Welcome back to the episode of the Startup Therapy Podcast. This is Ran Rutan joint as always by my friend the founder and CEO of Startups.com Will Schroder. Will, let's just say I bootstrapped this thing. I built it from the ground up. I don't have a co-founder. I never took on cash. I control 100% of this business and I will forever, right? I think not getting an investor, not giving up control is the easiest part of not giving up control. The hard part is maintaining it and actually running your company because the way you're going to lose
control of your company is actually operating your company. I think that's the part that most people don't get is that you lose control of your company by operating it. You lose control of the people that you work with day to day and no one believes that. No one believes that. No, I was like, I don't know that doesn't actually happen. I control the cap table so I actually run it. No, you don't. You are going to lose control of this thing in so many ways you don't realize. And as this thing goes on, if you talk to founders of been doing this
long enough, you know, and we do all day long and they're not there has gone, yep, you're going to lose control of your customers. You're going to lose control of your employees, your your vice presidents. You're going to lose control of your co-founders. You're going to lose control of so many ways that you don't realize. In the whole time you're thinking, yeah, but I didn't give it to investors. Let me tell you, doesn't make a lick of difference. Things you should be concerned about, you're not even looking for. That's what we're going to talk about today. Yeah, that's fair. No, and I think that is it is funny.
Because we talked to so many founders that it's so caught up in that even to the point where they're like trying to decide whether that's why they should take on investment capital or not. And that's really okay. It's part of the decision. But that's not the main consideration there. Right. Like does your business need to move forward or not. Right. Instead they're conflating that decision with giving up control. And you and I are sitting on your head's going, yep. Yeah. But like this is already happening in the background. You've already started to lose control of your company. And you don't know it yet. So it's all the secret ways that this happens that there are also certainties. Right. I know that it's a certain way.
What's the most important thing that happens? I think that's the part that's most, most alarming for me is that they're not concerned about it all. I was like, well, an investor might take control just because also let's put that out there. Just because an investor does invest in your business, you give them equity. Doesn't mean that they take control. They generally don't want to. Right. They want you to make money with their money. Right. Not them to have to take control of the company. But all these other ways, all these other kind of phantom secret ghosty ways that you're giving up control are happening and will will happen. Right. There's a certainty behind those. Let's start with what control action
actually means because I think people here control and they think of this like this amorphous thing that means I get to make decisions. And generally that that is what it means, but they won't really define what those decisions mean. Right. Or more specifically, what are the key decisions? Okay. So let's lay out a few of them. So as we're talking about what control means, we can really, really like hone in on what you've lost. Okay. So here are the big ones. Okay. We'll just lay them out.
The big ones are, can I sell when I want to sell? Meaning when it comes time to sell the company? Yeah. Can I say yes. That's always the big one. Okay. Because when we talked about investors and we talked about them coming in and be able to control the company, the biggest one that always is the ultimate C block of all time is I want to sell the company and investors won't let. Now, to be honest, that's kind of a high class problem that very, very high quality. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I get like, I wanted to sell for billions that investors wouldn't let me. Okay, dude. Right. Yeah. I'm so sorry about your problem. Right. Heaven's never. Okay. But, but it's still kind of the hypothetical big one. Right. The other ones though, while kind of minor are what people actually deal with. A big one is, can I get fired? Right. Can I get pushed out? That's a safety one. Right.
Huge, huge, kind of top of the list. Right. Now, what people don't understand about that one is there's two levels to that. There's, can I get taken out of my company at all? Ergo, do I have an ownership stake? And can I get fired? Guess what? Right. You could have a hundred percent ownership of your company and get fired as an employee. Right. I mean, that is possible. Right.
Like people can get fired. Right. Um, the other side of it is your ability to be able to maintain control of decisions has a lot to do with what's in the operating agreement of the company. And for those that aren't super familiar with how these things work and a lot of people aren't to play, have to look at that operating agreement. The operating agreement states how the company will work on all of the most important things. What has to happen if, uh, if the company is to sell?
What has to happen if the company makes a key hire or fire things like that? Yep. All of these things spelled out ahead of time. And it's, it's again, the operating agreement for how the company works. All of these key decisions are spelled out when we're talking about losing control. We're talking about what's hard coded into that agreement. Our ability to exercise control is kind of what comes back to that agreement.
Ryan, when you think about the big things that people lose with control, what do you think about? Yeah. Well, I think it's, it's the ability to, to either make decisions or to act on them, right? It's funny because like the thing that we always hear people come back to is like, I, you know, I'll never give up my control. I will never let anybody tell me what to do, right? That really happens, right? Is really somebody telling you what to do?
Yeah. More often comes down to, I want to go do this and then you're like, well, you can't, right? To your point. It's the, it's the moment in the, in the boardroom with the, with the investors where it's like, I want to sell this thing. No, you can't do that, right? I want to bring on another, I want to bring on a co-founder, go up a chunk of equity. No, you can't do that. Right. So it's when, it's when you start to see your decisions become limited.
Yep. But I think there's a lot of places that that starts to happen that are, are very non-obvious. You've got a great story. I think we're going to get to it a little bit later when we talk about one of the customers taking control. Right. Right. Or even our staff taking control. Right. Right. But at some point where it's like, okay, I'm the founder. I decided we are going to be a sales-led organization. And I go to our CEO and say, hey, we're going to be a sales-led organization.
He's like, no, we're not going to do that. Like it doesn't fit within there. Right. And all of a sudden, like, and even if it isn't a hard stop. But all of a sudden, there's a ton of resistance. And you don't just have control of being able to make a decision and have something go into play. Right. That's a loss of control. Right. At the moment where you no longer just have the ability to dictate and something happens, this is where we start to lose control.
When we think about those control mechanisms, I think the first thing we need to do when we go into any of this is be very, very upfront with ourselves about what specifically we want to retain control of. Now, what's really hard about that, really hard is if you haven't been doing this for a long time, it's hard to know what to defend if you've never had to defend this before.
So you go into this saying, well, I just know I want to control stuff, but I don't know what that stuff is because I've never done this before. I've never lost anything. So I don't know what to defend. I know that's difficult. And you think about things like, well, I want to be able to control the product or I want to be able to control our strategy.
And again, those are raw to morph as things you don't know what you need to do to control that. But what we're going to talk about is we're going to talk about the types of things that start getting taken away from you that lead to the loss of control. Yeah.
So let's talk about the first thing that we jump over ourselves to add that destroys control and we high five the hell out of ourselves in the process. In fact, it trumps what would otherwise be bring on an investor is far as a loss of control. And that is a co founder. We cannot wait to find a co founder. The startup business celebrates the concept of a co founder.
Yeah. When we bring on a co founder, we're not saying co founders are bad. But when we talk about a division of control, there's no way to faster divide our ability to have singular control. Then handing it to a co founder. I'm definition. Right. Yeah. And you get a point. You want to talk about like why that's so much more magnified than investor. Think about the number of decisions that investor might get involved in.
There a few and far between. They're from far between. Think about the number of decisions a co founder might get all of them. Literally everything from like, where are we going to go to lunch today? Right. Right. Right. We do really everything. And so at that point, I guess part of what I didn't want to say, well, no, you know, we've we've created our lanes and we've got that.
Yeah, and everybody always drives their lane, right? Everybody always stays and only follows the operating procedures and the protocols because they're human and that's what humans do. So yeah, it's the co founder is such a big one. It is so funny because people are so so excited to take it on and look, there are a lot of reasons to do it. And there are a lot of good can come out of it. But again, like you have to recognize the consequences of your decisions.
And then one of the consequences of this particular decision is that you absolutely do forego some control when you do that. You're talking about it. So many different levels. You're saying, I want control while I'm going to bring on a co founder, because we're on the same side of the table. Until you're not. Yeah, so you're not right. So you mean it's easy to agree when you're agreeing. Uh-huh. Yeah. Right. Isn't it the same way with an investor?
Exactly. Cool. I want to give up control because I just want to I only want to bring on people that agree with me. Cool. Only bring on investors that agree with me. Right. Like in your never giving up control because you're only bring on people that agree with you. It's never a control issue. How sweet is that? Right. But the reality is when we when we bring on anybody else.
Right. Our best friends are, you know, our spouses, whoever we bring on that would otherwise, you know, be totally theoretically on our side. It changes the moment we're not in the same spot. And look, it's no one's fault. Correct. You would like happens. Life happens. Right. I'm getting a situation where you got two co funders that are that that are joined at the hip and all the decisions are the same.
And then life happens. One co founder has a kid and then has a totally different set of responsibilities. Right. Yeah. And then so there's an opportunity to sell a company and they're like, I need this liquidity. I've got a whole different set of responsibilities. I have to do this. And then you're like, no, I have no responsibilities like that. I want to push things as long as I can. Right. All of a sudden, immediate never see it come. They never see it coming in.
Right. It's something very simple for me, which is that they came together in a moment of parity. They came together and they agreed. They agreed. These are this is how we have put in balance. And that's great. Yep. That balance existed for exactly one second. Right. Yep. In that moment in time. And then your point life happens. And now all of a sudden, we're making decisions. We're doing things out of parity. Right. The balance will only exist on the day that you agree with the balance.
Looks like and then everything gets out of culture in different ways after that. There's some up for you down for them, down for them, up for you, whatever. Over time, it all changes. And and you don't recognize that at the time. Right. At the time, of course, it's all hunky. Dory. You know, like we said before, when you're green with somebody, it's easy. The moment there's a disagreement, this is what we're talking about. Right.
That's where that lack of control shows itself. It happened the minute you signed the equity agreements and brought that person on. But it starts to manifest itself when things aren't going perfect anymore. When things aren't in balance. And so you bet. Again, just being prepared for it, understanding that
that's what you're signing up for is a good first step. I see 10X more co-founder disagreements that investor disagreements, not because not because co-founders are bad, just because there's way more co-founders, right? Just the number of of instances there is just way higher, right? Because almost everybody has a co-founder versus everybody having an investor. And the nature of it is there are often tend to be more co-founders. And the nature of it is there's just so many touch points between
the co-founders. And because of that, when we jump into these relationships and again, we're like, hey, I want to maintain control. Then why did you add a co-founder of control was so important? Secondly, before you added a co-founder, did you stop and say, hey, what do I want to control? And will this prevent me from maintaining that control? Now, to be fair, for most of us, that ship is sale. So who cares how I got there? But I got there. But I like opening with that
when we have this discussion about how we secretly lose control. Because for most folks, the ship has sale. And it makes them start to open their eyes that, wow, I really did give away control without realizing it. Part of this kind of catharsis is, if you will, in this journey, is starting to realize that control isn't something that you're able to hold on with this like iron grip and never let go of. It's something that is a natural thing that you do let go of over time.
Right? Whether you try to hold on to it or not. In fact, it is almost like a natural order of something that you naturally let go of over time, as much as you try to hold on to it. And part of it is just kind of the natural evolution of a business. But it happens in ways you kind of don't expect. Yeah. Which brings us to point number two. Customers. So wait, customers, those things that I've been pining for today, I got my co-founder.
Yeah. So in the same way, investors exert control because they're connected to cash, which is our lifeblood, which is how we keep our lights on and keep ourselves fed. Customers are the same proxy. Only investors are a temporary bridge to this money. And customers ideally are the permanent bridge to that money. And customers ultimately control the cash. And as the saying goes, the golden rule, she with the gold rules,
and sometimes that's investors, sometimes that's customers. And I'll never forget how I learned this rule as it relates to customers. In the early early days of my first startup running an agency, I had this one client, tiny client in retrims. By the way, Will, I will say, there is no better place to learn this particular lesson than in an agency. Because of that direct relationship, because of the amount of power, because of the
amount of collaboration it takes, and the amount of sharing control. It's amazing. Also because your money is looking at you directly in the eye. Right. Yep. Your money. Your money is talking to you. The scowl on their face. They're they're dissatisfaction with you. Everything is so emotionally communicated to you. Right. We see that same scene. It's from planes, trains, automobiles, and it's where it's where Steve Martin is trying to to leave on time to make like to get his taxi,
to get to his train to get to his airplane, whatever. And you've got that the somebody's reviewing the creative up behind that big desk and he just keeps looking down and looks up and he starts to open his mouth and then he doesn't say anything. It looks back down the crib. Like I lived through that so many times. And it's just like it's so painful. But to your point of like seeing those emotions, just literally seeing your money steering in the face. Yeah.
Painful. You know, something that's really funny about everything we talk about here is that none of it is new. Everything you're dealing with right now has been done a thousand times before you, which means the answer already exists. You may just not know it, but that's okay. That's kind of what we're here to do. We talk about this stuff on the show, but we actually solve these problems all day long at groups.startups.com. So if any of this sounds familiar, stop guessing about
what to do. Let us just give you the answers to the test and be done with it. So I had two clients and two ends of the spectrum. And for anybody that's listening that's in the client business, you will appreciate this at so many levels. The first client early on in my career was my first like big client big to me, but I was an agency of one at the time. And whatever money they were paying me was literally the money I was going to eat with that week. I mean, I'm not exaggerating.
I mean, it was I was going to take that money. I was going to go to the grocery store buy food and eat that right. It was that specific. Well, you and I also both have a story where we independently of each other at the time worked for food. I also built websites websites for food with food. Yes. And it was so excited about it. Oh, man. It was great. Honestly, it was that that cash went further than most of the cash. There was only one place to spend it. And it was very necessary.
It was higher margin business. It was. It was happy about it. And so, but like that level of control that a client exerted that was like, Hey, if the work isn't done, you are not going to eat. Right. I don't know what gets more right? Like dominant than that level of control. Right. That that that is a kind of die. Right. Yeah. Exactly. Right.
Literally my existence. Right. And I remember thinking like how beholden I was to this client and how much their whim controlled my company, my destiny, etc. I'm not overstating this either. I mean, it really was that specific. Okay. Yep. And immediately someone's going to say, yeah, that's because you're small and you know, that's your client. Okay. Now, fast forward. Okay. Not that long. Three years later. Okay. Things have changed a bit. Okay. We've had some,
you know, some significant wins. We now have a different client. They're now paying us 10 million dollars a month. Yeah. I can eat a lot more ramen now. Okay. Things have changed a bit. Right. And now I have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people on staff. Right. Client calls, different client. Right. Client calls as an issue. If I don't do whatever that client says, hundreds of people won't eat. Their kids won't go to college. Mortgage just won't get paid. Right.
I am so high. I'm really screwed. I like, I don't have a rich uncle that I can call and say, hey, can't make payroll this month. Can you wire me 10 mil? Right. Right. Like I have no way out of this. Right. I am screwed like it's nobody's business. Lots more zeros behind that problem. Same goddamn problem. Right. Client owns me. In both cases, the customers control the cash, the customers
control me. In both cases, I put myself in that situation. I put myself in the situation in the first instance because I created a business model where I didn't make enough cash that I had any leverage over any one client. In the second case, I, you know, was part of a situation where I signed the client that was so big that they owned us. You know, they owned us. They were paid us a quarter billion dollars a year. And that was it. That's the picture. That's what it's where
money comes from. That's right. Yeah. You bow to that to some degree. And so my point is in both cases, you give up control in this mechanism. You don't see coming in the co-founder case. You're high-fiving everybody that you landed this co-founder. You're going out for a drink, celebrating the fact that you've done something together and you don't realize you just gave up more control than you've ever given up in your life. Same thing as the customer. You have this
huge customer win. And you don't realize that you just created this level of indentured servitude you've never had before. Yeah. Right. And the cost don't just end there. Like with customers. Let's talk about a couple others. So there's two others that I have seen play out multiple times. And it's painful. One is things like we start taking customer feedback and we start building and we start we start essentially answering the customers. Sometimes this is great. Sometimes this leads to things
like scope creep. We start building every single feature. We believe that because the customer brings that cash and so it all does map back to the cash. But because of that, we start to allow them to influence us control our product direction, control the type of team that we build, which brings me to the other one. And this one is I think one of the most painful. And I'm sure you've suffered through this as well. Well, where a client will start to change company culture
for the worst. Right. You get a bad client and we're a challenging client. All of a sudden, this starts to create dissension amongst the ranks. And you know, this can happen big company, small company. I'd say in a small company, it tends to be more cataclysmic, more obvious. Like you feel the pain. You see it. But in a big company, even more dangerous because it just starts to erode things and you start to get, you know, kind of rot if you will from within. And the
organization can start to fall apart as a result of that. And that can be driven by, you know, the clients, particular types of client work, or even just a single, singular client can do that. Again, it's just all these really crazy little hidden costs where we're giving up control. Something we otherwise would have done very differently. Now by virtue of the client, it's happening the way they're dictating or the way we're allowing the dictating.
Yeah. And it starts us to take us in other directions as well. In some cases, we hate the work. But we have to do the work. That's control. That's control. Right. At some point, like as our agency grew, this was, you know, we were an interactive agency, but we also did traditional work as well. We call it traditional work now or then. But like, that's like, I think like billboard journal ads, stuff like that. I hated that work. Like I was all about
building websites and interactive stuff. Right. I hated doing that work, but it paid so much money. Yeah. Right. But that's my point. Right. Like we're doing stuff. I hated doing, but kind of needed the money. Right. And so all of us are doing that stuff. Right. But it's also how you win the other business that you do like. Yeah. In that case, it's like sometimes you're taking on essentially a portfolio of work. You're eating from the buffet. You have to eat it all.
Right. You don't get to say like, well, we'll just do this for you. And they go, now we'll get another vendor that does all of it. But take that a step further because now you look at a lot of companies that have these products, right? Where they get paid to do this legacy stuff, think like the equivalent of back in the day, Confuser, Blockbuster, all these companies, AOL that rode to the bottom of the ocean on customers that they couldn't unpack from that just
sat and watched their competition run circles around them, right? It's essentially what's happening at Google right now with AI, right? They're well aware, right? That AI is eating their lunch and what is going to become the next version of search. And they're trying to dig out of it. They're trying to build their own version, right? They're trying to do what open AI or a chat GBT is doing, right? As a product, right? And they can't, right? They're watching it happen because
they can't kill the search business. Yeah. Exactly. But that's my point. Like their product, their customer, their adwords business, right? Is that level of control? It is controlling their ability to be able to go do something else. And that's what I'm talking about. It's like the secret control that prevents us from doing the things we want to do. It's real. And even at that level, we're company that innovative, that smart, that goddamn rich. Yeah. That's it, too, right? Like you
talk about like with all those resources, this can still happen to them, right? So when we boil this back down to the vast majority of folks who are listening to this particular podcast, it typically is significantly earlier stage of their startup. Imagine what that looks like there. Right? Imagine how heavy that burden is. And when you don't have those resources and even if you have those resources, what you just said, you still can't escape it. You back. So it's a massive
issue. It really does. It comes down to all of a sudden, whereas, you know, before you've given up any of this control at the very early stages, you know, when it's an idea, still imagine, just take it all the way from the imagination state, when it's an idea, you have all the control. You can literally imagine it to be whatever you want. Yeah. Minute, it starts to become real. All of a sudden, now things like, I don't know, physics, right? Our limitations, right?
Now, all of a sudden it's like, well, well, yeah, I was going to build the flying laptop, but it turns out you can't do that because of physics. And so all of a sudden, you start to have these constraints. And the further and further you go with that, what was a pure free form thing gets put more and more on rails or has constraints and lanes around it that have to be adhered to. Right. And they come in so many damn forms. Okay. So here's where it gets interesting.
You know, we're talking about at which point we've got the kind of these legacy institutions, where we're kind of baked into things. Yeah. Part of that is our own damn staff. Yes. Right. Which brings us to number three, giving up control to our own staff. Now, let me explain what that looks like. And this is one of those things once again, we're celebrating every time. I just hired the EVP, the sea level, the whatever. Yeah. Okay. You just gave up some control. No, I didn't. I empowered. Right.
I just delegated to someone else. No, you didn't. You just gave up control. But it's the same. It's the same ironic logic that supplied at the co-founder level, which is like, look, I don't want to do all these things by myself. I don't want to be responsible these decisions. I'll take on a co-founder. You're giving up control. Well, no, I'm not. Well, if you didn't give up any control, then you're still when making the decisions, you're still the one
who's beholden. Then what did you do? Same thing when we start to bring people on. Or like, well, I want somebody else to manage this. You know, I don't want to have to handle that day to day of that. So you're giving up the control of the day to day. Well, it's not how I would put it, but well, that's what it is. Right. That is literally what you're doing. You are giving up control. It's necessary. Right. It's like 100%. It's necessary, but it's also giving up control.
So you can't have the both ways. Right. We're not saying don't do it. We're not saying don't do it. Absolutely. And I think what I didn't have an introduced into this conversation at all is why we feel the need to have control over everything. Right. And what aspects of control are absolutely valuable to give up at least partially, right? Where maybe we still have some saying something, but like again, we're not doing the day to day. So yes, this is all positive
stuff. Yeah. Well, can be, but let's be very careful about the recognition of the fact that there is control being seated. Right. And so, so let's back this up before we get into the third leg of this. We're not saying don't have co-founders, customers or employees. That would be, yeah. Right. Well, I guarantee your outcome. What we're saying is at which point you're saying I don't want to give up control. You're literally saying I don't want co-founders. Yes. What we're saying is
you're going to give up control. Here's where it's all going to go. Right. And if you, if what we're saying is yeah, but I technically control all of those things, that no, no, you don't. Right. And as much as you want to pretend you do, pretending you do is actually the big mistake. Yeah. Recognizing being highly cognizant of what those deliberate decisions are. Yeah. And saying, hey, I'm taking on co-founder. Black and white. Here's what I'm giving up. I am
very, very cogently giving up these control points. Okay. And I'm deciding that I'm going to give up these control points. It's kind of like when you get married and you say, I am giving up 50% of my wealth, so to speak. Right. You know, I'm giving up these decisions that were mine. And now there are joint decisions. You can't say I'm getting married and I'm not giving up any of those things. That's literally not how it works. No. And that's saying that you could say, yeah, yeah,
they're not how it works. Right. And so with that, with that, what we're saying is just the very nature of this process of building a startup of going into business and adding these components is a division of control. And that's fine. Well, it's a division of, well, look, let me, let me, let me put this in a really simple way. Like I see this in a very basic term, control is the currency that we spend for growth. Yes. That's great. What I put it. Well,
right. That's that is to me, that's that's the essence of this entire discussion, which is like you want to grow necessitously, whether it's its headcount growth, whether that's doubling the number of leadership with a co-founder, whether that's taking on investor to have cash, you are spending control. Like I think a lot of times we equate equity as like this one of these currencies for growth. And it is, but with equity, it is sort of a proxy for control. It isn't necessarily
control is control. Like you can have it with or without the equity. Yeah. But to me, I think that's what it comes down to. What we're doing here is we're saying I am willing, whether I'm willing or not, I am doing this. I am going to spend some of my control in order to gain some growth. You bet. You bet. And look, when we bring on staff, right, at every level, you know, whether it's in the C suite or whether it's on the front lines, right, we are seeding control of
those day-to-day decisions to that person. And as we subdivide that control to more and more of those people, that becomes spread across all of those people where it was just us and everything from a frontline customer support decision to finance to everything was a hundred percent in our domain. It was our decision not filtered in any way by anyone. It's now essentially their decision that somehow gets overridden if it ever somehow gets back to us in our fantasy looks like this.
No, but it's really my decision because it's going to come back to me perfectly filtered in exactly real time. And I will be presented with the correct information so that I can make that decision. Bullshit. Yeah, exactly. Try doing that at any level of, you know, and look, never going to happen. The responsibility does maybe end there and rest there, right? Like the book stops here. Yes, but the book that arrived before it stopped there was not necessarily of your doing,
right? It's someone else's book. You just have to catch it now, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Earlier, Ryan, I told you the story of me sitting down with a guy named Brian Markison. Brian was the CEO of Bristol Meyer Squibb, pharmaceutical company in the 90s.
And I remember sitting across from Brian and I was pitching him on the idea of having BMS do detail aids, which this is like in the 1990s where the sales reps would go out and they would use a portable laptop, which is hilarious because like a portable laptop, like a, this is before tablets existed back then. I think we're on it pounds. It's like a backpack. Anyway, anyway, anyway, and he loved the idea. This is like the late 90s and he was the alternative at that point.
Like it was a flip chart, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh my god. And this is way ahead of its time. And anyway, he loved the idea. And I'll say, let's do it. And he said, I can't. And I was, what do you mean? You'll see with the company. It was so funny. I remember like pushing back on him and like, who the fuck was I? Right? I was like, I'm 27 year old kid, right? Like, like, yeah, in retrospect, I just didn't know any better. Like the audacity
of what I was saying at the time. And I look back now thinking like, yeah, you should have just got up and smack me if I'm being right. You were still carrying your first driver's license at that. I know. That's how it will be worth. I was still servicing pimples from high school. Yeah. And so anyway, but he was, I mean, he was fairly cool about it. Anyway, but here's what he said. I remember that I'll never forget this. He was like, I don't think
you understand of an organization this size, how hard it is to get something done. Yeah. And I didn't. I mean, I had no idea. Why would you? Why would I? And essentially, what he said was like, yes, I can say yes to this. But to all the people in the chain that would have to make this happen, you know, from from IT to marketing to sales force initiatives, et cetera, it would
never happen. It would just, it would never make it through all the political change. The number of ways that that decision can die before it actually comes to fruition is insane in organization that size. The difference between strategy and implementation is massive, right? And then all the consultants in between, right? And I remember how dumbfounded I was. I just assumed that CEO says, yes, and it just magically happens. Yeah. And you know, there's so many ways that happens to
examine it. Some of it is some of it's like direct control. Like some of it is like, I say, yes, CEO says yes. And then it goes down the hill. And then at some point, somebody says no for some reason, right? And sometimes that's where it breaks down. Sometimes it's just a matter of like capability or competency where like you said, yes. And then it gets pushed down and deployed and deployed and deployed it. And then we're working to get it out in the market or whatever, whatever's going to
happen. And they just don't do it right. That is also a loss of control. Like the difference between, I think it's so hard for founders because at the early stages of like, I'm going to, I decided I'm going to change the problem statement on the pitch deck. So I changed the problem statement of the pitch deck. The gap and the delta between deciding to do something and it happening is often so short that like it's inconceivable to us that and even as it slowly creeps to the point
where it's like, I am going to change the problem statement on our pitch deck, right? Which then goes over to the copywriter, which then goes over to the compliance team, which then goes to design, which then gets shipped to the junior design, which then gets right. And then all of a sudden, like just lost in translation, lost in competency, whatever. That's a loss of control as well. Because the minute where like, maybe it's not as much of a loss of control in that case is a loss
of fidelity. But at the end of the day, the outcome is exactly the same where you didn't have the control being able to say, I want this to change. And then it just does. And I think collectively, every bit of how that control starts to go away, you look at founders that once you just have full command of their company, when it was small, and as they get removed, right, even a Steve jobs over time in an early apple, as he kind of got pushed out, yeah, yeah, learn that lesson
the first time didn't make that mistake the second time when he came back, right? Started to understand that you can't make that mistake of division that every time you hire somebody else like a scully, right? Like all of a sudden, those people start to divide you out. You lose that control. Those hires aren't incidental. And people that have been around long enough start to understand that folks that are listening right now, some of them have that issue right now.
They're like, I didn't get it, but I've got a couple of people in the organization. I hired that you kind of aren't friendly, so to speak, right? That have actually created a division for me. They didn't add to my my power base, so to speak, they actually divided by power base. So it's interesting because you just you said something that brought in a entirely new dynamic into this for me, which is that in the beginning, with the startup, control is almost a burden,
right? It's like control. This means you have to do everything. You have to decide everything. You have to think everything. You have to be everything. Yeah. At some point, control becomes a different kind of currency where there are different incentives where all of a sudden, like you end up with people, the orders that you can pick, you want it, you're there's power grabbing, right? We see it with things like equity, right? That's an easy one. Like, oh, my co founder wants an extra 10%.
The investor wants a different preference, whatever. But there's a lot of that, just even in the internal politicking where all of a sudden, it's not even just about the amount of control that we give up. It's that all of a sudden, there are people willfully trying to take it away. Yeah. And that's that's an entirely different kind of vector in the dynamic that I hadn't been thinking about up until now. And it becomes exponential. Yeah. Yeah. Sure does.
A lot more people fire at you. So here's what I would say. If you're thinking about what it's going to mean to give up control, the first thing you have to think about is what do you care about? Think about to yourself, what am I not going to give up control over? Right? Look, what are the things that I will not under any circumstance give up when you're in a position where you start to think about the types of control that you are willing to give up or you're not willing to give up.
This becomes an important piece of the calculus. This is the very genesis point where we begin to say, here are some things that for me control of this type is non-negotiable. Here are some places where I am willing to give up control. That becomes a very easy bifurcation of like the easy yeses, the easy notes. Well, maybe they're not easy. Nothing easy in StarPlan. But we have
some rubric, some control over where we're going to give up control. The second one that I would say and this one to me is probably just as important is go back to what I said before about thinking this is a bit of a transaction as a cost for growth and just ask yourself, am I willing to pay the price of the control that I will give up for what I will get back in return in terms of growth?
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