it-ebooks - The Great CEO Within

The Great CEO Within
(Formerly: Founder to CEO )

How to build a category-killing company from the ground up

By Matt Mochary

Introduction

Essential Reading

Part I -- The Beginning

Chapter 1: Getting Started

Chapter 2: The Team

Part II Individual Habits

Chapter 3: Getting Things Done

Chapter 4: Inbox Zero

Chapter 5: Top Goal

Chapter 6: On Time and Present

Chapter 7: When You Say It Twice, Write It Down

Chapter 8: Gratitude and Appreciation

Chapter 9: Energy Audit and Zone of Geniu

Chapter 10: Health

Part III Group Habits

Chapter 10: Decision-Making

Chapter 11: Loudest Voice in the Room

Chapter 12: Impeccable Agreements and Consequences

Chapter 13: Transparency

Chapter 14: Conflict Resolution and Issue Identification

Chapter 15: Conscious Leadership

Chapter 16: Customer Obsession

Chapter 17: Culture

Part IV Infrastructure

Chapter 18: Company Folder system and Wiki

Chapter 19: Goal-Tracking System

Chapter 20: Areas of Responsibility (AORs)

Chapter 21: No Single Point of Failure

Chapter 22: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Part V Collaboration

Chapter 23: Meetings

Chapter 24: Feedback

Chapter 25: Organizational Structure

Part VI Processes

Chapter 26: Fundraising

Chapter 27: Recruiting

Chapter 28: Sales

Chapter 29: Marketing

Part VII Other Departments

Chapter 30: Executive

Chapter 31: Product

Chapter 32: Engineering

Chapter 33: People

Chapter 34: Finance

Chapter 35: Legal

Part VIII -- Appendices

Appendix A: Common Mistakes

Appendix B: Recommended Recruitment Process

Appendix C: Sample Area of Responsibility (AOR) List

Appendix D: Board of Directors

Appendix E: Further Reading

Appendix F: Personal

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Who am I? Why am I writing this book?

I coach tech startup CEOs (and tech investors) in Silicon Valley, most of whom are young technical founders. They include the CEOs of OpenAI, Coinbase, OpenDoor and AngelList.

In my coaching, I found several things:

1. My mentees and I repeatedly solve the same core issues.
   
2. While there are many books out there with excellent and relevant knowledge for the founding CEO, there is no single book that is a compendium of all the things she needs to learn.
   
3. Becoming a great CEO requires training.
   
4. For a founding CEO, there is precious little time to get that training, especially if her company is succeeding.

In this book, I have simply written down the solutions that my mentees and I have came up with. Hopefully it will serve as a compendium so that you can become a great CEO in the very little time you have to do so.

This book goes from high-level (an outline of many of the issues that a CEO will face) to the mid-level (a recommended initial process for each of these issues, written in such a way that it can be copy-and-pasted into a company playbook) to the low-level (specific suggestions of phrases to use in specific oft-recurring situations). The book, therefore, has both breadth and depth.

If you are a CEO, new or experienced, this book is meant for you. If you are a first-time CEO, then this book will give you frameworks and answers for your current and future challenges. If you are an experienced CEO, this book will be a good checklist of best practice benchmarks against which you can rate your companys performance as an organization, and your performance individually. In the areas where you discover that you are wanting, the book will give you the target to hit, and tools to implement immediately.

This book is organized into 8 sections:

• The Beginning
• Individual Habits
• Group Habits
• Infrastructure
• Collaboration
• Processes
• Other Departments
• Appendices

The Beginning briefly covers how best to start a company and launch a team.

Individual Habits covers the most crucial habits to be an effective individual in a company, no matter what your position is. This includes organization (GTD, Inbox Zero) and effectiveness (Top Goal, On Time, Write it Down).

Group Habits covers the most crucial habits to be an effective group, no matter what the groups function or size (Writing vs Talking, Decision-Making, Agreements, Transparency, Conscious Leadership, Customer Obsession and Culture).

Infrastructure covers the tools used to facilitate company effectiveness (Wiki, Goal-Tracking, AORs, KPIs, No Single Point of Failure).

Collaboration reviews techniques used to keep an organization working well together (Meetings, Feedback, Org Structure).

Process covers the systems used for each major function of the company (Fundraising, Recruiting, Sales and Marketing).

Other Departments covers the remaining functions in a company (Executive, Product, Engineering, People, Finance and Legal).

And finally, the Appendices cover a variety of things that didnt neatly fit anywhere else (Essential Reading, Challenge of the Technical CEO, Recruiting Process, Sample AOR List, Board of Directors, IPO, Personal).

There are many ways to create a company, but only one good one: To deeply understand real customers (living humans!) and their problem, and then solve that problem.

This is explained clearly and thoroughly in Disciplined Entrepreneurship by Bill Aulet. I wont repeat or even summarize what he wrote. If you havent yet launched or achieved Product Market Fit (>$1 million of revenue), go read Bills book first.

Starting a company is hard. There are long hours, constant fear of failing, many rejections, etc. This burden is further intensified if you try to do it alone. Solo founders have high rates of burnout. The emotional burden is just too high. As with any trend, there are exceptions. But the rule generally holds.

YCombinator has a strong bias toward accepting co-founder teams (versus solo founders) for this reason. Owning much of something is better than owning 100% of nothing. Find a partner, someone who has complimentary skills to yours. Share the emotional burden with them. That will ease the load significantly. Give up a large percentage of the company. Its worth it.

Your partners purpose is not to be value-add forever. As your company grows, you will likely find people with far greater skills whom you will hire. Thats OK. Your co-founders purpose is to help you achieve success in your march to Product-Market Fit. Once you get there and begin the blitz-scaling process, be pleased if they continue to add value beyond that point.

And when you do find a partner, avoid one cardinal mistake: do not create a 50/50 partnership. While 50/50 sounds like an ideal, it actually leads to real pain if there is no easy way to break a deadlock. Unanimous decisions are tiresome to create day after day after day. Knowing that one person has the ability to decide actually eases the burden for all involved, and leads to far better outcomes.

As Alex MacCaw, Founder and CEO of Clearbit writes: This is key. Two of my previous companies were destroyed by a 50/50 split.

From Peter Reinhardt, Founder and CEO of Segment , shares a different perspective: T here are ways to avoid deadlock (e.g. third co-founder with small stake a la Charm), and splitting evenly aside from that has been totally fine in my experience with both Segment and Charm. Over time, vesting, cash investment, or differential compensation is a natural way that ownership can diverge.