13. What is the best advice a supervisor ever gave you? In my first start-up executive job, my boss suggested I manage the HR department. I knew very little about HR and it was a department no one seemed to want to manage. And it wasn’t something, at the time, I wanted to learn more about (little did I understand at the time how HR, broadly defined is the #1 job for a CEO founder). I had managed resources before ... but not a true team. I turned it down. My boss, a pretty seasoned manager and a thoughtful boss, told me OK, just think about it for a few days. He told me managing resources wasn’t really the same as managing a team. He told me I would learn a lot especially managing something I wasn’t an expert in. I decided he must be right. I reconsidered (I’m lucky he gave me the chance to) and took the extra “job”. From there I managed more people and I learned what it really meant to manage people, especially areas where I lacked deep domain expertise. I wasn’t very good at it at first, but it was a great start. 14. What 3 pearls of wisdom would you give a 1st time CEO of a small technology startup (product yet to be launched)? Make sure your co-founder is good enough AND committed enough. Even if your idea and ability to close initial customers is good enough, if you aren’t good enough of a team -- take a pause. Go find someone better, and/or more committed. You’ll hit such a hard wall in 6-18 months it’s not worth it otherwise. Make sure you are committed for five-seven years in general and for two years to get anywhere. It takes 7-10 years to get to an IPO, and usually at least 5 years until you really have something big. In the early days, that’s infinity for many though. Most importantly is the founders will give it 2 years just to get anywhere, to get to any customers. This gives you a 50x better chance of making it than if you just give yourself 9-12 months to get to “somewhere.” Hustle. Hustle. Hustle. Even great products rarely sell themselves. If you don’t know how to hustle -- that’s OK. Learn. Fast. SAASTR.COM 12