Startup Checklist: What Every Startup CEO Needs to Know

A successful CEO is not only a man with a vision. Inspiring CEO is a man with passion and determination. Successful CEO is a real leader, a people person, someone who’s willing to take a shot, make mistakes and try again. Being a CEO is a tough task and it’s far from what we can see on the surface. 

That’s why there is such a high turnover rate! Last year was the year with the highest number of CEOs that left their posts in the past ten years. Why does this happen? Is it possible those CEOs didn’t know what would their role be in the first place? We decided to work on that and prepared an in-debt startup checklist. In this article, we’re talking about what every startup CEO needs to know.

Everything starts with good communication

When we’re passionate about something, we tend to get so preoccupied with what we want to achieve that and forget that not everyone thinks as we do. That’s why the CEO often develops a “tunnel vision” where they don’t communicate their ideas properly and cause others to guess what were they thinking. Like in relationships, in order to make something work, you need to share your perspective, do’s and don’ts, goals, and ways how you want to achieve them. 

That’s why the first thing on a startup checklist would be to always communicate and remember that people might not know what you’re thinking and where you coming from. To stay on track CEOs should organize frequent meetings and feedback to their team members.

Not everyone will agree with you

The important thing on the startup checklist for CEOs is to understand not everyone will think the same as they do. That’s a good thing because different opinions can give us another perspective and help us move forward. CEOs have to remember they shouldn’t turn their back on the ones who disagree with them but try to understand why they hold such an opinion and try to find good sides in it to advance their ideas.

Work is not the most important thing in the world

CEO’s can be easily consumed by their work and the ideas they want to push into the world. They tend to become so passionate they forget many people don’t share the same motivation. Even though we should enjoy what we do for a living, we should avoid letting our work meddle with our personal life. CEOs should learn to know how to make boundaries and let employees enjoy their free time without interruption. That’s why the third thing on our startup checklist is for CEOs to know their boundaries.

You aren’t worth as much as your company

Budgeting and finance are important topics in every startup. More so because in the first few years, every startup struggles to stay alive. There will be times when everything might seem to fall apart. That’s why the crucial thing on every startup checklist for CEOs is to confuse their worth with their startup finance struggles. There are too many factors that are determining how an idea will develop and in most cases, those things are not depending on one single person. The important thing for CEOs to remember is to avoid thinking they are worthless if things don’t go as planned.

Startups shouldn’t avoid using technology

This might sound contradictory because when we think about startups we mostly think about advancement and going out of the box. Technological advancement we’re witnessed in the past decade brought us great things and we shouldn’t be afraid to use them. 

For instance, a simple change in leave tracking can make any startup’s life much easier. Vacation Tracker, for instance, is a software that helps startups track their employee’s leave easily and cleanly, enabling them to shift their workload accordingly and avoid burnout.

Burnout is one of the most common “diseases” of every startup just because there’s a need for multitasking and increased alertness among employees. This can put a lot of pressure on them to perform well, however, as a side-effect they can head for burnout and risk their overall performance.

Scheduling and managing employees’ leave becomes the startup’s main priority and the best solution for avoiding burnout. That’s why many of them opted to use Vacation Tracker as their first choice for leave tracking management. Easy to request and approve leave, Vacation Tracker enables managers to have a clear vision of their workforce at any moment and secure work doesn’t suffer due to someone’s absence.

Besides, Vacation Tracker offers great perks such as setting customized leave policy types and choosing among many leave types such as jury duty, paternity leave, sick days, etc. It also enables leave tracking for different teams and offices which further improves the startup’s functioning. 

What’s more, putting quality and customer satisfaction before profit, Vacation Tracker offers a free 7-day trial period.

Startups should always be secured

“Be safe” is something our moms used to tell us when going to school and hanging out with our friends. But as any good parent, CEOs should take care of their children and secure their startup’s data. Cybersecurity is a hot topic in the past few years and data breaches became more and more often. That’s why one of the main things on the startup checklist is to secure important information and think about protection strategies.

Every startup should collect data

Many companies collect data because their competitors are doing so. However, they should use and collect it to test their hypothesis about business, customers, products, etc. Those data can break you or make you, giving you valuable insight into whether you’re on the right way or not.

Collecting data is a major thing on the startup checklist. However, the mere collection won’t lead any startup to an “out of the box solution”. Startups have to learn how to interpret it and use the information they got and turn them in their favor.

Did we leave anything out?

Startups have the great task of being the ones who start a revolution, bring innovation and go beyond imaginable. We gave you a startup checklist with the most important things to remember. But we’re not perfect! Maybe we missed mentioning something and we need you to give us feedback on it. If you think there’s something important for each startup to remember, make sure to tell us!

Ana Mladenovic

A cat enthusiast and a cupcake maniac, Ana is a freelance Content Writer passionate about HR, productivity, and team management topics. When she’s not at her keyboard, you can find Ana in the kitchen, trying to make delicious cookies.