

Things You Must Do Every Week As Startup CEO - betashop
http://betashop.com/post/4367407080/13-things-you-must-do-every-week-as-a-startup-ceo

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dshankar
My take away from this: wear and love every hat in the company (janitor,
investor, engineer, CFO etc), and stay healthy and focused.

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betashop
Nice summary :)

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nethsix
Exercise! One thing you can be sure that is missing from not only a CEO's list
but a lot of entrepreneurs. A lot of people may feel that exercise only robs
them of precious time but conversely as pointed out, it keeps the mind fresh
and sharp thereby increasing productivity.

Lincoln once said something along the lines of "Give me six hours to chop down
a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe".

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betashop
Most entrepreneurs forget this but I'm 100% convinced on the importance.

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dfield
"Act Like an Investor. At the end of each week, ask yourself the following
question: Did our actions this past week increase value? What was the ROI on
your time spent this past week? If you go 2 weeks in a row or 2 weeks in a
month without a positive ROI on your time spent, you’re clearly doing the
wrong things."

I feel like this is just good advice for life in general.

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jogo
Not everything should be viewed as an investors decision. Passion and
determination help to take decisions an investor wouldn't make. That is why
you are CEO.

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betashop
I disagree. I'm the most passionate guy in the universe but in the end all of
my passion has to create return on investment.

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joshu
All that and I just racked our new gear too. I must admit I enjoy it more than
I ought to.

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donnyg107
A lot of the guidance I find in posts like this reminds me of the book "Good
to Great" by Jim Collins. His analytical approach to identifying an excellent
CEO is regularly confirmed by posts like this one. I highly recommend it for
new CEOs and people looking to understand some of underlying nuances and
necessities of running a business.

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cborodescu
Apparently, this seem like a no-brainer pieces of advice for everyone and
anyone to take, but only those who have walked in these "shoes" can really
know how difficult is to keep on smiling, loving everybody, how to be optimist
and enthusiastic every single moment around the clock, specially when you see
that you are doing everything right, everything by the book, you are following
every single one of the 13 steps (even the one with the exercises) and you
still have no ROI.

The truth is that a start up has to find it's own way, it has to pivot, to
adjust, to ask for feedback and so on, until it has gotten some things right.
There is no perfect receipt to having a successful start up - you just have to
find your way.

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hammock
> Set the Tone. Everyone - your co-workers, your customers, your partners,
> your investors, the press, your Twitter and Facebook followers - takes their
> cues from you.

Great advice for any new leader.

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Tyrannosaurs
The one tweak I'd say to this one is to make it " _Be aware that you_ set the
tone".

The senior people in any organisation set the tone for it whether they're
trying to or not. If it's not something they're actively doing then the tone
goes either to their default (which may well be perfectly good if they're
naturally inspiring and engaging) or to some level of disinterest or
disengagement.

So for me setting the tone isn't something you can choose to do or not do -
what you do get to pick is what the tone you're setting is.

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hammock
Good call. That's actually what I meant, didn't realize what I was quoting.
The awareness is so important- it's a lesson I always seem to be re-learning,
because you don't realize how many different ways people are taking cues from
you.

The most accessible examples are the industry "gurus" whose everyday lives and
everyday mundane thoughts people seem to be so interested in. When they say
"people look to a leader" they really mean it - they are looking at you
whether or not you feel like you are actively leading at that moment.

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petercooper
The most important thing is missing, IMHO: Keep selling and finding the
optimal customer acquisition strategy for your product/service. Without this,
"pixel perfection" is a waste of time.

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betashop
That's a good point which I tried to cover in my #8 but should have hit more
directly as its own point.

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evangineer
I was also looking for and missing something about selling the right product
to the right customer. Customer development?

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melissamiranda
Great points. It be nice if it also included concrete examples of real CEOs
doing each of the 13 things each week.

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betashop
hmmm ... i thought of giving some personal examples but was worried some
people might take it as too much self promotion. Will think about that more
for a future post.

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melissamiranda
You could temper the self-promotion with examples from friends or other people
you admire. Either way, examples would have made each point much more
concrete. Just consider it for the next one you write.

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kchronis
Great article.. One additional task for a CEO is getting out there and
recruiting. A startup CEO should aim to get at least one meeting with an
engineer and sell them on your product and vision. Like Mark Suster says ABR,
Always be Recruiting.

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hugh3
Good advice not just for CEOs but for anyone engaged in doing something
difficult.

