Regardless of the company/industry/whatever, there’s a time when an owner needs to realize that not being the CEO/whatever top daily grinder position is the best thing for their company. We dealt with this at one of my companies–and it was in fact the best thing to ever happen to the company. After hiring competent people around you who know the company in and out; let them ride the horse. Both companies promoted within and the companies took off like bats out of hell. Soaring profits, higher customer satisfaction and double digit growth rates every year. And this was no surprise, this was all a well orcastrated plan by the founders and existing management to do more and do better.
At a certain point a founder is no longer able to grow a company at the rate it needs to grow and founders become frustrated and make poor decisions. At a point (hopefully prior to poor decisions kicking in) they need to hand the reins over to a more experienced management group who can push things hard. A company is about success and growth– not ego.
Hoffman over at LinkedIn (exceptionally large social networking site for professionals) came to this realization. If I want my company to grow, expand and make money for me and my shareholders (LinkedIn = lots of high profile angel investors), I need to let someone else drive my company. And regardless of what anyone else says, growing the company from an idea to the point where the CEO decides to move to Chairman–half if not more business owners fail at this. The most difficult part of any company is starting it and seeing it through the first couple of years. Another point of interest–rarely does the company want founders to go anywhere (think company with VC money). Founders can offer a great deal of insight into the industry which the company operates and perhaps expands into.
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