A Founding CEO’s Guide to Finding Successors

A Founding CEO’s Guide to Finding Successors

Sean: But when you hire your own CEO, that means that you found someone who is very capable of replacing you and running the business so that it can work on its own. How did that look like for you? What are some key traits that you were looking for? Was it so expensive to do that?

Jeremy: Yeah, I think the fundamental fact is that, you know, work is work. And, you know, companies are made of people and the environment changes, the company changes, and you change. And so, a lot of people are like stuck in a sense that like, ‘okay, I will change when I want to change, right? Or change doesn’t happen unless I approve it, or I influence it.’ But the truth is, every day, you know, the markets change, your competitors get smarter, your friends have different requirements, your clients choose to do different things. That stuff is really changing. Your company is changing because you’re already building company. You put your time and effort and if you have that team, they are themselves making decisions about how to grow, how to get better, how to get smarter. And the company is no longer the company you founded but is now a company that’s going on to do things by itself, it has culture, has values and so, so forth. And lastly, you change, right? You know, like you’re getting all the time and entropy is happening. And truth is all of us are going to be gone for sure in 100 years.

Jeremy: And the truth is, if you think about it like we must give ourselves permissions that we ourselves are allowed to change, that we can want to do different things, that we want to build different things, that we want to create different things.

Jeremy: You may say, like, I want to do something different, but the company shouldn’t change. Then it’s very hard to find someone who’s going to be replacing you – I think that’s one way you described it. But I always remember my mentor was talking to me and he said, Jeremy, your job is to find a successor who’s better than you for this next phase of the company. Because the truth is, at a start of this company, there is no one better than you at the founder in building this first stage of company. But your job is to find a replacement who’s going to be better than you.

Jeremy: I think the tricky part that you must do is to say, I’m looking for someone who’s better than me for this next phase of the company, because the company has changed, and you look for someone who is better fit for that. And the reason why you’re leaving, I would like to leave or find someone is because you don’t feel like you’re the best person for that job because you may have the skills even, but you maybe don’t have the passion anymore for it as well. And that’s okay to acknowledge because I mean, you know, in today’s world, you know, they say Gen Z and millennials are like switching jobs every two years, right, you know? And then here’s the founder CEO hanging out for seven, ten more years. Right. And then, you know, like give me enough clothes to get to explore different things.