The 5 Biggest Mistakes Made by Founders… And How To Solve Them

I’m in the fortunate position of working with founders from all over the world. Whether you’re in the UK or the US, Germany or Brazil, there are some mistakes that are common to many founders. Here are the 5 biggest mistakes and suggestions on how to solve or avoid them.

 1.    Thinking that founder and CEO are the same thing.

You became CEO because you’re the founder, right?  In the start-up world, it’s widely thought that if you’re the founder, you should be the CEO too. However, the role of founder is very different to the role of CEO. A founder’s job is that of creator or visionary, someone who brings a new product or service into the world, someone who evangelises about their company.  But as the company grows in scale and ambition, the role you used to play as founder is not what’s needed any more. You need to be a CEO. You need to lead the organisation, to manage teams, to communicate with internal and external stakeholders and so much more. These are skills you have to acquire on the job. Books on leadership are all very well, but they’re no substitute for learning how you can be the best leader you can be. It’s a huge task, and one that some founders are not cut out for.

Making the leap to CEO: the first and most important step is to understand that you will need to evolve constantly and to accept the personal challenge that leadership brings. Most people are not natural born leaders. After that, the best thing you can do is to work with a coach or mentor. A mentor is someone who has been in your position before and can advise you based on their experience. A coach will work with you on being the best version of yourself and, by extension, the best leader you can be.

2.    Creating a fearful culture.

As founder, you’re used to being over everything, having a hand in (or even making) all the decisions. As CEO of a growing company, it’s virtually impossible to do that, but because the company is your baby, you need to feel like you’re still holding the reins. The net result is that you micromanage your people, or alternatively, go over their heads and take the decisions they should be making (or overrule the decisions they’ve made). Inadvertently, you’ve created a culture where people can’t – or won’t - make decisions because they know they still require your blessing. You become the bottleneck. That is not a recipe for a sustainable, long-term business.

How to create a kind culture: the culture of a company stems from its leader. Your job as leader is to develop your people, provide clarity as to what’s expected in each role, and to give your team autonomy in decision making. If you create a culture of psychological safety, in which transparency is encouraged and mistakes are accepted as part of business and life (provided your people learn from their mistakes), your company is more likely to thrive.

3.    Not having a number two.

Most successful start-ups have a strong and balanced core. It’s not for nothing that many companies have more than one founder. But whether you have co-founders or whether you’re the sole founder, it’s vital to ensure that you have someone with you in the business that balances your strengths and weaknesses. For example, if you’re a visionary founder, always coming up with new ideas, you need someone that can take your ideas and execute them – or tell you when those ideas aren’t going to work.

How to work together: working closely together with – and trusting – someone who thinks completely differently from you is one of the many challenges you will face if you want to succeed. In the early days, it might be maddening, and you may wonder how you’re going to get along. But if you shift your mindset and focus on what this person brings to the table that you don’t, and how you can each best utilise the other’s gifts, they will be a huge asset for your business in the long run.  

4.    Forgetting the big picture.

The transition from founder to CEO of a growing company can be extremely demanding. Your business is challenging you to transform and transcend yourself. In this way, entrepreneurship is one of the greatest personal development platforms ever created. But when you’re in the midst of it all, whether business is going well, or going downhill, it’s easy to forget that you’re on an incredible journey, easy not to reflect just how far you’re come or what you’ve achieved.

How to embrace the journey: in the words of Dan Sullivan, “always make your learning greater than your experience… If you regularly transform your experiences into new lessons, you will make each day of your life a source of growth.” Remember that the biggest thing to focus on is continuing to learn how to be the best you. Everything else will follow.

5.    Neglecting your health and wellbeing.

I read a post recently on LinkedIn from a founder celebrating the fact he’d worked 400 days straight. While that founder may have taken overworking to new heights, it’s still the case that most founders now have an expectation that the only way to succeed is by working at all costs. That path leads only in one direction – to stress, burnout, or worse.

How to look after yourself: I have one word for you: deceleration. This is the deliberate act of pausing (regularly) in order to rest, recharge and reinvigorate. The only way to ensure you give yourself the time to decelerate is to be ruthless with your calendar. Book time in your diary in advance and ensure that those times are sacrosanct. You will probably feel like you can’t take the time off, but if (or should I say “when”) you do, you’ll likely return a new person, fresh and ready for the challenge once more.

From Founder to CEO

From founder to CEO

The journey of a founder is intense. You are required to change in so many different ways. It’s challenge and you will often feel like you are out of your depth.

Not every founder can make this transformation. It takes the right mix of self-awareness, maturity and the constant drive to be better each day.

One of the consistent characteristics of great CEOs is that they embrace coaching. Founders like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Marc Benioff all had coaches.

A skilled coach can see things you can’t see, provide unvarnished feedback and creates a supportive space for you to navigate whatever is in front of you.

I help founders become successful CEOs, so if this resonates with you and you’re struggling with the transition from founder to CEO, let’s have a conversation.

Helping Seed and Series stage founders become successful CEOs.