Pick the Seat Where You Add the Most.
A founder's ego wants the top title every time. A company needs the right person in each seat at each stage.
The Creator's Journey · Chapter VIII, Capital and the Exit
Not every exit I have been part of was mine to lead. Some of the best lessons came from choosing a different seat.
At Vivox, the company that built spatial voice for video games, I was brought in to potentially run the company. When I met the CEO, Rob Seaver, I realized I would add more as chief product officer. So I took that seat, and I grew the product. Vivox was later sold to Unity, and today it is part of the platform game designers use to build their worlds.
At Viximo, the seat was different. I was brought in as CEO to lead the company toward its natural owner. Viximo was sold to Tapjoy. At Affinnova, I was the zero-to-something CEO. Waleed Atrachki took it from something to something much bigger. Both jobs matter, and they are different jobs.
The founder who can tell which seat fits the moment is more valuable than the one who insists on the same seat every time.
If you have the right person on the bus, but they’re in the wrong seat, they will fail or they’ll certainly struggle.
Most founders change seats anyway
Noam Wasserman studied 212 American start-ups from the late 1990s and early 2000s for his 2008 Harvard Business Review article “The Founder’s Dilemma.” By year three, about half of the founders were no longer CEO. Fewer than a quarter led their companies through an IPO. Wasserman framed the choice as rich versus king: founders trade control for a more valuable company, or hold control and accept a smaller one.
I read that research as a reason to choose your seat on purpose, before someone chooses it for you. A founder’s ego wants the top title every time. A company needs the right person in each seat at each stage. Collins makes the point about everyone on the bus. It applies to the founder first.
A founder who knows which job he is good at makes better decisions about when to step aside. That is part of choosing the exit too.
Choose your seat
- Name the stageZero to something, something to much bigger, or leading toward the natural owner. Each stage asks for a different job.
- Name your best jobWrite which of those jobs you have done best, with evidence rather than hope.
- Meet the other leader firstWhen you join a company, ask early whether you add more beside its leader or in their place.
- Plan the handoffIf your job ends at this stage, decide who takes the next one before you need them.
Quick answers
Should a founder always be the CEO?
Rob Frasca argues no. A company needs the right person in each seat at each stage. He served as CEO at Affinnova and Viximo and as chief product officer at Vivox, and each seat led to an exit.
What is the founder’s dilemma?
Noam Wasserman’s term, from a 2008 Harvard Business Review article, for the trade-off between keeping control of a company and building its value. In his study of 212 start-ups, about half of founders were no longer CEO by year three.