February 2023

Just over a year ago I began a series of articles titled “Founder to CEO”. I identified eight key roles that a business leader, whether a startup founder, a scaling business president, or a mature enterprise CEO, must play. 

Those roles are:

• Chief Visionary
• Chief Strategist
• Chief Culture Officer
• Chief Communicator
• Chief People Officer
• Chief Integrator
• Chief Growth Officer
• Chief Cash Officer

For each of the eight roles I spent several weeks writing articles describing the general concepts surrounding those roles, reviewing books related to the roles, and finally describing how the roles change as the business matures.

The article linked below provides a recap of all of that content, including links to 60 relevant articles. 

Read the full article here.

As I’ve maintained over the past couple of articles, cash is the lifeblood of any business. If you run out of cash, your business will probably die. Wisely managing cash can fuel profitable growth. But, a company’s demands for cash will change as it matures from a small, early stage startup into a large and stable enterprise. Even if you’ve hired a Chief Financial Officer, as founder or CEO, you ultimately are responsible for ensuring that your company has the cash it needs. Understanding these needs as your business grows, and managing the business appropriately is critical for your business to survive and thrive.

In the article linked below I look at the cash management needs of a business as it moves from pure startup to scaling business to a stable enterprise and finally to a mature business. I use the timely example of OpenAI and ChatGPT to demonstrate how cash needs can quickly change.

Read the full article here.

Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution by Waze co-founder Uri Levine is full of insights and advice for entrepreneurs based on his experience with some very successful startups. There’s a lot in it that I agree with and would probably give the same advice to companies I was advising. There are some things I disagree with and I would give counter-advice. As long as the reader takes the content for what it is — one man’s opinion — this can be a very valuable book for entrepreneurs. Especially compared to the cost of a highly qualified advisor, this book is well worth the price and time investment.

Read the full review here.