Coming out of college I was fascinated by the goings on of Silicon Valley. As I started to read more about the companies and CEO’s coming out of the valley I became captivated with how these small organizations we able to grow from a few lines of code in a Stanford dorm room into million dollar enterprises in such a short period of time. It all seemed so glamorous.
Following graduation I was fortunate to join a small but rapidly growing software company (albeit not from the Bay Area). The prospect of joining a company that was seeing both user growth and revenue growth in the 100’s of % was just what I was looking for and it has been an awesome experience to this point. I have had the opportunity to see what it takes to run startup and have hopefully made some worthwhile contributions to the organization along the way. In so many ways the last two years have exceeded my wildest dreams and put me in an incredible position for a 24 year old. But thats not the point of the post. The point is to talk about how excruciatingly painful it is to build a great company.
The narrative portrayed in the media: come up with a cool idea while still in college, get an initial product out there, move to the valley, get some venture capitalists behind your idea, grow like hell, and exit with a nice payout all seems so simple. The life of a startup CEO is much more painful than any movie,TV show or journalist can possibly convey. Elon Musk once said running a company is “like staring into the abyss while chewing glass.” The level of uncertainty about your companies future and you and your employees livelihood is enough to make even the most polished leaders a bit squeamish. As the CEO, you not only have to deal with that heavy burden but with a constant onslaught of urgent problems that threaten your companies very existence. Why would he spend any time on the things going well? It’s his responsibility to deal with the steady flow of new issues that need his attention. Furthermore, so much of his time is consumed with seemingly insignificant tasks that, if neglected, will almost certainly put them out of business. Opening bank accounts, accounting procedures, communication with shareholders and board members, leases, bills, you could go on and on. All of these things require the CEO’s attention but take away from actually developing the product and talking with customers.
It's all of small mundane tasks that fall on the CEO's shoulders that make running a startup so painful. Thats what gets overlooked by so many of us when we think about running our own company. There is no way to avoid the inconveniences that direct attention away from the product. If you're not prepared to dedicate the time that is necessary to take care of the little things you're not ready to run your own company.
If the past two years have taught me anything it’s that not everyone is fit to lead a startup. It takes a special breed of leader to want to put himself through all that pain for the dim prospect of affecting change in their industry. The great CEO is not concerned with the payout, thats just a way to rationalize the insanity of his occupation to friends and family. He wants to leave his mark, he wants to change the way business in conducted, he wants to be remembered for his contributions, not for the company's exit valuation.