The Great CEO Within: The Tactical Guide to Company Building

It’s a good standard practice for at least two people to know how to do any given task in the company so that if the lead person is too busy, is sick, or leaves the company, they can request that the secondary person assume the responsibility. This way, no task should fall through the cracks.

Therefore, rather than go after the entire market at once, the key is to find a small segment of the market (i.e., a set of customers with similar pain points) that has a particularly difficult problem for whom your solution is indeed ten times better than the broad, nonspecific legacy solution. This is your low-hanging fruit. Concentrate all your

You create buy-in when you make people feel that they are part of the decision and that their input contributes to the final outcome.

“What feedback are you afraid to give because you think it might hurt my feelings? Please tell me that.”

“What are the most important issues (maximum three) for me to solve in the next ninety days?”

One misconception CEOs sometimes have is thinking they get to choose the values. By the time you have thirty or so employees, your company has a set of values whether you like it or not. It’s now your job to codify what’s already there. While it is possible to change a value, it will take a lot of work.

The key thing to remember in onboarding is to give it just as much, if not more, time than the recruiting process. This is worth repeating: many of the people in the recruiting process will never work at the company, while everybody in the onboarding process will.

Enter a competent sales rep. They will smooth the way during the sales process. They will find the key decision maker, make sure that person is listened to, and build trust. They will make promises about the functions of your product, and your customer will always have someone to yell at if things go south.

When you do, you will experience the rarest and most exquisite of feelings: the satisfaction of a life well lived.