Hiring and Firing
When Should You Hire Interns To Develop Your MVP?
As the great business philosopher John McEnroe said, “You cannot be serious!” You want to hire interns instead of experts? Come on! You cannot be serious! Okay. Let’s go through with the pros and cons of hiring interns instead of experts. The Pros of hiring interns as engineers: The Pros of hiring expert engineers.…
Read MoreWhy Should You Use A Right Hand Person To Fire People?
Any executive that uses a “right hand man” to fire a direct report should themselves be fired. Firing someone is supposed to be a painful experience. You are changing someone’s life, and you should feel horrible. I couldn’t sleep the night before the first time I fired someone. I had just become VP Sales, and…
Read MoreWhat Can You Learn From Marissa Mayer’s Struggles At Yahoo?
I think the lessons are more for first-time public company CEOs that worked at one company for a long stretch of their career prior to becoming CEO. Marissa Mayer spent her whole career at Google prior to accepting the Yahoo CEO position. Google, by anyone’s standards, is a fantastic company with unbelievably strong people. I…
Read MoreHow Do You Build A Great Founding Team?
The average age of the engineering team at my company was 44 years old. The engineering averaged 20 years of experience per engineer, and the engineers on average had 10 patents. The team, by industry standards, was considered elite. Now, I assume you want to recruit really good senior people, not just mediocre senior employees.…
Read MoreWhat Is The One Personality Trait Stops You From Working With Someone?
“I don’t understand why your cash position is going down,” I said to the CEO “James”. We were going through our bi-weekly review of his company. The revenue was growing, and the company should have been cash flow positive. In fact, cash from operations was growing, so it didn’t make any sense why James’ net…
Read MoreWhat Are The Best Books For CEOs To Read?
I know you’re busy as founding CEO of your company, but make time to read. The reading will likely pay off for you big time. I like using Audible as a way to improve my productivity. I can listen to a book while driving. Or I can listen to a book while going for a…
Read MoreWhen Should I Delegate My Email To An Admin?
You’re thinking way too corporate here. You have a choice when you are starting a company: Are you going to be company that spends lots of money and burns through its runway, or… Are you going to be appropriately frugal? My vote is for being appropriately frugal. The thought process of being appropriately frugal means…
Read MoreHow Do You Recruit Senior Employees For Your Startup?
The average age of the engineering team at my company was 44 years old. The engineers on average had 10 patents. The team, by industry standards, was considered elite. Now, I assume you want to recruit really good senior people, not just mediocre senior employees. Hiring mediocre senior employees requires no skill. I think there…
Read MoreWhat Should You Do When A Cofounder Quits And Holds Your IP Hostage?
I know the pain too well of cofounders quitting. I had two cofounders (“Jim” and “John”). I was the CEO, Jim was the marketing guy, and John was the engineering guy. We had worked together previously, and we understood the plan and direction we were going in. We started pitching VCs after working on the…
Read MoreWhen Should I Hire A COO?
I added a COO as a cofounder to my company. He was talented, had tons of experience and knowledge, and he helped me secure funding. There was just one little problem with having a Chief Operations Officer in a startup, especially an early stage startup. And that problem is… Startups, especially early stage startups, don’t…
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