Working with founder CEOs in early stage tech startups can be both exhilarating and challenging.
A founder’s vision and urgency propel things forwards, but frequent changes of direction, top-down demands to build solutions and micro-managing can be frustrating and prevent everyone from working effectively.
In this article we explore why these problems emerge, and practical approaches to working collaboratively and positively with founders as an early stage PM.
Overall we’ll be covering:
- Common problems of working with founders and how to avoid them
- How to understand the situation when you join a small startup
- Principles for working collaboratively
- Ways to build your credibility quickly
- Different approaches to persuading and influencing founders
While this article is written for PMs working with founder CEOs in early stage companies, the lessons here are applicable to any PM working with senior stakeholders.
Common problems working with founders
Founders are naturally ambitious, opinionated and energetic - without these qualities, their startups wouldn’t get off the ground. But these qualities can also become a source of tension.
It’s not uncommon to see the following symptoms:
- Specific feedback - The founder gives you direct feedback that you’re not living up to expectations.
- Frequently changing priorities - The priorities you’re working on change continuously, making it hard to ship anything of note.
- Micro-managing - The founder reviews all of your work, and edits it so much that they may as well have done it themselves.
- Being bypassed - Founders work directly with engineers and designers, leaving you as a PM out of the conversation.
- Lack of engagement - You find it hard to get time or input from the founder, and they become a bottleneck to development.
While you will find any of these behaviours frustrating, bear in mind that they don’t want this type of relationship either. Complaining about the situation is cathartic, but taking action to put your relationship on a better footing will be better for your career, mental health and the business.
Rather than focusing on the symptoms, you need to diagnose the resolve the underlying problems, which might include:
- Lack of credibility - They don’t trust your judgement or ability to deliver yet.
- Misaligned expectations - You have different ideas about your role and responsibilities, or how work should be done
- Underperformance - They have mishired, and need a different skillset to the one you can provide.
- Lack of insights - The business lacks the information to make data-informed decisions, and is being driven by opinions.
- Competing visions - Different people in the organization have different ideas about the direction it should be going in.
Getting your relationship with the founder you work for is critical because:
- Atmosphere - Too much tension is unpleasant to work with.
- Career - A poor relationship with your founder will hurt your career. You won’t get the opportunities you want, and you might even get fired.
- Results - It means you’re not working effectively with the founder, and you won’t get the best outcomes for the business or your customers.
Let’s look at some of the practical steps you can take to understand what’s really going on, and develop an effective and enjoyable way of working with your founder.
How to work well with founders
There’s a human element to working with anyone that can’t be entirely removed - some people are easier to work with than others, and some groups of people have a better chemistry and working dynamic than others.
But there are practical steps you can take to give yourself the best chance of developing a productive and enjoyable working relationship, and we’ll run through each of these sections in the remainder of this article:
- Understand the context - Understand the founder and business, and how you can be valuable.
- Agree a way forward - Define the role you are doing and ways of working between you.
- Embrace a collaborative mindset - Make sure you’re empowering the founder, even if they don’t understand product management
- Build credibility - Build your credibility in the organization quickly
- Influence effectively - Use the right communication style that resonates with your founder.
Understanding the context
The first step to putting your relationship with your founder on a good footing is to understand the environment you are working in:
- Founder perspective - How the founder views the world.
- Company context - The company vision, traction and financial position.
- Your role - Why you were hired and what the founder expects you to do.
- Warning signs - Red flags that signal you should look for another role.
