The 5-Minute Startup CTO #33
Strategic debt, Quitting culture, Serving on a board
Here are your picks for this week:
🔄 Process makes perfect
Great article from Noa Ganot on how Strategic debt is killing startups.
Time and time again I come across startups who, from their original product idea just focus on implementation, implementation, implementation. To the point of looking like a bottom-heavy Christmas tree: very wide at the low-level base but tiny at the strategic top, which hasn’t grown proportionally.
There is obviously more to fixing this than the article suggests, but it’s mostly about asking yourself high-level, strategic questions about where you want to go.
🎼 Culture is everything, everywhere
It’s well known that people don’t leave companies, they leave bad managers. I’d actually say that people ultimately leave poor culture. And here is a list of 13 reasons why great employees quit. A really nice checklist to run against your own team or company, with suggestions on how to tackle each issue.
👭 It’s all about People
Part of being a ‘complete’ CTO is to serve on a board. Are you ready for it? A very good write-up of the 5 kinds of intelligence / skills that this can require, and the types of board member that you could want to be.
What can leaders aspiring to board roles do to prepare and position themselves for success? How does one develop what we call boardroom capital?
I hope you enjoyed this
Fabrice
The 5-Minute Startup CTO: every Sunday, 3 top insights in 5 minutes for startup CTOs and Tech Leads. Subscribe for free below, and share! 🙏
Hand-picked by Fabrice, a UK-based consulting CTO. Let me know if you need help with your startup!