The 3 Types of CEOs with Mike McDerment @ Freshbooks - Escape Velocity Show #44

About this video

An Escape Velocity interview with Mike McDerment of FreshBooks, which Dan says he launched around 2004 (getting more serious around 2006) and has grown to about 350 employees. Mike lays out his framework: a CEO has three jobs — set the vision, build the team (executives, board, employees and partners), and make sure the bank account matches the ambition. There are also three types of CEO — the visionary, the builder, and the operator — and three stages of company (startup, scaling, expansion), and no type is disqualified from success provided they surround themselves with complementary people. Mike, who calls himself a builder, describes bringing in a president/COO-type partner with dual reporting so he could move from day-to-day operations to strategic work. They also discuss out-teaching rather than outspending competitors, preserving culture while scaling, making ‘durable decisions’ that work for customers, employees and shareholders, taking external capital only after more than a decade of bootstrapping, and why a founding CEO keeps the job only by continually growing and changing themselves.

Key takeaways

• A CEO has three jobs: set the vision, build the team, and keep the bank account sized to the ambition.
• CEOs are visionaries, builders, or operators — any type can succeed if paired with people who cover their gaps.
• What a CEO must do changes across the startup, scaling, and expansion stages, so the team must change too.
• Make durable decisions that work for all three stakeholder groups: customers, employees, and shareholders.
• A founding CEO does not automatically keep the job — staying requires a desire to grow and change yourself, plus expanding self-awareness.

Episode details: published December 31, 2020 · 44:25 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dan Martell’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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