Hot Seat

Chapter 24. The Six Things You Cannot Delegate

A version of this chapter was delivered as a talk at the Dent 2014 conference—complete with a personal record of 82 slides in 24 minutes.

The CEO Builds the Team

It’s unfortunate, but one of the more common problems that I hear from aspiring startup CEOs is that they have a great idea for a business, but they need just a wee bit of help finding a cofounder to build it.

This is like saying you’re going to be a famous rock star just as soon as you learn to play an instrument.

The CEO’s greatest influence on the company isn’t her contributions to the product, the strategy, or even getting the company funded. The CEO’s greatest contribution to the company is the wizardry required to hire a team that is going to be amazingly effective at executing the company’s strategy. Great CEOs hire teams that are far better than they have any right to expect. Put succinctly, a core competency for a CEO is to “date up.”

This is easier said than done. While I joined up early with my first cofounder, Charles, the two of us spent months trying to coax a third friend, Brian Schultz, to join us.

Brian was everything the two of us weren’t. He had finance expertise from his years in investment banking. He had contacts in the angel and venture capital community from his time doing mergers and acquisitions for Microsoft. And most importantly, he had founder experience—he’d just cofounded (and raised a successful first investment round ...