I love talking to aspiring entrepreneurs—I do it once a week at minimum.
I often get asked “what’s the role of a startup CEO?” Sometimes people are curious about the pre-launch “CEO” and ask if a startup really needs one. If that CEO isn’t an engineer, what do they do anyhow? Other times people wonder what I do today as CEO of a 180 person company. In this post I’ll cover the pre-launch role, and in a follow-up, I’ll get into the role post-launch.
So what does the CEO, who at the beginning is really the general business person, do at a pre-launch startup?
Let’s go back to the beginning of Meebo, circa April, 2005.
Co-founders Sandy Jen, Elaine Wherry and I met every Wednesday night and all day every Sunday in an effort to get Meebo off the ground. We’d never meet in my apartment—it was always either at Sandy’s or Elaine’s. Why? Because they had the better computers and the faster internet connections. Frankly, that’s pretty emblematic of one’s role as the “business person” pre-launch. I’ve touched upon this topic before in a Founder Stories interview with Chris Dixon (embedded below), but it is worth elaborating on.
To read the full, original article click on this link: My Job As A Pre-Launch Startup CEO Was To Buy Sandwiches
Author:Seth Sternberg
