Leading A Early Stage Startup
Heyyy Tribe
TGIF!!!
We had a conversation with Jude Dike sometime in May and the conversation centered around Leading an Early Stage Startup. Jude Dike is currently co-founder at GetEquity and Venture partner at WeFunder. He is an avid learner of new technologies who has worked on projects with companies in Nigeria, UK and Canada across varied skill sets spanning Fullstack development, Devops, Ethereum Blockchain and Machine Learning.
Read on for some tips to help you as a leader
One would agree that the leadership of a startup at the early stage is as important as any other stage. While there are many reasons to support that, it is important to note that the foundation of every company is a key determinant of the startup’s expansion.
It takes a lot to be a leader of a startup at its early stage. Here are a few tips that would be very useful in your leadership journey:
- As the person with the idea and a clearer understanding of the goal, you need to be present for every part of the business at the early stage. You need to understand what goes into making the idea a reality, marketing, customer acquisition, etc. This gives you an edge and also helps to know what to expect from employees.
- Checking employees’ performance and making decisions based on the idea that drives you. Be available to check and cross-check what your team intends to deliver to your prospective customers to see whether it is in line with “the idea”. Going off from multitasking, you need to be very available at the early stage; cross-checking, guiding, iterating and making sure what goes out conveys the message you intend to pass across.
- Exuding enthusiasm and work spirit: Every leader must exude so much enthusiasm while performing duties and communicating with the team members. You need to lead by example, It is what the energy that you give off that determines the energy in the work environment. The spark is always infectious, all things being equal, your team members would catch the energy bug.
- Learning to maximize resources should be a top tier quality of a leader at every stage, especially at the early stage since resources are usually the lowest at that point. However, you need to be careful as to not overstretch your resources, eg allocating duties that do not match pay. Finding the balance is key whilst maximizing your resources.
- You need to give your team members drive and moral support. This should be priority at this stage where the results might not be so obvious. Something as little as a complement would go a long way in increasing their confidence and encourage them to put in more work.
- As a leader, you need to be as professional as possible, knowing when and how to take actions. You need to diligently steer the wheel at the early stage to achieve growth and attain your startup’s long-term goals.
There you have it,
…your action and energy sets the stage for your employees
I hope this has helped you
Have anything to add? Shoot me a comment in the comment section below
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