How the Founder Role Changes as Your Startup Grows

As one of the co-founders of my startup I found myself quickly changing from an active, hands-on role in the building of our product to a leadership role where I needed to direct and motivate our growing team as we scaled our business. There is a common belief that founders aren’t the best at taking on this leadership role needed to scale and that many startups that scale the right way will eventually surpass the capabilities of their founders. In fact, only 50% of founders remain chief executives after three years and a very low 25% of founders make it all the way to their company’s IPO as the CEO. Why is this? The main reason is that successful founders must learn to adapt, or they can be quickly left behind. Some of the most successful startups have reached maximum potential because their founders took on the CEO role completely, and they knew they needed to evolve and grow with the needs of their business.

Here is some advice from my experiences to make this role transition easier for other startup founders who are going through the same process.

Learn to delegate

Learning to delegate responsibilities becomes a major part of your job as a founder. For founders who like doing everything themselves and think they can handle it all, this can be a difficult step. But hiring the best talent you can find and people who really believe in your mission and what you are trying to accomplish will make it easier to let go of some things so you can start focusing on growing the business. Remember delegating isn’t just about telling others what to do, but also about empowering your team and showing that you trust them. Allowing others to make decisions and facilitating those decisions along the way will help your team become more comfortable doing so.


Manage the flow of information

As you begin hiring more and more people, you will also start to realize every detail about the company is no longer in your brain only. Figuring out the best way to manage the knowledge flowing in your company and making sure your team knows the best ways to access and communicate this information will help make the transition easier.

Face yourself

Some of the best advice I’ve found comes from other entrepreneurs who are open about the challenges they faced when scaling their companies. Gail Goodman, Chairman, President, and CEO of Constant Contact, has been at the head of the company for 15 out of its 16 years existence. When asked what her secret was to scaling her business as well as herself as the founder along the way, her advice was:

“You have to face yourself. You have to be unbelievably ruthless about what’s working and what’s not working. As CEO, you will have to change hundreds of times to face the different challenges in the different stages your business will go through.”

Learn where to spend your time

As your business grows, you have to learn to let go of your involvement in the day-to-day tasks and timely decisions and let your team step up to the challenge. Gail Goodman realized she had been neglecting critical areas in the business that she needed to be focusing on, and offered this advice to founders in the same position:

“The single biggest investment you can make as CEO is where you spend your time,” she says, “and spending time where I was comfortable was a mistake.”

It can be tough to go from being hands-on in the everyday operations of your startup to taking a leadership role on your team. But it is a very important step to take in order to scale your company in the best way possible. The most important thing to remember is not to view your role change as a transition out of your business, but rather a transition forward for your entire operation. It’s also important that as your startup grows you remember not to lose the ‘culture’ your team built together and believes in. As a founder, it will be your duty to remain aware of your company’s culture and ensure that it remains intact as your business grows. Brian Chesky, the founder and CEO of Airbnb, has a great post worth checking out “Don’t F*ck Up the Culture ”.

How has your role as a startup founder changed as your company scaled? Share with us in the comments.

How the Founder Role Changes as Your Startup Grows