There is always more work to do in a startup than there are people in the company or hours in the day to do it. Everyone has heard horror stories about endless twelve hour days, all nighters and death marches. Some startups fail not because the idea is bad, but because they just can’t seem to focus effectively on turning the idea into a profitable business. This is the second post in a series entitled Startup Musings that discusses managerial challenges unique to the startup executive. This post covers a few handy tips on how to make the most of the few resources you’ve got.

Choose What NOT To Do
When you’re small, and looking to get noticed in a much larger crowd, it is far better to do one thing exceptionally well, than to do a lot of things mediocrely. In a startup, this simple rule of thumb applies to the highest level of strategy all the way down to the lowest level of day-to-day activities. In a word, FOCUS! Given that there is always more to do than you possibly can, the most important organizational skill of the startup executive is the ability to look an idea square in the eye and say, “We don’t need to do that, because it won’t impact revenue, save money, or make us more competitive.” You’ll be surprised how quickly this little acid test will shorten your to-do list.

Sounds Like a Volunteer!
Getting focused is hard, but staying focused throughout the organization is even more difficult. Bringing a good idea to fruition is something like 5% strategy and 95% execution. Read more »

For the past couple of years I’ve been active in an up-and-coming CMO-only professional group called The CMO Club. It’s simply one of the best marketing executive groups I’ve encountered, so I thought I would pass along the tip. It was started by Pete Krainik, a former CMO himself of M&M Mars, Avaya, and DoubleClick, with the intent of keeping it CMO-centric, vendor free and focused on high-value peer-to-peer sharing.

CMO Opinions on The CMO Club

Pete treks around the country hosting local CMO-only dinners with great conversations and guest speakers. There is a social networking site with increasingly good content and the dinner schedule, but the real action is interpersonal at the dinners and bi-annual leadership summits.
Read more »

The aspiration of most technology startups is to grow from virtually nothing to a billion dollar company. But, if you examine the typical billion dollar company you find something that looks very much like a factory. People are divided up into divisions, departments and job descriptions. And, crossing these boundaries are well defined processes and support systems that sew up the pieces into a business value chain that drives revenue. Lot’s of round pegs and round holes for them to fit into that in the best companies provide a vehicle for talented individuals to drive superior organizational performance and a safety net for weaker performers to ensure that things keep humming along no matter what. In other words: NOT a startup.

Getting from here to there is like growing a fully functioning human being with a brain, a heart, lungs, legs, arms, and fingers from a single, blank zygote. In nature, this miracle is accomplished through stem cells. Which according to Wikipedia are “characterized by the ability to renew themselves…differentiating into a diverse range of specialized cell types.” I think I would be hard pressed to come up with a better analogy of what it takes to be a successful startup executive. I say this for two reasons. First, it is the job of executive management to build the organization, processes, and jobs that will be the billion dollar company. Second, until you achieve the revenue growth that will allow you to pay for all these offices, people, and systems—-you must do it yourself.

One hat is not enough for successful startup executives. Startup executives must demonstrate breadth across functions and depth within roles. Read more »