders. If there are 2 or 3 founders and they all acknowledge the necessity to scale, engage support, and seek out mentorship, there is potential to scale.
Alternatively (and more frequently), one founder (let's say the CEO) may be able to scale a bit more than others (story-telling, pitching vision can grow overtime) or could benefit from bringing on experienced leadership to replace founders/other leaders.
In this case, early employees/forward get hired over but they likely have an equity reward relative to the risk (joining early). Wouldn't it then be best for these early employees to hone in on roles and opportunities to scale as opposed to trying to scale into roles they probably aren't qualified to do overtime (but were owning early on -- i.e., engineering, operations, HR, product, etc.)?
"You’re heading a key function at your 25-person startup. Maybe you’re head of engineering; maybe you run marketing. Hell, maybe you’re the CEO. You kick ass and your startup grows fast – and with that growth, the needs of the company evolve. Things in the new world are now going okay, but perhaps not optimally. Eventually, the CEO and board of directors get in a room to discuss what to do.
I can tell you what will happen in this room. The board will discuss your performance, and compare it to the performance of other, hypothetical executives – just as if you were interviewing for your own job. In your favor: you are a known quantity, presumably viewed as talented, and perhaps even a close friend. Against you: you haven’t done this before, and we need results now."