Hot answers tagged leadership
15
What a great question. Hopefully, people will be looking at your product or service, and not you. I'm in my fifties, and I have heard horror stories of people being rejected for jobs, almost certainly because of their age and appearance. I can't say for sure, but I think it matters much less with startups. If someone is judging your business because of ...
8
Vision
Perseverance
Expression
Vision: if you can't see what you're building you will change direction with every minor wind that blows in your sails, and end up with a kludgy lump of something that will be fragile, fulfill few needs, and turn into a maintenance nightmare.
Perseverance is required. If you cannot push through every obstacle, including ...
8
It has advantages and disadvantages.
The advantages are:
That you are not side tracked from your business goals by new shiny ways of doing things.
That you have a large amount of the skills a developer doesn't have, (Marketing being one of my main issues).
For me the writing of the code is the easy bit, all the other stuff, like engaging with the market, ...
7
Napoleon would be considered a midget today...and even in his days, he was short, very short. yet, he led a nation in his wild quests for glory and blood.
Leadership is about personality, not physique. Of course it doesn't hurt looking like a Spartan from the movie "300", but charisma is not a function of height or muscles, it's personality and there's a ...
7
Code complete 1st edition, 1993. Still relevant.
To be frank, if reading books was the solution to your problem then every MBA or a software developer can become a successful CEO/CTO.
From your question, it seems your career is taking a big jump. From a developer to a CTO. I would suggest stop thinking about the CTO tag for a while. Look, your going to ...
6
Influence: Psychology of Persuasion by Cialdini will tell you (persuasively) that appearance is in fact important. Your question was specifically how important - and I believe that your product or service is much more important, and that letting a height issue get in the way of your potential success would simply be an unacceptable excuse. Your height will ...
5
I am 6'5" (and would love to be normal 6' or shorter... only those my height get it) and I had two CEOs about your height. One was a great leader, our company grew 100+ employees in 2 years, and it is still growing 4 years later. Another one had "Napoleonic syndrome" and was a disaster of enormous proportions. Overcompensation, lack of confidence, etc. etc. ...
5
Physical appearance is important. To deny that would be foolish. Height commands authority. It's the truth. It sucks for those of us that are not tall, but it is what it is.
"They" say thatsome huge percentage of communication is non-verbal. Which mean it lives in the physical. How you look, how you sound, how you smell . . .
Our challenge is to focus on ...
4
If you substitute empathy for knowledge in number three, I'd agree with you. Empathy is quite often over zealous or incorrect entirely, some people are just too difficult to read.
If you hired them, or will be doing business with them it should be (in part) because you know something about them.
I know its a rather vague point, but it deserves mention. ...
4
I know the type of leaders you are describing. Initially at least, encourage them to spend their 15 minutes per day REVIEWING and OVERSEEING the four hours or so per day that SOMEONE ELSE in the company spends on social media. As time goes on and they get the hang of it, they will naturally begin to participate more on their own.
Good luck.
3
I would suggest that you all hold board positions and one of you should be chairman of the board. That way, you control the direction of the company.
You can also give yourself founders stock and/or issue preferred stock in exchange for the IP rights. This preferred stock will be owned by the founders and can have a majority position until you start to get ...
3
This is a bit naive to think you can come up with three things. It is more like a mix and match. One can probably choose a few dozen skills that are very important. Being low scorers in ALL skills is pretty much a non-starter. You can overcome some weaknesses with other strengths. The key is knowing how to do that.
SUCCESSFUL entrepreneurs must be ...
3
Here's what I look for when assessing whether to invest my time coaching a young entrepreneur:
Track record of success - I want to see that the person has been successful in other endeavors, even if they were not entrepreneurial endeavors. If she is just out of school, I want to see that she got good grades, or maybe she was able to get a degree while ...
3
Large corporations in well known markets is like classical music. If you master your instrument and read the sheet, all the notes are perfectly laid out for you and all you need to do is play.
Small startups in unknown markets is like Jazz music. You only get the chords and have to improvise the rest.
For a startup you need to have the courage to make ...
3
Try it! If you are good with people then it should work out. A manager does not need to be able to do every job in the organization, they need to be able to lead and motivate people who can do amazing things. You state that you've already learned a lot in your job. That's a very good sign that you can adapt and learn.
You need to understand the process to ...
2
Tell him to read http://answers.onstartups.com once a day and he will have outgrowned you in no time :D
Joking aside, you should try to clearly divide your roles and responsibilities. If you feel you have a stronger sense of marketing, try to convince him to let you handle that part of the business. If he is good at business development, let him handle it.
...
2
Though question.
Can you convince him to perform an experiment? I believe so because your co-founder is described by you as a smart person and certainly he will understand that one should not deny something without facts to sustain it. So, convince him that you need to be convinced that his marketing strategy is better than yours.
Tell him that you would ...
2
It seems like your model is a basic attempt at doing systems modeling. You may find this useful: http://managementhelp.org/systems/systems.htm.
You may find better results to your question if you expand out the system, as you are still too high-level.
I am confused though as to looking at the roadmap and your question, they are very different.
What makes ...
2
My answer might be bias since I am an entrepreneur. Looking back, here are top 3 qualities I think are important:
Do it mentality. I have met many 'wantrepreneurs' realize they are not going anywhere with their idea. If you can take the plunge and start to do stuff, you're probably 50% ahead of most people.
Resourceful. First, do it. Second, know how to ...
2
A business concept that fills a specific market need and an ability to deliver a product or service that cost-effectively meets that need for the customer and at a profit for the business
An unbridled passion for and commitment to that business concept
Near-religious zeal for managing your cash, with cash generation as your primary focus at all times
2
A high tolerance to risk, or willingness to gamble.
An ability to express their vision to others.
A passion for what they are doing.
I think the answers will depend on the type of entrepreneur. I tend to be more of a visionary type, so I tend to focus more on the big picture, but I realize I have to be realistic and stop trying to have the app do ...
2
Further to Dave Feyereisen's response, which I think is spot on, the occasional response to a customer, or post on wherever, as identified by the SOMEONE ELSE to have best impact. This should further encourage them to join in the conversations. The PR value of customers occasionally seeing someone senior directly participating is worthwhile.
2
The "successful businessmen" you comment on having "strong physical appearances" have them, not because they are tall, but because they are strong. I don't mean they can lift a heavy barbell either. They are strong of will, strong in their presence, strong in their commitment to success. I promise you if you asked your favorite 100 most successful business ...
2
In a perfect world, appearance should not have any impact on your overall skills. From experience, this is unfortunately not the case. If you are tall, strong and beautiful, you will have what you are looking for more easily. In your case, you will have to work harder and smarter. If you are successful, you will however have double merit! This is the same ...
2
I know CEOs that are short, I wouldn't worry about it.
Its the drive, attitude and interest the engages people.
I have been to trade shows and seen all types there. If your short, either ignore it or make a feature of it ... they key external goal is to be remembered (ideally positively), and the key internally is to be respected for what you do and the ...
2
If I understand you correctly, you're asking how to keep a highly-skilled person at your startup company, rather than becoming an entrepreneur him/herself. And that question is something that any company with any highly-skilled employee, in a field with low business startup costs, has to answer. And the most common answers fall in two directions: either ...
2
Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hannson of 37signals wrote a book entitled Rework that is worth reading. But that is not the point I want to make here. While they were writing it, they shared their process and talked about it on their podcast. Something that was captured here really struck me. Everyone was expected to bring their "A" game and everyone else ...
2
We see hundreds of posts here from people with great ideas who have no technical expertise. They want to create a company based on their idea. What do they do? They find someone with the talent they are missing to handle that aspect of their business.
What you need to have is the ability and the drive to manage the process of turning your great ideas idea ...
2
Some additional info would be helpful.
headcount: are we talking about 5 people or 50?
company maturity stage: idea, customer traction, growth
company focus: technology marketplace
personality traits: is one more outward focused / personable?
Depending of the above information, one could functionally split the work between a CTO and a VP engineering ...
2
Three things I've found really useful (as somebody who started out as a dev).
The Business Model Canvas - is a great tool for thinking about all the aspects of a business. I've found it a useful tool for documenting where we are now, and as a generative tool for helping spot alternatives to try. The book Business Model Generation covers it well. There are ...
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