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Caveat, I'm not the CEO of a company, but I feel like the priorities in this are wrong (but maybe I don't strictly prescribe to the SV/startup mentality). At fi
by yladiz 10y ago
Caveat, I'm not the CEO of a company, but I feel like the priorities in this are wrong (but maybe I don't strictly prescribe to the SV/startup mentality). At first, especially if you are technical CEO, it makes sense to build the product either alone or with your CTO/co-founder. However, I wouldn't consider this a "first job" because while it's necessary at the beginning it isn't the job of a CEO. For example, this post says, "Delegation should not be a word in your vocabulary." This is really not true; good leaders and those who get lots of things done are the ones who can delegate extremely efficiently and who can trust those they delegate to do get the job done. In my opinion, building the product is maybe 10% of the job of a CEO, even in the beginning. The 90% of the job is actually building the company, building the brand, getting the word out, delegation.
I would say that the first job of a CEO is building the company, the second job is building the product. If I have time after all of my other priorities were done, then I would help with the product (as in commit code, create or collab on a design or product workflow, etc.). The title CEO isn't just a random arrangement of letters: sure, it's fine to be part of the product in the beginning when there's only a couple or few people, but once it moves beyond that (and not at the 20 person level like this post says) the CEO should really trust that the CTO and the product team can do their job while the CEO handles all the other non-product aspects.
- vinceguidry 10y ago> I would say that the first job of a CEO is building the company, the second job is building the product. The problem with this is you don't really have a company until you have a product to sell. And not all products can support companies. The roles in the company have to orient around the product. Product has to come first.
- rkho 10y agoExactly this. I associate "company first, product second" with the kinds of organizations that seem to exist for the sole reason of playing company. The mentality that important decisions within a new company boil down to which friend gets which corresponding C-level title is just trivial to me. You don't have a product and you're wasting time on the unimportant things. Literally, your startup needs a CEO to guide the ship and a team who can help build the product. Not a CEO, a COO, CTO, CMO, a Director of Engineering, a SVP of Marketing, and who knows what other fancy titles you can come up with. Product is king. Without a product, you don't have customers nor revenue.
- koliber 10y agoThe article is trying to present a certain abstraction. It is not 100% true in any particular company, but over a wide swath, I think it makes sense. I think the title is catchy, but not in tune with the message of the article. The article would be more accurately titled "The role of the CEO in the first three stages of a company's lifecycle".
- hluska 10y agoThat sounds logical, but once you've actually worn the CEO hat, you'll realize how much time you waste building a company before you have a product. The company related tasks you cited (ie - building the brand, getting the word out) will almost certainly be a waste of time until you have a product equipped with some serious fans.