Thread by @sanjaynath

1/ sharing a few reflections

over a week of travel & some “aerial/artistic” inspiration this weekend

Yesterday,
15 hours
3 airports
6 hours in the air
and a Sat even w/ Blumiers

also a year younger from recent b’day :) ...

@BKartRed @AshishFafadia @sajithpai @arpiit

2/. increasingly marveled by the agility/speed of “thinking to action” from best founders today

In contrast, 1-2 decades ago, many of us often thought “linearly” - engg/MBA/corp/ops exp - *then* launched startups

Today’s founders have an innate capacity to “parallel process”

3/- happy to hear founders, esp in intimate settings, profess their desire

To master the transition

from “founder” TO “founder + ceo”

Takes serious time/effort, but the self-driven thought is the starting trigger out of the blocks

balance founders mentality + ceo persona?

4/. Using a ⚽️ analogy,

“Opportunities are found in *open* spaces”

Just like how top ⚽️ teams cut past defenders & capitalise on spaces to score,

Whether negotiating a transaction, making a key hire, or closing a sale, try & find open spaces - to reach best win/win scenarios

5/. I’m a fan of face to face meetings

In early stage, reading people (reverse too, being “read”!) is the key

recent tweet, on point 👌🏻

“Reading people > reading their slides”

(busy schedules & dispersed geos make f2t difficult - zoom/virtual tools effective - use video 👍🏻)

6/. As the org scales, key q -

How do founder roles change?

An interesting piece of advice

“Make time to build the org”

Recommend spending at least 20-25% of time out there as chief evangelist, recruit key hires, get a pulse of customers & key front line/other employees

7/. “2 or 3” in a box

A bit like the “amazon pizza analogy” (Google it! :),

large meetings can make it difficult to stay nimble & get things done!

Divvying up into smaller teams of 2-3 each w/ an owner, supporting cast, & sounding board/observer is an interesting approach

8/. Understanding personality traits of founders is always intriguing

an interesting one -

you can be a nice guy/gal YET retain the competitive intensity to relentlessly execute

desire to win + keep winning most imp attribute

“Can play hard to win, w/ out being a hardass”

9/. On formulae/playbooks -

There is no “this is it” playbook

you have to find out what works

for your team
and for your company

creating your own “playbook”

Cont’d 👇🏻

10/. Serial entrepreneurs/ VP sales (for b2b cos)/ product-category managers (for b2c) know -

best practices so you don’t have to start from scratch,

what mistakes NOT to repeat,

hence reducing points of failure & lengthening runway,

so you can hit those big milestones 🚀🚀