How to know company's next move?
Where the wind direction was, is & will be.
Do you feel your company changes directions too much? you aren’t alone.
As an operator at CRED, Dunzo, Sokrati, and a bunch of other companies that I consulted in my early career, I constantly felt this. But I can admit — I was wrong in my assessment. These companies were not changing direction but just following what users wanted and, more importantly, what users would pay for.
The faster you understand what users want & what they would pay for - you will build leverage to grow your own career. And the reason is pretty simple - you will be constantly aligned with the company’s next steps.
So how to know the direction of wind albeit where the company is going next?
The founding/ leadership team can build extremely high trust with the founders. The only way to build high trust is to show up to constantly do the right thing for the company, be the eyes and ears of founders, and disagree with something but still do what the company is heading towards. The last one is extremely important if you really want to build a high trust relation with founders.
Some might argue, “Hey, this works in small startups, not post-series A or large Amazon-size companies.” - you are wrong; just see the core leadership at Apple, Meta, or Google - not a lot of changes, honestly. And how much ever these companies hire at the top - the pseudo-decision makers are the ones founders trust the most and have spent at least a decade with the company.
This isn’t a coincidence.
But I get you. Not necessarily you’ll have the trust advantage with your founders.
The first thing to look for, then, is hiring priorities.
What is the company hiring for, and at what priority? For example, we have been hiring a video editor who will evolve a specific vertical at GrowthX for a while now, but solid PMF on that vertical just made that role become a P0 role at the org level, and I will clear my calendar to take those interviews.
The second is to look at the existing team size.
What percentage of the company focuses on building/ evolving the offering? What percentage focuses on distribution & branding? What percentage focuses on customer support? What percentage does supporting functions (legal/ finance)? It will tell you what’s more important in this stage of that particular company.
The third is to understand opportunity & prioritization.
The prerequisite for this is to follow the principle “Disagree ruthlessly, but once the direction of the decision is decided—go all in to ensure its success.” If you follow this as an operator, you will be able to clearly see the opportunity founders, investors, or other stakeholders are seeing. Then, understand what we go after first and how. What success looks like, align yourself to that outcome, and obsess about that outcome.
All of this is not possible if you don’t have enough skin in the game. By that, I mean owning part of the business.
Life is too short to work for companies that don’t offer you part of the upside. Then I don’t care how much money they offer in the short term as salary. Top talent doesn’t get excited by salaries, and companies that have leaders working for only salaries are doomed right from the beginning.
Keep raising the bar. See you.
I am writing several small pieces as I complete 3+ years as co-founder of GrowthX. Some of these articles include the following. If you have more suggestions, reply to this email & I will add them to my bucket list of writing —
How do you do an ESOP conversation (founder side & employee side)?
When & why to ask for more money, ESOP & meaty roles?
How do you pick pieces to impact your company’s success?