How To Balance Between An Entrepreneur and CEO

Having started with just a computer in my 150 sq ft room at my Chandigarh home, and scaled to a 5600 square foot office with 30+ employees both in and out house, in under 3 years, and generated millions of dollars in the process, I guess I’ve faced some weird challenges along the way.

One of them is the dire question: How do I manage my role as an entrepreneur and a CEO?

Being an entrepreneur has some advantages and disadvantages, so does being a CEO. But when you combine both these roles and give them to one person, either all hell can break loose or an intricate balance can be found.

Role of an Entrepreneur

The word entrepreneur is an accumulation of several verticals. He is responsible for founding a company, hiring the proper staff to start operations, manage finances initially, keep innovating and discovering new ideas to start the next big product or improve the current product, manage current staff and love them till the world ends.

He is emotional, practical, worldly, and logical but when it comes to protecting his ideas and staff, he forgets everything and does that. He doesn’t believe in long meetings discussing every aspect (and some more) of his ideas.

He is the one guy who doesn’t calculate much before taking a huge risk, even though his entire business may be at stake. He believes in innovation and employment.

He knows he can change the world, and his team is the most important part of his world. Its his family. Its his conviction. Its his driving force.

He doesn’t believe in getting VC’s and angel investors. He believes that everything will fall into place on its own. Its a magical feeling, and if he believes in this enough, most of the time it does come true.

My experience as an entrepreneur has been fulfilling at every level. At least for the first year or so. And then came my role as a CEO.

Role of a CEO

Most internet startups do amazing things with very little resources in the beginning. When a company scales up, with both resources and staff, then the need for a CEO comes into play because of several issues:

The ever increasing need to sustain and GROW the current business.
Manage finances wisely and ensure the funds that go into development are properly accounted for.
Legal issues that can bite you in the a**, keep propping up more frequently.
Ensure the company culture maintains its spirit. (this is important because it gets difficult to manage as you scale up)
Make sure every new project that starts has gone through several phases of discussions. (business cases, worst case scenarios, budget constraints, growth predictions etc etc)
Keeping everyone tied up as a team and maintain a staff hierarchy.

The CEO doesn’t believe in risks. He believes that everything needs to be calculated. He isn’t itsy bitsy emotional about the team. If he feels a staff member needs to be fired, he follows through with it that same day. He believes in accounting for every penny that comes and goes from the company. He believes in keeping everyone in line.

He believes in concepts like regularity, productivity, strictness, Microsoft Excel, closed door meetings… all the things an entrepreneur doesn’t believe in. (or at least he doesn’t want to believe)

What Happens When You Combine The Two Roles

This is exactly what happened with me, which resulted in this revelation. It got ugly at times, when my mind started debating on things I would never ever have done a few years ago.

There are two different mindsets for each role, and it gets confusing if one person has to deal with decisions keeping both mindsets in consideration.

I started as an entrepreneur in 2009. I had to become a CEO in 2011. And I’ve fought this conflict of interest ever since. The good news is I think I’ve finally arrived at a balance.

I guess the logical thing to do is explain how.

How To Balance Being Both Entrepreneur And CEO

Although applying these concepts might get tricky at times, just keep believing in yourself and everything falls into place. I cannot guarantee the success of these concepts, but they have worked for me pretty well.

Whenever you hear the two voices in your head, refer to this list and you’ll know which voice to listen to:

1) Deal financial decisions with the CEO mindset: Take it from me, the CEO knows his finances. His mentality is forged upon by years of numbers and excel calculations running through his brain cells. The entrepreneur won’t blink an eye to spend the $20,000 and buy the new server rack of 12 servers. But the CEO will analyze current traffic growth, estimate a future requirement, spend $5000 for 3 servers, and utilize the remaining $15,000 in retargeting campaigns.

2) Deal company culture decisions with the Entrepreneur mindset: The CEO doesn’t realize how far company culture goes in a successful venture, well not nearly as much as the entrepreneur at least. The entrepreneur loves his team and makes sure they’re well knit as a family. Hence all decisions regarding company culture has to be taken by the entrepreneur.

3) Leave the “ideas” to the entrepreneur, and the “implementation” to the CEO: Let’s be frank. The CEO thinks everything so logically, his mind doesn’t work towards innovation. While he may do an excellent job making sure an idea comes to life with the proper resource utilization, the entrepreneur does a much better job thinking about the idea itself, website layout, features to built in, and user experience. Leave the pricing, copywriting and marketing at the hands of the CEO.

4) Let the CEO handle team building and firing decisions: The CEO knows how many people are currently required for the company and which people are not required. The entrepreneur loves the team so much, he won’t fire anyone. But the CEO is more practical in this matter. He doesn’t have any emotional attachment to an employee. He believes in the growth of the business, not about the family of the staff members.

5) Let the entrepreneur handle team hierarchy/promotion decisions: Since the entrepreneur is much closer to the staff, he knows who can do a better job managing a team, and who can do a better job working solo. Leaving the entrepreneurial mindset to handle the promotions, demotions, and setting up the team hierarchy.

6) Don’t let the entrepreneur die and don’t let the entrepreneur dominate: This might be one of the most critical points to always keep in mind. It can get confusing at times juggling between the two mindsets and you might reach a time when you’ll be lying in bed thinking: “Where has the entrepreneur inside me gone??” Never let that happen. That being said never let the entrepreneur mindset dominate the CEO mindset. There’s a delicate balance to be maintained, and as long as you believe in YOURSELF, 80% of the battle is already won.

Conclusion

While its advisable that the role of the entrepreneur be handled by one of the founders and the role of CEO be handled by a hire who has excellent credibility and understands company values. Its not always possible for a company to have two people for these roles.

If you’re stuck as an entrepreneur as well as a CEO, then thank your lucky stars that you will get to handle one of the most challenging (and fun) roles that any human can encounter.

Remember, every company and every entrepreneur goes through several stages. Several years down the line you will be laughing at everything you’ve done in the past.

Never be afraid to make the right or wrong decisions. The biggest mistake you can do is not make a decision at all.