My learnings as a bootstrapped tech founder growing into leadership
When we started quintly back in 2010 we were two guys who were able to code and so after working in our own tech agency business for some years, we wanted to go after building a scalable product. I could have never imagined what I have learned 9 years later about how to grow a company and especially how to grow myself. When thinking about the different steps I made over the period, there are a few things I learned about being a good leader and not just a good builder. In this article I want to share a few of the things that I believe are important.
Manage micro management tendencies
As a builder I have a tendency to go deep on topics a lot, as I believe that there is the best outcome if we bring the right problem solving skills together. In the beginning of our quintly journey that worked pretty well, as we were just a few people and naturally we could be very pragmatic and quick. But once the company grew to more than 15 people that builder gene also showed its downsides. At a certain point I needed to learn to rely on others to come to the best solution without thinking that we are missing something if I’m not involved. I learned more and more how to ignore my inner desire to jump in. It’s still a continuous learning for me, but I can handle it a lot better nowadays compared to some years ago.
Spend a big share of time on strategy
Being in the trenches of creating the best product out there was our main role in the early days. We hacked day and night and put all energy into growing the company. With the growing size of the team there came a point where team members came to us to ask about our strategy, our vision and where we want to go as a company. Surprisingly we didn’t have good answers to these questions as we were focussed a lot on building. After some time this became a real bottleneck and we needed to work more on our overall strategy. We learned better how to pull ourselves out of operational tasks and spend more time on strategy. We introduced a monthly founder strategy day where we just talk about strategy. Although in a startup you may have lots of people that are pretty self-motivated, there is still a desire to have a frame to believe in that motivates to enjoy work every day.
Learn to give and accept feedback
One great way to make me a better leader is to learn on the way with the help of feedback of others. Somehow society gives the feeling that it’s bad to talk about your weaknesses and show that you are not perfect, but confronting myself with the sometimes hard truth is the best way to find blind spots and act accordingly. It took me a long time to understand this but nowadays I ask a lot for feedback and collect the learnings to derive possible changes. In many situations, it’s best to ask lots of questions without thinking about a possible reaction immediately. I believe giving and receiving should be a core piece for everyone to become a better self.
Regular 1on1s with team members
One of the best things we did was to introduce bi-weekly 1-on-1s with every of our team members. It bridged the gap between the operational work and the company strategy as there was suddenly a place to speak very openly about any issue that the team member is confronted with. The 1-on-1s make us feel much more connected to everyone in the team and therefore allows us to better understand all the needs coming from different directions.
Take regular time outside the office
Changing environments creates a lot of new energy in me and allows me to tackle the next steps. We try to go out of the office as much as possible by spending strategy days somewhere else or by doing 1-on-1s as walking meetings through a nearby park. We are aiming for an environment that is constantly changing which amplifies our ability as a team to not get settled and always think about what could be better or improved.
Rest enough
The life as a startup founder can be very exhausting with lots of sleepless nights and thoughts running through your head all the time. Therefore it’s key to spend enough time relaxing and resting to be fully focused and energized when you come back to the office. There is always so much on the table that it feels impossible to get out of the treadmill at any point, but every time I came back from vacation I had new energy and new ideas how to master the next step in the companies evolution. One of our quintly company values is “Healthy balance” that emphasizes how important we believe this topic is. As a bootstrapped company we are always optimizing for the long run and putting speed over health may work for some time but will have severe consequences when looking at a longer period.
Stay true to yourself
It’s ok to not be perfect. I constantly find myself in the situation thinking about how I need to behave in order to comply with all the demands and influences. In the end, my gut feeling usually guides me in the right direction, but the process to get there is very painful. I believe that it’s sometimes good to be a little egoistic and do what you believe is right. As a founder you have to take the full responsibility anyways.
Summing it up, I really enjoy the journey from builder to leader, because there are many learnings on the way and once I accepted that it’s ok to struggle with it, the high expectation of myself became a lot more manageable. Being in it myself also increased my respect a lot for people that manage really big teams with high team motivation. I never want to get rid of the building mentality, as it’s a core part of my personality, but learning how and when to use it is something I want to get better and better in.
