In a previous post, I mentioned that I'm mentoring some teenagers on (and through) entrepreneurship. We're finally getting into real entrepreneurship work, having got past the initial getting acquainted, setting expectations stage. It is challenging for sure (these are not your typical college-track kids), but it is also fun, and one of the most interesting aspects is how it compares with the 'grown-up' entrepreneurial culture.
In our final session of this year, we got together as teams - the 'business' team of teens, and two mentors. Since travel and business pressures can prevent the mentors from making every single session, they're double-teamed (often, this is the first time these kids are exposed to someone who travels on business). The team assignments are made by the teacher taking into account various factors as who's got a crush on whom (teenagers!), who's talkative, who needs encouragement, who's in-your-face etc.
Every team has a CEO, COO, CFO, VP of Marketing, VP of Products/Design - all management and no staff for obvious reasons. In our team, the CFO picked his role and was uncontested as he is "good at math and his mom is an accountant". Can't argue with that line of reasoning. The VP of Design was settled by arm-wrestling with the loser getting the CEO role - which left the VP of Marketing to be taken by a young girl who didn't really know what the COO role was all about, so the kid who was absent got nominated COO.
It is funny how these choices have some parallels to the real world of startups. The person who gets to be CFO or Controller usually likes numbers and finance and it is not unlikely that having a mom - or dad - in finance probably accounts (!) for that predilection. But being in charge of products - that's where the fun is because you get to create things. You can point to something and say "this is my work" - and I can see how this has way more appeal than any other part of the business, especially for fourteen year-olds who prefer to deal with tangibles. In our team the VP of Products and Design is probably the person who is best suited to it in terms of skills, and it's a hoot that she won the arm-wrestling.
As for the CEO role, not too much competition there. Turns out that they didn't feel comfortable with all the presentations that they thought they'd have to make - they have a (Power)point there. I think a couple of them have the skills, especially in problem-solving and strategic planning, but they need to develop confidence in themselves as leaders, much like many adults. And the kid who did take the role, the one who lost the arm-wrestling, decided it could be OK because CEO 'sounds cool'. It sure does, but he lost quite a bit of his swagger when he heard that the CEO is responsible for everything - he hadn't bargained to have to do more than others. We did a trial candle making and selling 'business' just to get familiar with the process, and our CEO was surprised that he had to get involved in the production of the candles as well as setting the price and marketing and everything else. It is going to be interesting to see how he grows into the role.
The startup CEO's responsibilities are pretty much all-inclusive, even if you are delegating a specific piece of work to someone else who's the subject matter expert. If your engineer is taking longer than expected, you have to take the responsibility for not ensuring that the estimates were reasonable or the engineer was at the right skill level or both. Even if a tax accountant prepares your taxes, you have to double-check the returns and make sure it is accurate. Regardless of your legal firm's size and reputation, you'd have to read every line of every contract template to make sure it's what you want to sign up to. So on top of getting funding, building a team, and setting product/market strategy, you're signing up for reviewing copy, doing some QA, responding to customer complaints - and of course, providing pizza and drinks. There's cause to pause before arm-wrestling for this job.
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