CEOs: If This is Your First Company, You Have to Fight

• Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman wrote a guest post on TC titled “The First-Time CEO’s Recession Survival Guide” with some solid advice for any startup CEOs who want their companies to live to see the economy recover.
  • 1. Compete With Your Successor – Imagine the CEO who would replace you if you got fired. Think about all the objective decisions that person would be able to make. And then make them yourself.
  • 2. Act Like an Owner. This goes along with #1. Take responsibility and re-examine every expense of your company.
  • 3. Get a Board You Connect With (Not Just One With Connections). Instead of big names who you feel the need to impress, choose board members that you can speak candidly with who have real world experience turning a profit.
  • 4. Run Weekly Revenue Meetings to brainstorm immediate ways to increase revenue week over week.
  • 5. Automate Bad News. Provide revenue & traffic reports on a consistent basis to the board. This forces you to deal with problems in the open as they happen.
  • 6. (Just Ask to) Meet Your Peers. Ask other entrepreneurs their opinions; their advice tends to be more practical and valuable than what you would hear from an “expert.” [Anyone who has had the opportunity to listen to Jason Nazar (Docstoc CEO) speak in Los Angeles can vouch for the veracity of this.]
  • 7. Create Simplicity. Don’t ignore complexity, instead, work through it by using a combination of precise identification and persistence.
  • 8. Go on the Attack. The economy is hurting your competitors too. Don’t wait around for conditions to get better before taking action. Be aggressive — when others slow down, it often pays to speed up.
  • 9. Be a Roman. Don’t let your head get too big after a single brush of success. On the same token, don’t let small setbacks seem like the end of the world. Keep your head down and charge forward.
  • 10. The Journey is the Destination. Every CEO dreams of the big exit, but even that won’t compare to the rush you feel while you’re building your business. Remember, you’re never down and out until the lights are shut off.

TC

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