Some of the Worst Mistakes I Made My First Time as CEO, and Marketing As Oxygen
How did you become CEO for the first time?
The first time I was CEO of a company, it was right after my boss got fired. In fact, that boss took me to lunch right after it happened to congratulate me. Right after he got sacked at a venture capital Board meeting. The same Board meeting I got called into right after by the lead VC and asked if I had interest in running the business. This former engineer and product person with no real sales and marketing experience said: “Sure what do I have to lose?” My thinking was simple, surely the bar was low because they just fired the professional CEO and knew I had never been a CEO before. Well, perhaps I should have been more worried. As a first time CEO, I made an incredible litany of mistakes. And of course this matters a lot when you are burning cash too fast, inbound sales are low, and you have a muddled product strategy. All the things that got my boss fired at the time.
What were the biggest mistakes you made as a first-time CEO?
Here are just a few of the things I didn't fully understand at the time, and didn't do well:
Didn't move fast enough transforming the business
Hired some of the wrong people
Thought I had to hire "professional sales experience" when existing talent may have done a much better job
Sometimes I fired some people I should not have
Didn't pick a clear lane with the product
Worried too much what the investors thought
Didn't take good enough care of the existing top customers
Didn't think marketing was my job.
Didn't spend enough time on sales calls, even cold calls. ... I'm sure I could go on... All these mistakes are fuel and learning for the future. "Let my life be a warning to you."
What are the most critical lessons you learned from your first CEO experience?
From all this, I took a few critical lessons I take into my current company:
1 - Marketing is oxygen. If you're not marketing, you are not breathing. Get your brand out there. Create a positive impression. Add value. Repeat. Investing in a brand takes years. Get yourself out there.
2 - Happiness is a full pipeline. Companies operate from a position of strength when their pipeline is full. There's another deal around the corner. You can worry about fun things like "fit." If you spend your days worrying about where your next deal may come from, sure you are also buliding the business - but are likely making suboptimal decisions doing so. Chasing after bad deals you would never take on with a full pipeline.
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Mistakes are expensive. They cost money, of course. What’s worse is the opportunity cost. I work with investors and management teams worldwide to help them get a handle on their digital business plans to execute a clear path forward.
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