Founder mode is emergency surgery
“Founder mode” is emergency surgery. It is not the right way to run a healthy business.
If your company is sick, you need to fix it. That means courageous decisions only you can make. You will need to dive in and operate sometimes. That doesn’t mean you create bottlenecks by deciding everything for years to come.
It’s important to fix a sick company, but more important to work on your company’s long term health. Then it won’t constantly get sick, and you won’t have to be endlessly treating it.
A healthy business makes 80% of the same decisions you would, at all levels, if you had the greater context and expertise that exists at each level. You must align your company around how decisions should be made.
How to stay healthy? Exercise. Work a little on your company each week or month, and keep it fit.
What to work on? Start with the culture. Work on your values. It’s boring, but essential, like jogging in the freezing winter if you want to run a marathon in April.
If your company has good general health, when it gets sick (numbers drop, competitors eat your lunch, investment dries up) your team have the power and permission to pivot fast.
You can monitor the healing and course correct, but you won’t need to resort to emergency surgery, with a risk that your company dies on the operating table.
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