Over the past couple of weeks I’ve introduced the topic of an entrepreneur’s transition from founder to CEO. I identified eight sub-roles that a leader must master as their startup begins to rapidly scale, but before jumping into each of those roles, I thought it would be helpful to give an example. The story of Joseph in the Bible gives us an example of a gifted young man who developed a capability, and when he gained significant backing, needed to significantly scale that capability rapidly. What can we learn from his story that is applicable to entrepreneurs today?
Joseph isn’t specifically identified as a businessman, but we do see him establishing a means by which he could serve others, conducting transactions that created value for those he served and financial gain from his work. Joseph scaled his scope from serving the limited needs of a few prisoners, to providing for an entire nation. He scaled his horizon from focusing on the day-to-day, to planning out the next 14 years. He built processes around long-term planting, harvesting, and distribution cycles. And he scaled the organization to be a nationwide hierarchy of workers gathering and then distributing food.