The Soul of Startups

CHAPTER 9The Keen Learner

Essential for learning in startups, we know that all founders aspire to be something they see as a measure of their version of success. That's why it is difficult to say who is better and who is not entirely. However, there are two distinctively different founder mind‐sets in this mix―one is here to make a lot of money and run the show, whereas the other is here to solve world problems and do good. We sometimes hear people call it the “founder's dilemma”―can they not be both? Regardless of who they are, there are crucial skills they need to have first to be a founder and then to build a founding team because nothing else matters if you cannot make a product that people want and do it all on your own.

So, if you think about it, while we often classify founders to have only entrepreneurial skills, they are also effectively someone's manager. So, why have we only been training managers to be effective, and Founders/CEOs get a free pass on this? As an executive coach, I've been fortunate enough to work with some great founders. Except none of the conversations started with “I need help to be a better manager.” Instead, it was always “Can you help our company's managers be better?” On one rare occasion, I met a (restless) founder who was candid enough to tell me how he struggled in a CEO role even as a serial entrepreneur because he finally recognized that before starting the company, he had no actual work experience. Although he was solving most of the ...