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What I learned as a VC filling in as a startup CEO for 4 months

venturebeat.com

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Re: What I learned as a VC filling in as a startup CEO for 4 months

#11

Post by ErikAugust »

"The company has 100+ employees, hundreds of customers, and more than 15,000 end users. I spent almost four months as CEO. Prior to this role, my “operating experience” consisted of working as a waitress during college."

I'll admit: I dug a bit to figure out what space the company is in, so that I can avoid using their services if it was applicable.

Side thought: It'd be interesting to do a bizarro "Undercover Boss" where you make someone without any experience the CEO of a large company for a week.

Re: What I learned as a VC filling in as a startup CEO for 4 months

#12

Post by kristianov »

ErikAugust wrote: post #11

"The company has 100+ employees, hundreds of customers, and more than 15,000 end users. I spent almost four months as CEO. Prior to this role, my “operating experience” consisted of working as a waitress during college." I'll admit: I dug a bit to figure out what space the company is in, so that I can avoid using their services if it was applicable. Side thought: It'd be interesting to do a bizarro "Undercover Boss"…

Should also avoid that VC firm that sent her in.

Re: What I learned as a VC filling in as a startup CEO for 4 months

#14

Post by keiferski »

...sometimes we need to recruit more experienced leadership. While we encourage companies to have a clear succession plan for the CEO, often companies at this stage ($10-50 million in revenue) do not have built-in successors.

Last fall, one of our portfolio companies (without a succession plan) lost its CEO...

In other words, the VC firm wanted the founder CEO gone but didn't have a credible alternative ready yet, so they assigned the job to a VC with the experience of... a waitress. Just another reminder to avoid taking venture capital if at all possible. This is not an uncommon occurrence.

https://hbr.org/2012/07/unpacking-vcs-strange-instinct

https://scalefinance.com/replacing-ceos-in-vc-backed-compani...

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-often-do-founding-ceos-g...

Re: What I learned as a VC filling in as a startup CEO for 4 months

#15

Post by manigandham »

VCs without any operational experience are a major problem. This is why so many companies get advised into the overfunded death cycle and never actually build a sustainable enterprise.

I find it surprising that not a single one of the existing 100 employees could be temporarily promoted to the CEO role.

Re: What I learned as a VC filling in as a startup CEO for 4 months

#16

Post by andrewstuart »

manigandham wrote: post #15

VCs without any operational experience are a major problem. This is why so many companies get advised into the overfunded death cycle and never actually build a sustainable enterprise. I find it surprising that not a single one of the existing 100 employees could be temporarily promoted to the CEO role.

Or a contract temporary CEO found - plenty of them around and presumably a VC would know many.

Re: What I learned as a VC filling in as a startup CEO for 4 months

#18

Post by icedchai »

caseysoftware wrote: post #9

> Prior to this role, my “operating experience” consisted of working as a waitress during college. I found this line astounding and not in good ways. When a new senior person is announced (even interim), the first thing most people do is ask "what has this person done?" and they scour LinkedIn, writing, social media, etc to understand what they're about and their background. I'm trying to imagine senior leadership's…

And they’d see she works at a VC firm and is a board member / observer at many companies. Seems reasonable, especially given the lack of experience of many startup CEOs anyway.
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