Being a founder means showing confidence. It’s nearly impossible to fundraise, hire, or lead without it—but at the same time, founders don’t know everything.
There are many things they’re going to be doing for the first time that are ridiculous to expect them to know how to do right off the bat. Just because you start a company doesn’t necessarily mean you’re automatically a good manager, a good recruiter, or good at PR. Yet, you’re under constant pressure to instill confidence in your team and your investors that you’re the right person for the job. Raising your hand to say that you’re struggling with something isn’t easy, but it’s a crucial job requirement.
The most successful founders excel at one thing more than anything else—learning. They ask a lot of questions and listen, putting into place best practices and systems that don’t depend on them just knowing everything outright. For example, instead of thinking that they have to be a great manager, knowing at all times how each person in the organization is doing, they put systems of evaluation in place that are both quantitative and qualitative so that everyone can be on the same page about job performance from a more objective point of view.
Systems take the pressure off individuals for lots of different aspects of the company. They allow everyone to know what their part is and how they’re going to be measured. They also help switch the conversation from “This person is good or bad at X” to “This is how we’d like to do things here and here’s how you’re performing compared to that.”
If a founder has issues with confidence, admitting they need to work on things can feel like opening old wounds of the worst things you think about yourself. You’re already convinced you’re not good enough, and so being asked to examine how you can improve can feel like a painful, all too well-trodden path or a slippery slope to feeling like you’re not good at anything. This is where it’s important to check yourself and be confident about what you bring to the table, while being objective and constructive about where you need some advice, a system, or training to help you perform better. No founder is perfect, and if you find yourself funded, employing people, and having already launched—you can’t be as inadequate as your worst insecurities tell you that you are.
Trust me, you’re not that good at faking it.
You’re an early stage founder with lots of potential and you’ll become a great executive one day if you’re willing to learn.