FREEDOOOM!

When you are broke-but-with-a-great-idea, the big kick comes from developing that idea, thinking of its many potentials, and telling people about it. You have the freedom to rift on it at the speed of thinking.

As your idea meets the reality of implementation, the main benefit is the satisfaction of solving the problems that keep coming at you and your team. Lots of bonding, too, with your team, including your early investors and early-adopter customers. You can see how your new world is coming together.

You are “the CEO,” the big kahuna, the boss of an incredible team, with a great, disruptive idea, and an MVP that is so awesome that it will be really easy to make it into a full fledged, world-class product.

Finally, you get the capital infusion that you need to expand. You have a Board now to help you turn this new world you’ve created into a money-making machine. Screw Zuckerberg, this is going to be bigger and do good in the world.

Your Friend, the Author

All along, your friend has been telling you about a different way of running the business. It kind of makes sense, but you can’t take that kind of idealistic risk now. Maybe later.

You even bought her book and started listening to it, but I’d better get going to the Board meeting…

Now that you have the capital and an awesome product is on its way, you take the weekend off. Really. You sit down with your friend and tell her that I read your book, but I don’t think it’s something that we can do now. My Board would not react well to it, and, honestly, it won’t reflect well on me, either, to bring it up at this point. But once the business is more established, we can revisit it.

The Rubber Hits the (Yellow Brick) Road

After all, you’re a new CEO and have to build your reputation and you can’t afford to be seen as anything less than a winner. And, at this point, it’s all about making it big for those investors who took a chance on you and you crazy idea. And, yes, your awesome team, too.

But now it is all about growing beyond our initial market. The Board thinks we can do much, much better and turn what we have into a huge franchise. Really, you should start to look into the possibility of an IPO—at worst, it will make the business more attractive for a big acquisition.

There is so much more to do, but now they want me to hire people with credentials and the chops to make it happen, whatever that means. You’ve talked to a couple of candidates and found out that they want more shares and bigger salaries than anybody in your team. And the Board keeps sending their awesome friends.

The Gloves Come Off

The Board meetings are getting to be a royal pain. The Board members have turned hostile and they keep bringing up stuff that had to come from the people you hired. It all has a whiff of truth in it, but it’s all twisted. And they bring this crap just as the meeting is ending and there is no time to straighten things out before they have to run to their next meeting.

On top of that, your team is not reacting well to the new executive team. They don’t like all the reporting meetings that turn into do-as-I-say meetings.

Actually, you feel awful, but, jeez, the money will make up for it.

For Personal Reasons

One of your oldest Board members pulls you aside and tells you to not attend the next Board meeting. You are out and the COO is going to be our interim CEO–but, don’t worry, you’ll keep your shares.

You are out for personal reasons. You are conflicted and feeling worse than awful and you can’t face your team.

You get news that the business is going to be acquired but at a low price. So low, in fact, that the Board made a unanimous decision to dilute non-active employees and common shareholders to 25% of their holdings. Not such a big pay off after all for you or your team.

Time to Read the Book

You start to come out of your depression and go out in the lake for a last boat ride. Amazing how calming the water is.

Your phone rings, and you pick up a call from your Board friend. You chat for a bit and tell him what you have gone through, Well, at least, now you have credentials and, in fact, I’d like to introduce you to a business I just invested in. You’ll be an awesome COO for them.

As you sit there, in the middle of the lake, your phone rings again and you pick up a call from your author friend. Among other things, she tells you about his new book, this one is about our experience implementing all those ideas we spoke about. It truly is more awesome that we had speculated. It is amazing the things we have done with little capitalization just by decentralizing all decision-making and recognizing people’s contributions. I am so happy and fulfilled—the whole team is! You should come.and stay with us…

She had taken home more than you got from the acquisition. In fact, the whole team of co-owners had taken home about three times the revenue his company was bringing in. And they had paid back the capital they had borrowed plus a substantial gain. You made her repeat twice that the investor hadn’t gotten any shares in the company. Come to think of it, it didn’t sound like the company had issued shares at all. And it sounded like they were just getting started.

As you paddle towards the shore you just know that you’re going to pass on the plan-B-CEO offer. It will give you time to really read her book.