The new opportunity I had written about has not worked out. It involved joining a small company as its CEO. This company has been led by its founder who is a technologist. She had concluded that she wanted to bring in a CEO to run the business, grow it to its full potential, and allow her to focus on the technology. I had been introduced to the founder by one of her advisors and after several meetings we decided to give it a try.
Before jumping right into this we set up a six week mutual trial period as I have already written about. The idea was that we see how we work together before we lock ourselves into a long-term commitment. This was fortunate because we quickly learned that the founder was really not ready to handover operational control despite her original intentions and we decided to part ways. Here’s what happened.
The two key things I focused on during my brief tenure were the company’s product development and manufacturing. In these areas, the company lacked focus, structure, and an ability to prioritize so I concentrated on addressing those needs. This involved a variety of decisions such as personnel assignment and subcontractor selection in which the founder and I both remained involved.
This was to be expected since I was new to the operation and had a lot to learn. But what started to bother me was the manner in which these decisions were getting made. As we got deeper into my time there I started realizing we were not communicating very well and that the founder was having trouble letting go. Of even greater concern—extrapolating forward in time when much bigger issues would be in front of us—were signs that we would struggle with such decisions while seeking to maintain an good, effective working relationship.
After five days I raised these concerns with the founder. She acknowledged them but we decided to continue and see if our open acknowledgment might help us improve things. It did not. Instead, I think it triggered deeper reflection and by Day 7 we had both independently concluded that this was not working out.
We discussed this on Day 8. The founder noted that she felt a deep need to remain in control of operational issues and realized she had erred in her original assessment that she wanted to hire a CEO. I expressed the view that what she really needed was an operations person reporting to her who could execute on the decisions that she makes. We complimented ourselves of starting with just the trial period which allowed us to easily part ways. We wished each other well and left on good terms.
Thus ends my first seven days of startup life! While it is disappointing that it didn’t work out it was a good learning experience. I got a first-hand account as to how important it is that a startup’s principals are able to work well together. I also got a brief-but-impactful experience as to what it is like to work at a company with no support personnel such as shipping, payroll, IT, etc. And lastly, I experienced that feeling of being fully on the hook for making things happen. This was not totally new to me as when I had started the iCoupler business at Analog Devices the dynamic was the same—no pre-existing products, customers, team, or processes providing momentum. However, it has been over ten years since I had that experience so it was helpful (and exciting) to feel it again.
So, what’s next? Well, I’m going to take a few weeks off now to just step back. With the exception of a brief February vacation I’ve been going at this full blast since leaving Analog Devices. This last experience has rekindled my interest in starting my own business although I have also encountered a variety of startups doing very interest things. I need a litte time to reflect and consider my next steps. Besides, summer has started and it would be good to enjoy it for a short while!