Startup Blabber #017: Cofounders & Titles

Dear Steemians,

From my experience, the roles and responsibilities have really helped define a person within the confines of a company. This is especially true with that of larger and/or older companies, but does this also relate to a startup? Suffice it to say, many people, including myself, have confused the term co-founder and let's say, for example, chief operating officer. When a group of friends or colleagues get together to form a company, they are co-founders with roles that are expansive. They must ultimately do whatever it takes to make the company succeed, from thinking of the big picture to all of the little things, such as cleaning up the office after everyone has left.

After the creation of the company, co-founders deem upon themselves titles to make their positions more attractive to outsiders, especially when they have to interact with said outsiders. Once co-founders have given each other titles, such as CEO, COO, CFO, CTO, CSO, etc., they spend the next couple of years with these attached titles. Then comes the hard part where you need to really detach yourself from these "chief" titles and really focus on being the "co-founder", which de-titles you from any privilege and forces you, again, to do whatever it takes for the company that you have created to succeed.

How hard is it to relinquish your title, even though it was undeserved in the first place?

At TMON, I was originally the Chief Financial Officer. Actually, that is a funny story. There were 5 co-founders at TMON. Dan became the CEO, the leader of our company; Kihyun was our creative head, because he was the only one who had a high-performance digital camera and was the only one who knew how to use it; DH became our sales head, as he spoke the best Korean, I was the CFO with my expertise in excel; and Lee was our social head, as he was constantly talking with people on social media. How people got their initial roles is crazy, right? When needed, I would also go do sales with people. I would do HR, etc.

After we got settled in our roles, however, we became more knowledgeable in that particular field. For example, I got to know more and more about finance to the point where I was the company expert. Even though I was the expert at the company, I was still not the expert outside of our company. As a result, there came a time when I acknowledged that we needed to find a more experienced financial head that I could really learn from. This was truly needed to get our company to the next level.

Easier said than done, right? It's always harder to take away a candy bar from a child than to give a candy bar for the first time to a child.

The same thing applies to almost everyone, even if you are an adult. There is always a time when you need to step down in order for your company to step up. I wonder when the right time is when you need to really critique yourself and ask yourself the question on whether you are the right person right now for the position you hold?

Any entrepreneurs out there that have gone through the same dilemma?

Thanks, and have a wonderful day!
Chris

External File Source:
https://bbvaopen4u.com/en/actualidad/how-launch-startup-and-not-die-along-way

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