So often when we imagine early-stage CEOs, we think of a human Swiss Army Knife. Corey Ferengul, a founder-cum-CEO, manages every element of business from product to sales, marketing and more. However, as a company starts growing and adding on team members, the CEO can no longer fill all of these roles. Instead, the focus has to shift to three core areas: strategy, culture, and people, with an extra emphasis on people.
We spoke with Ferengul, a Hyde Park Angels Leader and serial CEO (most recently at Undertone), to learn more about what it takes to be a CEO and what first-timers should know from the start.
“You have to remember early on the culture is your personality," Ferengul said. “You have to remember early on the culture is your personality. So as a company, sit down and think about the three or four things you want to do.”
As simple as it sounds, the most important thing you can do as a CEO is think about what kind of environment you want to create and determine how you can embody the qualities you associate with it. Along those lines, you must “take feedback seriously. What do people really tell you is happening? Seek and listen to feedback from the team on culture.”
Ultimately, you have to focus your attention on building trust and managing internal relationships. As the CEO you will have certain responsibilities that consume your time and energy like board communication, validating strategy, and managing the overall budget process alongside the CFO, but these are high-level projects that won’t consume every second of every day. Instead, your day will be geared towards managing and supporting team members.
“As CEO, I had to learn I won’t get as much done in a day as I used to get done at different levels in the organization because interrupts happen from everywhere. If a problem happens from one of your executives, it’s suddenly your problem. If a problem comes up from an employee, it becomes your problem. And you never know where those are going to happen,” Ferengul stressed.
Your job as a CEO is to be available and attuned to interruption. That doesn’t mean you can’t set time aside for yourself or cut conversations short, but you certainly cannot silo yourself off from your people. This means shifting your priorities so your people are your biggest priorities.
In other words, “your job is no longer to have a task list. It’s to have everyone else’s task list. You have to think about your day as helping everybody else.”
About Hyde Park Angels Hyde Park Angels is transforming early-stage investing by taking a people first approach. By matching our members’ expertise with entrepreneurs’ needs, we help develop top-performing companies that are delivering extraordinary results. Our approach has led us to become the largest and most active angel group in the Midwest.
