Founders: building it versus running it

I spent eight years building a company before I sold it. I started out working directly with clients and families. Then I became the person who hired everyone and became a manager. Then I was responsible for the company finances, business development and growth of the company. Those were three different jobs. With three different skill sets required. No one trained or prepared me for them so I had to learn on the job. I made plenty of mistakes along the way.

That gap, between building a company and running one, is where I see founders get stuck most often.

Building rewards doing everything

In the early days, you’re the product, the sales team, the support line and the person who fixes the printer. Speed comes from you making every call, because you have the most context and there’s nobody else. Founders who survive this stage get very good at it.

Delegation matters

At some point, the thing that made you fast makes the company slow. Every decision still routes through you. Your team waits for you. The work only you can do keeps losing to the work anyone could do, because the urgent small things are always in front of you.

You started this for freedom and somehow invented a job with worse hours.

Why it’s hard to see

Nobody tells you the job changed. There’s no promotion, no new title, no manager to point it out. The same person is doing the same role, and it’s quietly become a different role. And there’s nobody to be uncertain in front of, because everyone is looking at you.

What actually helps

Decide which decisions are yours. Write down every decision you made last week. Mark the ones only you could have made. Most founders are surprised how short that list is. The rest need an owner who isn’t you.

Hand over outcomes, not tasks. “Do this” keeps you in the loop forever. “This is yours, here’s what good looks like, tell me if you’re stuck” gets you out of it.

Make your calendar agree with your priorities. If you say the most important thing is strategy and your week has no time for it, your calendar is telling you the truth.

Get someone outside the company to think with. Not to tell you what to do. To ask the question nobody inside will ask, because they work for you.

The shift

Building is about what you can do. Running is about what you can make possible for other people to do. It’s a different skill, and it can be learned. It usually starts with admitting the job changed.

If this sounds like where you are, that’s most of what I do with founders.