5 Success Tips for CEOs

People often tell me they would love to be in my shoes – at the head of their own company. My reply is always the same: it is not all fun and games as you seem to be imagining it.

I used to have all these numbers at my fingertips – how many startups fail each year and why, how many employees quit working for startups after the first three months, how much an average CEO sleeps and how that is affecting his health, and so on. Now, I just nod and smile back – unless you do walk a mile or two in CEO shoes, there is no point in trying to convince you there is more work involved that they have done in their careers.

I do realize most people think it’s easier on the other side – there is no one above you to report to. But in many ways, that is much worse. As an employee, you are only responsible for your own actions and deliverables. As you climb the ladder, there are more and more responsibilities involved, and you will not always get to work with people who work well. At the top, it can either get lonely, or overwhelming. In order to keep you company up there, here are a few tips from one CEO to another.

HRH – Research

I say this literally all the time – you need to do your research before you set up a company. And I don’t just mean research about the market you are about to enter. I mean everything. The industry itself, the competition, their competition, the newest tech developments that can help you make it a success, who is the kingpin in the niche, everything.

The more you know, the easier it will go, but you need to keep learning all the time, and never stop. At the very initial stages, before you even make the first hire, you need to make sure the service or the product you are about to launch has a market, has an audience, and that you will be able to produce it and sell it. If not, you need to do some more research.

Company formation

The second thing to focus on is the actual company formation. Are you going partnership or LLC? And why? This is also the part where you hire an accountant and a lawyer. Not a few months down the line, right now. It may seem a bit of an expense, and it is, but if you have these people on board from the start, you will save yourself a lot of trouble later on, and you will also benefit hugely from their advice. I would also advise hiring a company secretary – they can make your life insanely easier.

Plan to grow

Another important aspect of being a CEO is mastering growth early on. This means two things: believing in yourself and your future growth, and making a growth plan. Only if you scale will you be able to grow both fast, and efficiently.

You will achieve this by delegating the workload properly, making sure no one is overworked, and planning to hire new people before you see the actual need. Once someone is struggling with their workload, it is already too late. While there may only be a handful of you early on who keep the entire business afloat, that can’t stay the case forever.

Hire smart

While planning to grow, you also need to plan on hiring the right people. What I mean by that is hiring a stellar manager. A good manager can save your life any day of the week – make no mistake. They will be able to juggle everything you need them to, and they will tell you how to improve your business. After all, they are the ones on the ground every day – that will at some point stop being your job. Even if you get to the stage where you don’t personally interview every employee, and you don’t know at the middle of the night who is handling what project at the time – your manager will know, and you only need to talk to them. If they are great at their job, they will come talk to you.

Making it big in any industry is more a challenge now than it was a mere decade ago. But if you play it smart from the start, you can be a success – just make sure you play your cards right.