I’ve been struggling for a while about what to write for Tech IT Easy—things seemed to change from one day to the next and it made little sense to reflect, rather a speedy reaction felt more like the right thing to do. That hasn’t changed much, as I believe we’ve just reached a stage of development where speed outweighs thought, but my realisation of this warranted a blog post for future reference. I always imagine myself looking back at what I wrote a few months-years ago to see whether I learned a lesson that I could apply on the future.

Every startup starts great, I think. You (and your team, if applicable) feels a sense of elevation, of engaging onto a route that brings rewards, wealth, and joy to future customers (of course the entrepreneur is usually the 1st customer). This hazy phase is necessary to get the necessary adrenaline for the rest of the trajectory. It’s like a warming up, the important difference being that the more you structure your plans during that phase, the more strategically you can dedicate energy to different steps & actions.

Continuing with the analogy of a run, we have reached the marathon phase. We’re running on the limits of our “bodies,” which contain what energy we have pumped in before, what survival strategies we researched, and what supplies we managed to take with us. Both in a marathon and in a startup the vision of the destinations should be strong. It starts with much socialising with other runners, perhaps with some personal trainers during the preparation stage. But eventually, we realise two things: there are lonely routes to run during that marathon. And eventually, it’s a race too and only a selected few can win.

So what am I learning during this marathon?
I may have mentioned this before, but I envisioned my role in the company as different then it is now. I drafted a contract for myself with a set of deliverables that relate a vision outlined in our business plan. One deliverable is keeping that business-plan updated as I know that these plans hold little value as static documents. But essentially, it’s about getting our product to a certain stage and our company to a certain stage, and that’s how I phrased it in my business-plan.

As a CEO, an important part is learning to let go of the definition of a “job” (singular). A CEO must be a generalist and be able to do a number of “jobs” (plural). Not to a great depth, but enough to get each member of the team to do their job well. That means that, in my company, I have to understand how our products are built and help build them. I have to understand design and help my designers. I have to understand marketing and help my team there. In the end, there’s three things to realise about being a CEO: a good percentage of your time is spent on people management and you have to learn to delegate a lot of things. And last but not least: the final responsibility is always yours! You can fire an employee for doing a bad job, but you are always to blame for the outcome. So there’s no excuse, ever!

A runner’s most important asset is his brain. In regular intervals, he has to observe his body and his environment and make a decision about what the best actions are at that moment. Going downhill = move faster. A long road to the next water-source = conserve your supplies. A runner close to you = know his and your strengths and weaknesses and decide whether to run faster, slower, or at normal speed.

The startup’s most important asset is leadership, which fulfils the same role as the brain during a marathon: evaluate internal resources and the environment and decide what step is best to take when.

I hope to have a few more general blog posts on entrepreneurship left in me. But for now, the sun is shining and the future looks bright. But we also need to conserve our supplies to the next water source, and run at sufficient speed to meet both our milestones and reach the finish.

All my entrepreneurship diary posts can be followed under the tag ‘Vincent’s eDiary.’ I don’t write about what we do as a company on purpose, but you can always ask in the comments or via the email address on the right.

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