14 ways to become a successful startup CEO

From the translator. The author of this publication is the CEO of OnSwipe , and the former CEO of Publictivity.com and Miami Merchants.

Everyone thinks that being a CEO of a startup is a glamorous, fun job.
I call it "glamorous thinking." We are talking about the life of startups, which is described in the press. You know what articles I mean. Those who talk about how easy it is to earn money, how many users the company attracts, and how cool it is to be a CEO. Very rarely you will hear how damnable it is to be a CEO, that not every start-up can be an entrepreneur. It turned out that the founder of the project in order to become a successful CEO must follow a number of rules.

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1. Be a keeper of company ideas

CEO - the face of the company, the keeper of its ideas. And I’m not talking about ideas for the next few months, but about long-term solid plans. The CEO must be able to keep the business afloat in the long term to ensure that the company's comprehensive comprehensive plans can be feasible. Public opinion about a startup usually cannot take shape in one year, or, even in some cases, like Google, in a decade. CEO will have to try to form this opinion. A successful startup CEO will constantly rake all incoming initiatives, understanding that even small details are important for the whole puzzle.

2. Take strikes on yourself

CEO must be a personal voodoo startup doll. They must withstand a heavy burden of stress, pain and torture, and all this, in the process of making important decisions. You can not afford to make your team nervous because of every difficulty. A good CEO will cover the backs of his teammates at any time. He also needs to hide the manifestations of stress and pain. Not that you need to hide something from the team or lie, I do not propose it. Most of the everyday nuances and stresses of a startup are not worth the anxiety of the whole team, and the CEO has to take a hit.

3. Find the smartest people and rely on their knowledge.

The CEO of a startup should have an excellent talent search capability. The trick is to find people smarter than you in certain areas. This may be a member of the technical department of the team, and a new vice president. The CEO of a startup should be able to find these people and make quick right decisions to interest them. You also need to be able to show all the charisma and passion in order to convince them in most cases to leave a better-paid and reliable job and join your team. In fact, the success of attracting a new participant is revealed after the attraction itself. An excellent CEO can trust those who are hired and rely on their skills. It is hard to get used to this, but you will have to, especially in the process of developing the company.

4. Be a link between company and investors.

Whether you like it or not, believe me, you are not the only company in the investor portfolio. Even if you are a superstar, they still have a lot of other invested companies and even more potential companies for a portfolio. A good investor chooses 2-3 new companies per year for cooperation. A good startup CEO will be a reliable link in progress, controversial issues and areas in which investors will need help. Most start-up startups who are already making money are led by a team of three people: CEO founder, investor and independent team member.

5. Be a link between the company and the market.

I am convinced that the best companies are those that retain the founder for the position of CEO for the long term. Not because the founder has the right to be a CEO, but because the CEO must be intimately familiar with the product concept. SEO founders understand this best of all and can defend the same single point of view for a long time. To fill the gap in the management of a good CEO, other team members and heads of departments come to an agreement. This strategy was used on Facebook, and it was thanks to her that Apple got such a revival with Steve Jobs at the head. The thing is that the CEO was as close as possible to the product.

6. Learn how to learn while working.

Most CEOs started without having a Master of Business Administration education or other conditions for the creation and development of a company. The best have the ability to learn in the process and use their own mistakes to become the best leader. Zuckerberg started when he was 19 and now he runs the most influential Internet company. Do not worry about your qualifications, because as such there is no typical concept of qualification in your work. You will know the whole point of the process. The best CEOs of a startup will surround themselves with smart mentors in order to constantly move in the right direction.

7. Lack of experience is a plus.

Perhaps it is even better for a startup CEO to have no experience in this area. If you have previously acquired knowledge and ideas, you'd better be the manager of a larger company than a startup with up to 50 employees. This is a completely different type of leadership and company.

8. Learn to say NO.

You will drown in the lists of proposals from potential partners, investors, employees and others. They will all seem great. As you grow, you will have the resources to solve most queries. Do not do this! To say YES is very easy, to say NO - on the contrary, it is very difficult. Learn to say NO, and you can keep your company at the right level and in the form in which you want. It will also make your team members (note, I don’t like the words "subordinates") more focused, as they will be able to focus on one goal for a long period of time. I saw a lot of startups that failed because the CEOs continued to change what managers and technicians should do.

9. Acquire technical knowledge and skills.

A good startup SEO should not be afraid of code and text. They do not need to go into the source code every day, but it will not hurt to understand the technical features. It's easy to say “go and do it,” but it’s quite another thing to know how to do it. What seems simple at first glance may require a huge mountain of technical work, which is unrealistic to perform with the resources allocated and the deadlines set. It will also help earn respect when you bring techies to the team.

10. Separate tasks into stages, designate deadlines.

Remember those big ideas, the guardian of which you are? The point is that only you and your co-founder understand this. You will have to break assignments into parts and set deadlines for them so that the rest of the team can understand everything. You also need to choose where and when to make strategic decisions. What is the path of less resistance to achieve results? What can you do first with the resources available?

11. Know how to solve everything at the last second

Everything is not going according to plan. Ideas fail, people leave, servers fall, failures lurk at every turn, and ordinary things become nightmares. You will have to deal with it and cope quickly. Here is an example of college football:

“To see a quarterback that comes up to the rally line, sees a defense building that he didn’t expect and regulates the attack, shouting out a new scheme . ”

You will be faced with problems that you did not expect and succeed in solving them. Run faster, spend more money, or even leave the project.

12. Learn to motivate a team in difficult moments.

In this business, people love to talk. People like to talk even more when your company is not doing everything smoothly. Excellent CEOs will be able to cope with such moments and preserve the integrity of the company. They will be able to expose the rumors or be above them, focusing team members on more important tasks for the company. This is solved by the usual five-minute conversations or motivational letters. The worst thing you can do is ignore the situation and take an aggressively-passive attitude. I repeat: DO NOT BE RAGGED.

13. Be an excellent communicator.

You have to project your energy and passion onto others ... again and again and again and again and so every day. As the founder of a startup, you need to bring the vision and concept of your company to the rest of the world. You should be able to share the ideas of your company into something that mere mortals can understand. You can not speak too technical slang language and use complex terms. On the contrary, your words should be simple, clear and catchy. Also, you need to be able to defend their point of view. Many will want to "fight" with you just to understand how strong your will is. Show respect, but be sure of your answers. You can make mistakes, but never doubt.

14. Do not become "false CEO"

Mark Pincus, CEO of Zynga, strongly recommends not being false. In short, worry about things that produce results, not fame. Between going to a conference / interview or doing something, choose a deal. Don't dump it on someone's shoulders. You have to "get your hands dirty" every day.