Discipline & Process Setting for Founders
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This document outlines disciplines and processes that a founder wishes they knew 6 years ago. It discusses the importance of founder discipline through honest communication, fiduciary responsibility to investors, fact-based decision making, and building capability. It also emphasizes team discipline through learning, establishing a data culture, adhering to and evolving a strong culture, and documenting knowledge. Key processes include focusing on people, process, and product early; establishing rigorous recruitment and meeting protocols; setting goals and reviews; and automating for scale.
Discipline & Process Setting for Founders
- 1. Proprietary & Confidential | ? 2018 Fynd Discipline & Process Setting What we wish we knew 6 years ago
- 3. Discipline
- 5. Honesty - No one should ever be in the dark - Weekly Founder Catch Ups - Clear Line of Communication & Trust - Question, Disagree, but Commit - Be Reliable
- 6. Fiduciary Discipline - Monthly/Quarterly Cadence - TO ALL INVESTORS - Understand investor motive - Leverage their capability, network - Founder’s prerogative
- 7. Decision-Making - Fact Based, not Opinion based - Difference between Reversible & Irreversible Decisions - Disagree but Commit - Review & Learn - Quick & Nimble
- 8. Capability - Build, Learn, Master - Honest Assessment - Move Around if doesn’t work
- 9. Routine - Aggressive Follow Ups - Set a regular schedule - Find “Your Work Time” - Predictability & Regularity
- 10. Team Discipline
- 11. Learning & Upskilling - Grow cross-domain know-how - Learn New Skills - Ask - Learn - Execute - Repeat - Part of Culture, Review - Special Interest Group with Set Calendar Events, Budget
- 12. Data Ability for Everyone - No more Gut Feeling Decisions - Suicidal if no Data Culture - No central Business Analytics - EVERYONE must know data - Teach Regularly
- 13. Building an & Adherence to Culture - Live & Breathe - Guiding light for decision making, when in doubt - NO EXCEPTIONS, especially not for founders - Evolves over a couple of years, not overnight
- 14. Knowledge Documentation - Can’t have a SPOF - Constant Learning - Writing it makes it serious - Reference Point
- 15. Process
- 16. People - Process - Product - Move from one to the other earlier than you need to - Set up for 10X scale - Plan for engineering of internal products and tools
- 17. Recruitment - Religiously follow process for all teams without any exception - Round 1: Logic + Data Ability - Round 2: Functional Test - Round 3: Interview - Round 4: Interview - Round 5: Founder Interview - Round 6: Reference Check
- 18. Meeting Etiquette - Set Agenda Before Hand - Be On & Within the Time - Clearly defined action points - MoM to be written by the organizer and documented - Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive
- 19. Goals & Performance Management - Objective & Measurable - Weekly CheckIn with 1 level below - Monthly CheckIn with 2 level below - Quarterly Upward Feedback - Personal + Professional Goals - Set up people for Success - Set Stretch Goals
- 20. Reviews & Compensation - Personal + Professional Align - Self-Assessment - Performance + Initiative - Evolve as company evolves - Set defined objectives for compensation, promotion - No mid-cycle exceptions
- 21. Automation - Set up for 10X Scale - Do it once, Do it right - Organization wide Productivity - Tools are only as good as you use and manage them
- 22. Books to Read
- 24. Parting Thoughts
- 25. Build to Scale & Build to Sustain Open, Transparent & System Oriented Be Opportunistic & Nimble Honest About Why You Are In This