MADE IN DETROIT

It’s common wisdom that all software startups should have a technical co-founder. Someone who can lay down code, it is said, allows the company to move fast and build a product well and cheaply. As a technical co-founder, I clearly agree with this statement.

Having a solid engineer as a co-founder isn’t just good from the standpoint of being able to build product quickly; it’s also good for recruiting (smart engineers want to work with other smart engineers), hiring (how would a non-technical founder adequately interview a technical hire?), fundraising (investors want to see solid technical talent if you’re working in a technical domain), and acquisitions (if you sell early, chances are the acquirer is buying your technical talent).

But it’s not all rainbows and butterflies being a technical co-founder. Especially when the technical co-founder is the CEO. I’ve been running into this lots with MobileDevHQ, and it wasn’t until last week that I finally bit the bullet — I’m no longer writing code for production.

What does a startup CEO do?

It took me a long time to figure this out, but if you’re a technical CEO and your startup is scaling, please put down your editor. You’re doing yourself, your employees, and your company a disservice.

What’s the job description of a CEO? According to Fred Wilson (via an unnamed source), the only responsibilities of a CEO are:

A CEO does only three things. Sets the overall vision and strategy of the company and communicates it to all stakeholders. Recruits, hires, and retains the very best talent for the company. Makes sure there is always enough cash in the bank.

In short, the CEO’s job is to be a storyteller. Tell a story to current employees, investors, media, etc. Tell a story to potential employees. And tell a story to potential customers and investors.

Why is being a technical CEO bad?

If your job is to be a storyteller, why is being technical bad? Presumably, you can tell a much richer story with the technical expertise to back it up. At the very least, you can understand what is possible versus what isn’t.

I think that’s true, for the most part. But, unfortunately, there’s also a curse that goes along with being a technical CEO.

In a startup, the vision in your head is constantly ten steps and two years ahead of where you are today. You know of every bug and every future feature you want so badly. And you’re certainly resource constrained.

What to do, then? Well, if you’re technical, it’s dead simple for you to just dive into the code again. Pull the latest code from GitHub, fire up the editor, and fix a couple bugs. Heck, maybe even implement that feature you wanted so badly but that your engineering team hasn’t had time to get to yet.

This ease of getting back into product development works well in the short-term, but it’s not scalable in the long-term.

Gap filling

At a higher level, working on code as a technical CEO is really just a symptom of being a “gap filler.” When you’re a doer by nature (as all engineers are), you want to do. So you’ll find any holes in your team and you’ll fill them, doing those things.

But those things aren’t things you should be doing. As a leader and CEO, you should be finding ways to open capacity for your team, to help them become leaders and be as effective as possible. Don’t be a crutch for them, doing the engineering work they haven’t been able to yet. Be a facilitator to make sure they’re able to get their work done better and faster. Invest in processes, people, and helping them become better.

The curse of the technical CEO is that it’s too easy to dive back in and get involved in the nitty-gritty. You’ve probably spent your entire career getting dirty and building things. Resist the urge to continue to do. Take a step back and make it a better place for the doers to do. Focus on being a storyteller. Continue telling a better story to current and future employees, customers, and investors. This is how you win.

jacks:

During a Square Board meeting, our newest Director Howard Schultz, pulled me aside and asked a simple question.

“Why do you all call your customers ‘users’?”

“I don’t know. We’ve always called them that.”

…

At Square we’re removing the term “users” from our vocabulary, replacing it with “customers”, and the more specific “buyers”, and “sellers.” The word customer, given its history, immediately sets a high bar on the level of service we must provide, or risk losing their attention or business. Below is a letter I sent the team after that Board meeting explaining why. It’s a start (we’re not done yet).

To everyone in the technology industry: I encourage you to reconsider the word “user” and what you call the people who love what you’ve created, starting with yourselves.

I love the direction here, but I don’t think it takes it nearly far enough. To really get in the head of a customer, we (as an organization at MobileDevHQ and as an industry as a whole) should nail down our customer to a specific person.

In our case, a user shouldn’t just be a customer, it should be a profile of a real person.

An example: From now on, I want everyone at MobileDevHQ to stop thinking in terms of a user or customer, abolish those words from our vocabulary, and instead start thinking in terms of Jane. Jane is the mobile marketing manager at a large publisher. She spends her day in a variety of tools, from paid ad networks, to engagement analytics platforms, to MobileDevHQ. She’s not technical — meaning she couldn’t code an app herself — but she understands technology, understands the basics of organic app marketing, and is looking to us for guidance on how she’s performing and how to get better.

In short: Jane needs MobileDevHQ to succeed at her job. She wants to help her organization build a big mobile business. And she wants to enjoy doing that every single day, so she needs to enjoy using MobileDevHQ.

From now on, I will mandate that we remove user from our vocabulary, but also remove customer, and instead replace it with Jane, a specific person we know well.

That’s the feedback I was given by Andy last week during our weekly update meeting. It was in response to my telling him our product and revenue progress (now in the mid-5 figures per month).

I thought about that phrase for a few days and realized this is probably the closest to the entrepreneurial mindset in one sentence as you can get. No matter how much progress you’ve made, you’re always kinda fuckin’ nowhere.

Have a killer idea? You’re kinda fuckin’ nowhere. Beta product created? You’re kinda fuckin’ nowhere. Launched with TechCrunch coverage? You’re kinda fuckin’ nowhere. Built a profitable business with a million in top line revenue? You’re kinda fuckin’ nowhere. Just raised a big round for growth? You’re kinda fuckin’ nowhere.

No matter how far you get, your ambition as an entrepreneur will always leave you wanting more. This, to me, is the exact definition of entrepreneurship.

Aaron Levie tweeted it succinctly, too:

“I’m really satisfied with where the product is at.” said no founder ever.

— Aaron Levie (@levie) June 10, 2012

I woke up far too early this morning (4:30 am) with that screw-it-let’s-attack-the-day feeling. But instead of getting up, I’m lying in bed thinking about why I woke up so early.

I ended up realizing that watching friends succeed is an invigorating way to get pumped for yourself.

Yesterday was a big day for some of my friends: Ashley, Rand, and the Moz team announced they made their first big acquisition in Follower Wonk, while Kevin and Adam and team released Haiku Deck to much fanfare (Frickin’ Ray Ozzie tried their product!).

Failure is a part of life in startup land, but at first I refused to watch it. In some way, I didn’t want it to affect me. Like that first time a child sees someone sick in the hospital: instead of compassion, fright shows up and the child doesn’t want to become similarly infected.

I realize now that in today’s world, there is very little actual failure. Every time I’ve seen a startup fail, the founders move on with a great next gig and lessons that last a lifetime. In most cases, they’re back at it within a couple years. The acceptance of failing and encouragement to get back up on the horse is a huge sign of a mature startup ecosystem in my opinion (and one that Seattle is starting to get).

But watching people succeed drives an amazing ability to fire me up. Having a community where everyone can share our successes and failures is an integral part of how to build a virtuous cycle of success.

For me that community mostly revolves around Founders’ Co-op and TechStars, but also Seattle in general. It’s one reason why I am anxiously anticipating yet fearing the day we grow large enough to move out of the FC space in South Lake Union.

In the meantime, help me watch you succeed. Tweet, share, shout about it (look to the Simply Measured crew for examples; they do a great job at this). Let me share in your success so I can continue waking up excited to crush it just like you.

And to Moz and Haiku Deck: first, mazel tov; second, keep killing it; and third, thank you. Today will be a good day because of you.

Hi @KevinHartz,

First, I should say I’ve long admired Eventbrite and what you’ve done there. Moreover, I use at least a handful of products from companies you’ve invested in on a daily basis. You seem like more of a quiet operator and investor, not overhyping yourself and your investments — just the type I (and most Seattle entrepreneurs) like.

Today I read a Wired piece on why you’re no longer making angel investments. In particular:

Hartz doesn’t like to invest his when there is so much sloshing around Silicon Valley.

…

Hartz is making follow-on investments in his current roster of startups, but he’s not looking to do anything new — it’s just too expensive.

To this I say, come to Seattle and invest. NOW. The weather is getting better, so don’t be put off by the potential of rain. More importantly, we need investors like you: folks who can provide value to startups; folks with operational and investing experience; folks with networks and connections in areas we lack.

As for your concerns on valuations: don’t be. Our valuations are fair — extremely fair — by Valley standards. We don’t have YC companies raising seed rounds at a $9-10M pre. Many local investors are grinding entrepreneurs on price, even after you discount for not being in the Valley. Hell, some of our entrepreneurs are leaving Seattle because deal terms are so bad for us up here (while others of us are banding together to build a great future of startups). Needless to say, you’ll be very happy with the valuations entrepreneurs are offering here in Seattle.

Meanwhile, while investors are busy trying to grind on price, entrepreneurs are busy building great businesses. For a long time, Seattle entrepreneurs have been known as the lifestyle business types, not necessarily wanting to build massive companies. Quite frankly, I was part of that: if I could build a few million dollars a year in revenue business, that sounded great. But recently, that mentality has changed (I know this because I’m part of it): we want to build massive businesses now. We want to be aggressive and take risks. Just look at what Rand has done at SEOmoz.

So we want to take risks. We want to build great, big, lasting companies. Our valuations aren’t out of control. Now we just need capital and investors who can mentor us to do so. This should be you.

Come take a trip up here to Seattle. We’ll gladly host you at Founder’s Co-op, and we’ll ensure you meet the best of the best if you’re up here for just a couple days. You won’t be disappointed.

If you’re interested, email me at iseff@appstorehq.com or call me at 406-426-1337.

Looking forward to meeting.

Thanks and talk soon,

Ian

The average #Facebook user has 130 friends, ~8,000 friends of friends, and ~1,000,000 friends of friends of friends. via @Padday #WOMMA

— David Yarus (@DavidYarus) May 9, 2012

According to that, it looks like the formula for number of friends by degree of separation is:

if deg == 1
  130
else
  130^deg / 2
end


For first degree, that would be 130, second degree would be 8,450, third degree would be 1,098,500. Assuming this holds true for more degrees, four degrees of separation would be 142,805,000 people and five degrees would be 18,564,650,000 people, or roughly 2.6x the population of the world.

In other words, it appears it really only takes 5 degrees of separation to get to anyone on the planet.