A few of us were discussing startups, and the point/purpose of a designation arose, and what it actually meant in a startup.
So far in life I have been a Founder, Co-founder, CEO, CTO, Vice president, Chief product Officer, Chief of Business Strategy,Executive Vice president, Director, Founding member, Advisor, Board Advisor, and a few other names I am sure I have been called 🙂 The only one I haven’t been is a CFO and COO, both of which seem to make little sense in a startup.
Anyhow the point being, irrespective of these titles, the role (except for 1 or 2) has remained the same, get the damn idea, convert into a business and make some money. I have done the same job in all, i.e build a business/team which delivers.
Which brings me onto the second point, when you have a designation in a startup, does it actually mean anything, who actually makes the decision in a startup. How when you sell/discuss with a startup do you know if you are talking to the correct person, a CEO maybe the one with a rich dad, he may have no idea about business, and COO, maybe just the second person in the team, but operations wise, no clue.
Are there better ways to actually designate startup teams ?, is it better to have no designations?, and does having designations too early cause team problems, imagine your friend is the COO, but 1 year down the line can not deliver, then what?, and why should the founder always be the CEO, at what point should he not? I know VC’s have their take on this, and will ask CEO’s to move aside, BUT what if their is no VC, what happens then, what is the criteria for a CEO/COO/CxO in a startup…or are they all on the same page, and should be all called “Startup team”?
Really interested to know how other startups deal with this, and when performance measurements which are done in fully fledged companies should come into play.
- Building a startup in 30 mins (well 41ish) – Iqbal Gandham - December 3, 2009
- Should Facebook and Twitter bother to make money? (Iqbal Gandham) - February 17, 2009
- How we got Nivio to Davos (WEF)…and won - February 5, 2009
I didnt want to call myself CEO, it hardly made sense at the scale at which we are operating now. So it’s Chief Integrator for me 😀
Interesting topic. I never thought of designations till few days back I decided to print Visiting Cards.
Co-Founder & CEO looks mature but somehow it don’t like using it. For a startup with no company structure Designation like Chief Catalyst, Chief Everything Officer sound cooler and energetic.
Any ideas?
🙂 Quite enjoyed the point about designations being meaningless. We have set our designations as ‘The Maharaja’, ‘The Navab’ and ‘The Sultan’, with these names going on our business cards as well. Makes for a neat bit of conversation when we meet people and it stresses the same point. In a 3 member startup team, what do designations mean anyways?
A startup that spends time worrying about designations isn’t gearing up for success… do what makes sense, and don’t spend more than an hour worrying about it.
My only belief is – check the motives for each decision, including this one. If the motive of a title is to look good, you’re worrying about the wrong thing. The startup is only measured by 2 things – 1. The results of the efforts, and 2. The background of the team.
Rest is irrelevant.
In a startup I feel that designations mean little internally, but externally if you are trying to project an image then of course they matter.
I think its quite coll not to have a designation 🙂
Iqbal