Startup Career Advice – Founder-CEO and the ‘’New CEO to Be’’

I bet you the window that seems to be closed will surely be

reopened for your businesses if you follow up this advice!!!

Talking about the strange and the uncertain times that we are in nowadays...all business tycoons are not really feeling so happy and most especially with their business’ startups. But luckily, according to the school of thoughts, many business gurus, and scholars - They say: ‘’business startups are so complex that you have to be intelligently well informed about what exactly you want to set-up or reset-up in business :be it “corporate innovation,” “new business innovation,” “intrapreneurship, ” “entrepreneurship” “corporate venturing, or “startup” as we call it in the modern business world of nowadays.....and after a long time studying this, we have been able to discover remarkable similarity. So, for any startup to be successful in the new cycles of doing businesses that bring head spinning in the digital era of nowadays, every corporate venturers, entrepreneurs etc should follow this careerism advice:

Growth means starting up new businesses: True startup needs a profound transformation - transformation in the fundamental beliefs of the leadership team. Changes in leadership beliefs will surely affect the organization as a whole and this is the only way a true startup transformation can be achieved nowadays. During the process of startup, entrepreneur needs to ask himself/herself a question: how can I switch away from obsolete business model to another? And how can I get through and succeed in this new startup business? And if the reply is: I have to start with myself. Theretofore, this entrepreneur is on the right path, he/she needs to start changing his/her mental model and this is the fundamental requirement for changing business model and startup businesses. The processes considered to get through this new vision are:

Recognition: This is the determination within the company and how ethics, culture, time allocation and investments affect the efficient production and management of physical goods.

Disclosure: This is the act of making new information known in

a newly startup business and the fundamental beliefs will motivate the behaviors and new mentalities. At this point, there must be more concentration on your beliefs concerning the assets, value creation, and most especially serious focus on your business model.

Reversal/Inversion: This is the point when and where all the domestic arrangement and fundamental beliefs have to be inverted - check for the inversion you accept – and consider how this new beliefs might change your behavior.

Extrapolation: At this point, observe the inference and result about the future and about the hypothetical situation based on known facts and observation. Considering the implications these beliefs might have for your customers, employees, strategy, capital allocation, key metrics, investors and suppliers.

Action: Taking the new beliefs into consideration and at the same time, putting the new ideas into the awareness of the leaders in your company, senior/junior employees, investors, supplier etc and at the same time sharing and inviting them into this journey would change the actions until new habits are being formed – most especially with capital allocation, hiring, training KPI – Key Performance Indicator of the company processes.

The most important and key process is Reversal/Inversion which undertakes the adoption of new thoughts and beliefs that will hopefully have conflict with the traditional ones in the organization and business.

Changing the mental model in any organization is not a joke but it is the first important path to a successful startup process of any organization and the second path to a successful startup process of any organization will be the allocation of capital differently.

Many organizations have already made it through in their startup process and turning their new beliefs into reality with digital transformation, acquisition and partnership.

But in a case of bringing a New CEO for Your Startup, this requires a different strategy:

Having been managing a company for a long time, many founder-CEOs might be feeling that they do not possess the skill and capabilities to continue running the company growth any more. Theretofore, they would prefer to bring-in a new CEO for their startup. As a venture begins achieving a solid foothold in the marketplace, it needs different leadership system and capabilities to create maximum shareholder value.

At this point, a savvy founder would surely realize that there is always a trade-off in-between creating sustainable market value and preserving control. At this juncture, research shows that they would have to bring-in new CEO for the management of their company….but how? and when exactly?

Well! This process starts as soon as the final decision is made to hire a new CEO, that means the founder-CEO and the board would have to work hand-in-hand with the new CEO for about ten-months in order to have excellent, balance and strategically plan transition. The new leadership could attain a successful transition by adopting the following steps:

Establish the strategy for the startup and identify CEO

candidates’ experience executing a similar strategy.

The right CEO to Be after ten-months will have to start working in accordance with the existing leadership team’s skill sets in order to have more experience on how to cope with every situation in the company having the capabilities of scaling and managing the forthcoming future of the company to growth.

Choose a CEO based on holistic leadership, interpersonal skill, and ability to develop supportive culture of collaboration. The requirements for all the CEO candidates are not different: They all need to understand perfectly the nature and the entire value chain of the market in which the startup contains and operates and at the same time possessing the ability and prepared to take on a larger and more crucial responsibilities in structuring the company. At any situation whatsoever, an ideal CEO must be able to pivot enough to make tactical and holistic adjustments that would lead the company to success in all its undertakings. Although it is really critical to hire a CEO who will create the right culture but there are some out there who would have the capabilities to bring the type of culture that is responsive to both customers and collaborative, supporting effective teamwork.

Selectively and aggressively forget the past. During the process of all re-starting up of management team and company, there is always a big challenge from one or more top- exec/s obstructing the path. So it is very important and advisable for the founder and board members to address

this difficult dilemma – in order to achieve a very successful startup goal. During this process, the company will be growing step by step and during this period the management skills should be undergoing development as well and the resistance to change must be met. Mind you! Every startup is bound to succeed only when the mindset of the early contributors calibrate with the new leadership.

Existence of sound and close connections among founder-CEO, new CEO and the team. It would be very important to start building that spirit of trustworthiness in the organization as this will help in the construction of empowered executive team based on the right holistic theory – the theory that says, the parts of any whole cannot exist and cannot be understood except in their relation to the whole. ‘’Holistic theory has been applied to ecology, language, mental states and relationship with the new CEO. Different tribal groups that always exist during startups process must be brought together by the new CEO, transforming and making the teams become a cohesive unit and team to achieve the company’s goal.

There must be assurance of knowledge capture and transfer. A critical factor in managing such transition is to have relevant knowledge documented for future reverence. Any inappropriate attention that might occur during the transition might be fatal in future. Founders hold important amount of information in their heads and when they hand over the systems of administrations, the new team can experience a knowledge gap. This in some cases can result in a complete disorder and confusion but this situation is normal in such transition…and this situation itself will ascend effective solution thereafter. Knowledge capture and transfer always help to a peaceful transition. But it will be very important to build knowledge repositories in the company’s intranet and in the wiki of the judiciary department of the company as all these will make information readily accessible when needed. A CRM and other important systems for maintaining the day-to-day activities and information of the company updated and readily accessible are very important – customers’ information, major contracts, products, investors, sales, technology and marketing activities.

Speed up the handover period. This handover period for retaining and transferring Knowledge would be the most important and golden opportunities to ensure that the unanimous decision of the founder has to be taken in order to transfer the tacit knowledge to the new CEO. The ideal handover period should be within forty days.

Describe exactly the nature of the strategic significance of the transition and keep communication channels open. Finally, at this point it is very important to help all the team members in order to be able to cope very well with the transition, more importantly if most team members have been in the company’s boat from the commencement. The new role, new structure and the new responsibilities and information about how the new management plans to take the startup to the next level must be carefully explained for buy-in.

Mind you! Founders have always been connected, concerned and emotionally involved with what they have created. Should in case the founder-CEO wishes to continue with volunteer activities in the company, being a board member could be a great asset. And for any company in this situation to grow at scale in its strategy…The best CEO who would be able to make the vision of the founder thrive should be brought on board. Although it is difficult to get the best CEO at the right time, but there are some with great capacity out there.