98. What are the most underrated skills most employees lack from the perspective of a CEO? What would you recommend people to do in order to develop these skills? What resources could you point them to for further development? From a start-up CEO perspective, the #1 skill you should develop is ownership. Most employees just can’t be owners. This may not matter at Adobe or Google, or wherever but up until you have 500 employees or so, the CEO is looking for owners. People that don’t just play a role but truly own something, that make 100% sure it comes in ahead of time and ahead of expectations with as little drama as possible. Ship your feature ahead of time and make it delightfully better than expected. Better yet, ship a feature everyone else said was too hard to build, that couldn’t be done. Hit your sales plan well ahead of time while still making time to help others and show them how to do it as well. Hit your lead commit ahead of time. Don’t just balance the books but exceed the collections goal, every month. Whatever it is. This isn’t the same as “taking the initiative”, it’s a superset of that. It’s delivering and it’s very, very easy to do in a start-up actually versus. Almost impossible in a big tech co. Just over deliver on everything you’re given to do. And not just your part -- the whole project you are working on. See where others are falling behind, and help them. Folks around you will naturally gravitate toward that. You’ll become a natural leader, over time. That is the greatest gift to a start-up CEO any employee, at any level, can provide. And one way or another, over time, your career will skyrocket. SAASTR.COM 97