“In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.”
-Michelangelo
Dear startup CEO… do something crazy!
Being a CEO is an expression of the person, of self, of self image, of an individuals unique thought processes, ego. taste and style. CEOs also evolve over the years as they learn, have successes and grow more confident.
That’s why at times some CEOs look a bit ridiculous – they unknowingly show the world their bad taste or biased opinions or unreasonable thoughts. But that’s O.K., it makes the CEO more human, and they’re trying to channel their creativity. It is also the necessary process, and the vulnerability you need to venture into in order to find the good stuff – the truly creative breakthroughs. They’re on the way to good things.
When thinking like an artist, a CEO can experiment, let go of some of the many arbitrary rules we create for ourselves in the business world. The best ideas come from the willingness to experiment and throw away the bad ideas. Many artists find amazing breakthroughs when they make mistakes, put things out of order or look at something upside down.
First time CEOs often don’t even try to experiment; they’re busy enough handling the basics. They assume they should wait until after they have had some success, but they should try some crazy ideas as early as possible. When people try to “make art” unpredictable things can happen.
I relate this to my own artistic outlets – painting, digital design, photography, where I often create by discovering a mistake that produces something I had no idea I could do.
Then I try to incorporate those thought processes back into my business world, i.e “What if we tried…” “Let’s forget the rules for a minute, look at this differently.” By having the confidence to try crazy things my confidence increases. Often the crazy idea is not usable, but once in a while I’m rewarded with a pleasant surprise. All innovative CEOs do this.
painting
Software developers are very familiar with creative experimentation but the rest of us don’t see it, we just enjoy the results. Abstraction, encapsulation, namespaces – these are all ways of experimenting with code, tweaking it util something cool or unexpected happens. Imagine all the experimentation that happens when software like Photoshop or iOS is improved.
Another thing artists learn to do is to change their point of view – step back, turn it sideways, set something aside, wait a day or so and look at their project with a little more perspective. By doing this they see new things, and time can often make everything a little more understandable, less stressful.
In my paintings I constantly see things I could change. My mind wanders. I make mistakes that are great discoveries. Once they’re complete and up on a wall I’m still experimenting in my mind.
There are times a CEO has to make very difficult decisions regarding money or employees or products. These are serious, non-artistic moments. Try approaching these events and decision with creative thought, using different perspectives, like an artist would. Open your mind bit more. It will take some practice but the results will make you smile.
Books I’m Reading …Or, have read recently, with links to Amazon to purchase.
I’m on a binge of reading –– non-fiction and fiction books so far in 2020. The genres are all over the map but somehow seem to fit my mood(s). Here are some of my recent and current reads.
1. Memoirs, Autobiographies (Non-Fiction)
There seems to be a surge of personal memoirs right now by the famous and semi-famous. I’ve always like memoirs because they’re written by the subject and are condensed into a specific period of one’s life.
I find them to be very honest and eventually uplifting.
Adrienne Bodeur is an accomplished writer in a long line of accomplished writers, including her mother. This book is Adrienne’s personal story growing up, with some almost unbelievable twists and turns.
She is forthcoming about her mothers and her own misdeeds while tangled in a decades-long secret love affair between her mother and her father’s best friend.
Wow, what a crazy story. Peres was running one of the hottest magazines in the world, DETAILS, while taking up to 60 oxycontin pills a day. He bares his truth with strong writing and brutal honesty about himself and everyone around him, but is a bit pompous in his accounting.
Often autobiographies by celebrities talk about their drug use, but this one is only about his drug use.
Nevertheless, an amazing read. You’ll enjoy this ride.
What ever happened to her, the 1990s pop icon? Well it’s all in here. A very revealing and humble account of her life. She is Honest, original and absolutely remarkable in her confessional writing style.
2. Business (Non-Fiction)
Entrepreneurs, Solopreneurs, Silicon Valley
This is a topic I’m very interested in right now as I build a new brand for my work and writings called startupCEO Media. I’m realising that the definition of the startup CEO is changing, and in many cases small is better.
Galloway, a professor at NYU and very successful entrepreneur, has been a predictor of the downfalls of evil-doers in tech for years. He’s usually right.
In this book he tears apart 4 giant U.S. tech companies. – – – Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google. He gives awesome statistics and lays out why these companies need to be stopped, broken up, before they destroy our economy. As a major customer of 3 of these, it was hard for me to accept that they are such ruthless businesses, but very enlightening.
The most epic novel I’ve read in a decade is WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING by Delia Owens. I don’t usually read this type of book, I’m more into thrillers and stories about big cities. But man, this was an incredible story, and as a writer, I was fascinated with the extremely well crafted structure of this book. And it’s her first novel. Very inspiring.
It’s a story that takes place in rural South Carolina swamplands.
I love reading real books made out of paper, but about half of the time I use a Kindle or iPad to read.
The Kindle is a pretty cool invention, and the cost is so low, starts at about $49 with internet access. I use the Kindle Oasis. It’s the top of the line $249 model.
The 2nd edition has a few additions, new photos, corrections etc. But more important –– it was reformatted specifically for Amazon Kindle platform. This edition is only available on Kindle for now, and price was reduced from $8.99 to $2.99.
It all started with a heated discussion I was having with one of my WordPress agency partners. Anyone who knows me knows that I’ve been heavily involved in the WordPress ecosystem for a long time, and it’s a fairly different world than my other world –– the high growth tech startup ecosystem, so I get to see both of them side by side often.
This article is about the latter, the high growth tech startup ecosystem.
Among my WordPress friends and other people on the technical end of my social spectrum, there’s often a negative connotation to the term “scaling a business”. It’s kind of like the word “ambition”, which is a negative when pushed to an excess.
Everyone welcomes growth, right? It means more revenue, more income. Yeah but it also means more problems, bigger staffing, higher risk. So no, many people today are just looking to make a good, steady living, be able to pay their expenses, have study income without having a boss.
That’s why a lot of them turn to the agency or freelance model.
Also, web development agencies aren’t really inherently scalable. They are a linear model –– the more hours you work the more you make. You provide a service, get paid for labor. Many of them do scale to a certain size, but it’s linear, based on more labor, reselling other peoples labor.
“Why do you want to Scale?”
A developer and good friend of mine recently learned that I did a lecture series for several years called THE SCALABLE STARTUP. It is a topic I’ve discussed for almost my entire career and very central to my business philosophies. To some people its magic, to others it is confusing or frustrating. People react one way or the other.
My friend Amit asked me “Why do you want to Scale?” As if it was a bad thing. He equated “scalability” to big corporations, growth at any cost, greed, etc., was very negative on the word and concept.
Amit also felt that it ruined the collegial vibe that a tiny company has. “If you mess with a good thing, you can ruin it.” he said.
Now before I continue, let me state that I have a great amount of respect for this person, we were co-founders in a past company, and I’m part-time developer myself so I understand the comfort of a small team that has jelled and works together well. Simple, clean, manageable.
I get it, the dream life of the digital nomad, laptop on the beach in some exotic country or up in the mountains in a cabin. The lone wolf. I love it. I’ve done it! It’s a very romantic notion, and the right thing for many, for some period of time.
But I also don’t think it’s realistic in the long term for most. Grow or die is my motto for tech companies or even a small agency.
My opinion on this frustrates some people.
I never have been against “engineered’ growth –– the practice of trying to purposely, exponentially scale a business. In fact, I prefer it.
Why? Because no company can make their revenue stay exactly the same month after month, year after year. Also exponential growth usually includes some type of unique technology, which provides higher margins, escape from linearity, and protection of the hundreds of competitors all agencies and freelancers face.
The Magic Ingredient
Scaling is the magic ingredient for startups to actually persevere as a business. Anyone who’s felt the power of stable reliable growth knows what I mean.
Continuous growth, at least a little, and a growth mindset together create a positive pressure on a business, force them to expand and continuously improve. It’s more difficult –– adding people, scaling infrastructure, fighting with bigger competitors, but I believe it’s worth it. For any business.
It’s also an incessant challenge –– “We must keep growing!” To me that’s a good thing.
Often when a growth company stalls, they start looking to sell or merge their company, to prevent the slide back down the revenue curve and all the painful things that come with that. That’s O.K., and often provides some wonderful outcomes that wouldn’t have arisen if they weren’t set up as a scalable business.
Growth, scaling, growth, pizza…
One wonderful model for me is my friend Jace, whom I am helping to create a new food ordering startup. There are hundreds of food ordering startups already, so why would anyone do this in 2019, right?. Most will fail.
But we’re approaching it in a very different way, looking beyond the present. We’re designing the platform and pricing so that growth is very slow at the beginning then increases over time. We’re building proprietary technologies that we will use ourselves then expose to the world. Etc., etc.
We’re building scalability into everything.
Excitement
Growth businesses are also more exciting for a company’s team and friends and family and customers. As you build long term relationships with customers, investors, employees, they thrive on your continuous growth and actually help you to continue to grow.
I understand and respect the linear businesses, and I love the simplicity of the agency model, but they are vulnerable to change and competition in the long run.
So consider the scalable model for anything you do.
“The energy of the mind is the essence of life.” – – Aristotle
Find yourself a partner or two, ASAP. Don’t be too hasty, but having a partner makes an enormous difference. The #1 wish of most business minded founders is to have a technical partner, a “tech cofounder,” but they go about it all wrong. I can’t drive around Silicon Valley without thinking of Hewlett and Packard, one of the best partnerships in history. They were both technical, quite similar in some ways but there were also several lesser known major differences in their personalities and beliefs. They supported each other to the end and made everything around them stronger because of it. A great partnership is about equality in the right places, and if it is maintained, the resulting energy is much more than the sum of its parts. In most great partnerships it’s impossible to discern who the leader is; both partners support the other almost more than themselves.
