How to transform from Founder to a CEO

A founder is passionate about his idea. He believes it when no one else does. He takes risks, uses shortcuts and tries to make his customer’s life easy .

A founder is passionate about his idea. He believes it when no one else does. He takes risks, uses shortcuts and tries to make his customer’s life easy . He is passion-driven than data-driven, he is a hustler than a manager, he is an individual contributor than a team leader and he is an executor than a mentor. Basically he is everything that a CEO is not. And that works well for early stage start-ups when you grow from 0 to

1. But, what about when your start-up grows from 1 to 100? That’s when you as need to grow from a founder to CEO.
Here are the skills you need to acquire for growing from a founder to a CEO:
Public speaking: A founder is a guy with idea and execution, but a CEO is about presenting and representing. He talks to the press, is the spokesperson of the company and the face of his idea. Undoubtedly he will be at stage launches, head partnership discussions, talk to investors and meet clients. And one thing he really needs to acquire for this is Art of Public Speaking.

2. Embrace processes: Start-ups are usually based on MVPs and rarely follow a set process for any order of business. Most things are undocumented and happen without written hierarchy checks and approvals. But as you grow into a company, as much as you hate it, you need to have processes in place.

3. Institutionalise vision: Most of the start-ups are extended versions of the founder’s identities and fancies. But as it grows into a company, this needs to evolve too. The company should no longer be so heavily founder dependent. Sure the vision will stem from the founder, but founder’s personal ambitions should not affect the company. A company cannot be participate in a conference at a country just because the founder fancies to travel there right? Founder needs to separate his personal fancies from company’s vision. This might also mean letting go of few folks and replacing them with functional experts as some folks might be resistant to the changes and would not let go off their autonomy.

4. Data-driven:  The last but not the least — you must now be data-driven than being feel-driven or passion-driven. You must see and understand what your consumer wants. You must pivot and align your start-up to your consumers’ demands. You must embrace A/B testing over “Feel nahi aa rahi” way of doing things.
Hope these tips would help you in your growth from a Founder to CEO. 
If you have any queries, feel free to write to me on Rajeev@TBSPlanet.com

Rajeev Tamhankar

Twitter@rajeevtamhankar

The writer is the founder of TBS Planet Comics, ex-IIT Roorkee, Flipkart, Xiaomi, Limca World Record Holder

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