Every start-up entrepreneur has an overwhelming amount to get done -- the "to dos" are constantly outrunning the "dones." It is easy to get caught up in the day-to-day and endless hours, and you often forget that running really hard does not necessarily equate with running in the right direction. To paraphrase one of my partners, the good news is that you're making good time, and the bad news is that you're lost.
To stay focused, early stage CEOs need to remember that there are just three important things that need to get done in a business -- 1) planning, 2) selling, and 3) executing -- and that these tasks require three different mindsets. Some entrepreneurs can excel in all three roles, but the best ones are aware of their strengths and weaknesses and build their teams accordingly.
The first step is knowing which role your talents match most closely.
The Architect: Big-Picture Planning
Entrepreneurs set the vision, the romance, and culture around a big and daring goal. In doing so, they must have a general plan for where they want to go, but they should not get hung up on developing the perfect plan. Their thinking should be like an architect in the concept and design development phase rather than one in the detailed schematic phase. The details of every initiative should change with new customer and market feedback. This is why the best venture capitalists bet first and foremost on the people and second -- and it's a distant second -- on the plan. There is no doubt that it's easier to adjust a plan than it is to adjust people. Plans at the start-up stage need a clear purpose and the top few priorities for achieving it, but many other aspects, including product development, have to be viewed as a first direction at this point in time.
The Storyteller: Researching and Selling
Great entrepreneurs need to be constantly selling the story of their vision, as well as researching how it should evolve. Whether raising funds, evangelizing the vision among employees, recruiting top new talent, or selling the product itself, an entrepreneur needs to constantly pitch -- like a salesman out of Glengarry Glen Ross -- and act as the company's chief storyteller. More business schools should integrate the art and science of communications and selling into the curriculum. In my experience, people can learn and develop many aspects of effective selling. Even if they turn out to be only moderately good at it, they realize that by selling on the front lines, they gain access to invaluable customer and product research. These customer interactions help turn a directional vision into one with more precise focus. This is especially true in the digital world where strategies are iterative with more frequent version releases. Selling slightly ahead of the perfect product cycle early can help you test cheaply and make adjustments as required.
The Disciplinarian: Executing
Excellent execution comes from adhering to a tight set of controls and operating principles. In my view, the starting point for this is having the right set of operating metrics to measure the progress you are trying to achieve. Across our portfolio companies, we work with CEOs to establish the right big priorities and then set the right operating metrics in a dashboard, which we review at regular intervals. This dashboard might include, for example, customer counts, recurring customers, and online usage metrics. The key to delivering what you want to deliver is to know how to pick the few customer and operating metrics that can serve as leading indicators for the ultimate financial metrics desired. To read more on my thoughts on this subject, see my prior blog entry, The Fallacy of Financial Metrics.
Planning, selling, and executing sound straightforward, but playing the three roles at once can be challenging for early-stage CEOs. At times these aspects of the job can seem the antitheses of each other, and few people possess the talent to do all three equally well. Fortunately, you don't need to if you build a strong team.
To assess your own entrepreneurial aptitude and effectiveness, take a hard look at your recent tasks, meetings, and other activities. How do they fit into these three buckets? Once you understand which of these areas you are strongest in, focus on the priorities that map to your skills and quickly fill the gaps with the best talent you can find.
This article first appeared on Harvard Business Publishing on June 16, 2010.