Thinking about how to be an Entrepreneurial CEO

After reading the article on the 14 ways to be a great start up CEO, I started to consider how this could apply to me and how I might improve in some of these areas. Getting an MBA, I feel I understand the technical aspects well and the more mundane business aspects shouldn't be a problem. My adaptability and milestoning should be strong because of my previous work experience. I do feel, however, that one aspect of my experience and education will perhaps be a hindrance: a developed risk aversion. I believe this is what the article meant when it indicated that an MBA maybe be a negative.

Making a payroll for employees or working with shareholder capital makes one contemplate catastrophic risk. With the uncertainty in a start up, you may over judge this risk. As Professor Zak stated, management is often prone to saying no. I completely understand this sentiment. I need to overcome this and realize such endeavours are risky in the first place and stakeholders should be aware of this. Old habits die hard.

Another aspect that I feel I need to work on is communication. I easily dive into technical mumbo jumbo. While the nature of our business makes it so that some of this must be unavoidable, I need to continue to refine the way I communicate and convey the ideas behind our business. Getting buy in from everyone, including employees and other stakeholders is a must, therefore appealing to them in a manner that is both rational and heuristic is of the utmost importance.

One thing I don't think the article emphasized enough (but Professor Zak does) is that you must be constantly selling your company to everyone. It talked about the idea that you must be a good communicator with investors, but this seemed to be more technical updates in nature. From my experience with start ups, you have to be constantly selling and be good. As CEO, you are the front (wo)man. You must run the organization, but you also must be raising capital and garnering stakeholder buy in. This often dominates you time, so you sales pitch, smile, and enthusiasm, along with you know how must always be at maximum. This is not easy, but I don't think any of us thought this would be easy.