It’s important to learn from your mistakes as an entrepreneur, but don’t make choosing a co-founder one of those lessons.
It’s important to have a co-founder, and not just because you want someone to celebrate with when you get purchased by Google. You want your co-founder to not only complete the knowledge that you lack, but be an integral member of a truly awesome team.
Which is why, in this guest post at OnStartups, Jessica Alter, co-founder and CEO of FounderDating, says choosing a co-founder is such an important step in starting your business.
As a CEO you’ve got more than a few things vying for your attention. What should you be focusing on to drive the biggest impact? Use this checklist to set your priorities and ensure your company is on the right path to extraordinary.
On any given day, an expansion-stage CEO might have a dozen (or more) things on his or her plate. Analyzing critical metrics. Reviewing cash flow. Leading management team meetings. The list can go on and on.
And those are just the day-to-day, short-term activities — never mind all of the long-term planning and goal-setting that a CEO must always be thinking about.
A balanced board of directors is the difference between a CEO entering new territory completely unprepared and going in with a map in hand. Pascal Levensohn, Managing Partner at Levensohn Venture Partners, explains how to build a high-impact board, the vital roles you need to fill, and best practices for improving your board performance.
For the expansion-stage CEO, a well-rounded board of directors is a huge asset. Not only can the board offer valuable advice to guide founders and managers through the challenges that growing companies face, but it can also help attract top talent and bring impartial oversight to financial matters and potential conflicts.
Pascal Levensohn, founder of Levensohn Venture Partners and currently on the boards of Littlecast, ShotSpotter, and Akros Silicon, recently sat down with OpenView Venture Partner Firas Raouf to share his insights into what makes an effective board of directors and how a CEO can get full value and board performance from his or her council.
With your work prioritization constantly being upended by the newest “urgent” demand, it’s time to start saying no.
With a seemingly endless stream of meetings, never ending email chains and a variety of one-off fire drills, your workday can fly by before you’ve undertaken any actual work. But in the constant flow of “urgency” put in front of your face, there are more than a few boys who are crying wolf.
Bill Conroy, serial entrepreneur and director at Kareo, Prognosis, and AtTask shares why having a control book is one key to bringing greater speed and productivity to board meetings.
Board meetings too often turn into a slog through status reports and numbers. Even if you’re on track to power through on time, all it takes is one board member asking for a number to be reflected in a different way to derail the train. Those small requests set off a chain reaction of reporting changes that is felt down the ranks and distracts too much of the company.
Rand Fishkin, co-founder and CEO of SEOmoz, shares his thoughts on the evolving nature of a founder’s role after funding and his approach to supporting a newly expanded team.
A sudden cash infusion brings with it massive changes for a company and its founder. As your team grows, there is often a shift in your function and responsibilities — and your leadership mindset needs to shift along with it.
OpenView recently surveyed an array of expansion-stage CEOs and board members to find out what it takes to create a value-adding board. The results are presented in this board of directors infographic, offering real insight into what makes high-performing boards tick.
Does your board add value to your company or do more harm than good? Does it suffer from bad board dynamics or is it a cohesive, high-performance team? No matter how you answer these questions, chances are that your board isn’t doing everything that it should be and providing your company with the kind of strategic support it needs to succeed.
Keith Rabois taps into his experiences at PayPal, LinkedIn and Square to offer thoughts on COO best practices, acquiring talent and radical transparency.
At a small, developing startup the hiring of a COO can often be met with skepticism amongst employees. Having helped build companies including PayPal, LinkedIn and Square Keith Rabois has seen the value that a COO can bring to even an early stage. In a post at First Round Capital he breaks down his thoughts on COO best practices for startups.
“Building a High-Impact Board of Directors” is written for CEOs of early stage and expansion-stage, high-growth technology companies who lack significant experience creating and overseeing boards or who find their existing boards to be suboptimal or dysfunctional. It provides insights into how to build and successfully manage a value-adding board.
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