The CEO is Responsible for the Why and the What. The Team is Responsible for the How

If you have a problem, do you honestly care HOW it gets done, as long as it works? Spoiler alert: the correct answer is no. Sure, you probably have conditions of satisfaction — the solution can’t cost more than X dollars, or require new software systems, or disrupt your supply chain. This is all a part of what success looks like. Once that’s defined, if your team can get the job done with helper monkeys in cute little vests, more power to them.

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The #1 Killer Of Startups Is Solving Problems That Aren’t Problems Yet

Why the hell would you worry about your site’s scalability if you don’t know how to effectively acquire customers? Your site falling over someday MIGHT kill your company (probably not). Never growing past eight customers WILL kill your company. Instead of using your beautiful brain and precious funding to solve theoretical scaling issues, perhaps you should go run some customer acquisition experiments. Build a fucking landing page. Buy some AdWords.

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Every Product Needs a CEO

I’m not advising that CEOs of mid to large size companies making millions of dollars a year with hundreds of employees drop everything to sell every new product her company launches. That’s unrealistic and in many cases unreasonable. But, that doesn’t mean new products can be built by committee. While the CEO might not launch every product, every product needs a CEO.

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Sell It Before You Build It

I’d say many people who build products do so in part because they want to AVOID dealing with other people, much less try to sell them anything. But eventually, you’ll have to talk to customers. The question is, do you do it before you build anything and validate they’ll pay for all the work you’re about to do, or do you do it after you’ve spent all your time, money and effort to create something, only to find out no one cares.

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