But what else makes a good COO candidate? This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Even start-ups need a COO. Danielle explained to me that they had no idea what they would do next, but that I was welcome to join them and continue going on missions. When we started Mattermark, Danielle blogged a ton and talked to potential investors, I hand-gathered a boatload of data, and Kevin helped me turn my process into software. As second in command to the CEO, the COO position is tasked with providing leadership, management, and vision to ensure that the business has effective people, operational controls, and administrative and reporting procedures in place. “The COO role is custom to every company and requires deep self-awareness from the CEO and founder to outline the specific skills and qualities they need in a partner.” The COO role is entirely defined by its relationship to the CEO. Going forward, my job will be the same as it’s always been: find the most important things the company hasn’t hired for yet, hire or delegate to someone in my place, and move on. Watch the spending. You’ll have to maintain control of diverse business operations, so we expect you to be an experienced and efficient lead… You will be the company’s second-in-command and responsible for the efficiency of business. What does the COO role actually look like? The COO works closely with the CEO and the CFO as well as other executive management team members. This fall, we needed to get a new office, figure out recruiting, start a customer support & success team, and turn our startup into a professionally managed company (see legal, accounting, HR, and all the fun stuff). They can’t be afraid to get their hands dirty because even if there is a budget to hire a team, the CTO will inevitably play back-up for any roles that can’t be filled immediately. David joined Trustpilot with over 20 years of industry experience, and could leverage the grey hair factor the get-go. Because I feel like one.” They reassured me I was. A COO may alternatively be called Vice President of Operations. As a tech startup hires more programmers, the role of a CTO shifts toward leading the development team. Startup CEO & COO: An impractical two-headed monster. Today’s lesson tackles typical roles and responsibilities within a startup. That basically means he owns and ensures the execution of the company’s strategy defined by CEO Peter Muhlmann and the department heads across business units. Passion. How that happens can vary, as exemplified by mine and David’s very different experiences. In doing so, he works with everyone cross-functionally to make sure the organisation is set up to and actually delivering on their targets. The only consensus on what a COO does is that there is no consensus, especially at startups (see articles at the bottom). This means you need a structured problem solver, who’s analytical enough to break down problems into their core issues and draw conclusions on what to do from current state of the business. Mattermark is the same legal entity as Referly, but as Danielle says, “Mattermark wasn’t a pivot.” I was not a co-founder of Referly. I was good at this mission, but I didn’t want to do eight demos a day and carry a quota forever. Every Chief Operating Officer (COO) job description should start with an interesting, eye-catching introduction. “Keith Rabois on the Role of a COO, How to Hire and Why Transparency Matters”, “How my co-founder and I structure ourselves as CEO and COO”, “Second in Command: The Misunderstood Role of the Chief Operating Officer”. One of the CTO’s primary responsibilities is finding the best solutions during the development process. It’s very typical for a newly funded startup with a founder-as-CEO in charge to go on a bit of a spending spree. It was basically about the founders wanting to clone themselves to free up time for strategic thinking and planning. Problem solving in an ambiguous environment should be a founding COO’s core skill. I wasn’t always the COO. Co-founders are supposed to manage teams and run the business, right? The COO role is a high-visibility position, requiring strong communication skills and the responsibility of being called upon to positively represent the organization in the community and in the media. Scroll to the bottom for further reading, as I have aggregated 10+ articles on the subject. A COO is responsible for making sure that all the departments work together to keep the operations of the business on schedule. Here are my takeaways. So, the CTO needs to evaluate the problem objectively and find the perfect solution. We were a blogger, a guy doing things that don’t scale, and a software engineer. The role of CEO is to work out the product market fit, the vision and strategic priorities of the business. There is often an unstructured component to it. The COO must maintain the highest level of integrity and lead by example in all areas. “What is the difference between CEO and COO?”, I Got Rejected by Apple Music… So I Redesigned It. Cultural fit is also extremely important for the COO role, due to the cross-functional and people leadership aspects of the role. Our sales were entirely inbound at the time, and we were getting a lot of non-VC customers signing up from investment bankers to salespeople to real estate brokers. A COO will always wear multiple hats and have numerous responsibilities. I felt like an imposter though, because my latest mission was as an individual contributor. We spoke about our respective experiences from Trustpilot and Avito, and touched a number of topics: when do you need a COO, what does the role of the COO look like, what are the organisational requirements for a COO to succeed, and what characteristics should you look for in a COO? Chief Operating Officer Duties and Responsibilities COO responsibilities include being second-in-command for the whole company and for the efficiency of the overall business. The responsibilities and duties section is the most important part of the job description. You quickly learn that to enable change, you need to drive execution through everyone in the organisation, by bringing structure, process and prioritisation. In our dataset, we found that the average COO oversees 4.4 distinct company functions…over half the company. is also extremely important for the COO role, due to the cross-functional and people leadership aspects of the role. CTO startup responsibilities include hiring IT specialists, data scientists, and engineers. It’s important to note that despite the focus on analysis and process, this is really a people role. I believe the job of a founding COO is to do the most important things the company hasn’t hired for yet, hire or delegate to someone in your place, and move on. Here is an idea of what this introduction may look like: Keith Rabois says “you’re constantly fixing things,” which you are. We moved away from a centralized recruiting function with internal recruiters to a model that distributes the load amongst hiring managers. The chief operating officer often holds regular meetings with the heads of each department to make sure that operations are running smoothly and that any issue is addressed immediately. A successful COO is someone who’s comfortable being outside the main spotlight and roll up his or her sleeves to get stuff done. When the team can’t come together and make a decision, everything slows down, and that’s not a state you can stay in and hope to survive. Finally, we hired a VP of Finance, Emad Khan, to take over finance, HR, and facilities. By firing myself from sales, I was essentially firing one of our most productive sales reps. TAKEAWAY: As a founding COO, you will have to pinch hit and do things you don’t like. Since many startups have at least 2 founders and both of them can’t be the CEO, i think it will be quite useful for the startup community. The moment your startup first takes outside capital, you suddenly have a new boss: your shareholders. inherent characteristic of the role. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, primary responsibilities of the COO are to: 1 oversee the day-to-day operations of the business of Corporation; 2 develop, in collaboration with the CEO and the Chief Financial Officer (the "CFO "), an annual operating plan I was asking myself what I was going to lead. Chief Operating Officer (COO) job description: Intro. But, to my opinion, the CEO main role is to carry the vision and the COO duty is to design and implement the strategy that will fulfill that vision. Danielle and Kevin actually hired me after I shut down my startup, LaunchGram. This factsheet covers the main purpose, accountabilities, plus knowledge skills and experience required. Today, I am the COO at Mattermark. One of our investors offered a third option, “VP of Shit.”. Your trajectory is set, and you want to make sure you’re pushing as hard as possible in the set direction. The COO role is a key member of the senior management team, reporting only to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). 10. Make sure to clearly articulate your new responsibilities . COO Responsibilities: Working together with key participants to compile the budget. Venture Views: 5 Mins with Northzone’s Paul Murphy, Wendy Xiao Schadeck becomes Northzone’s first New York partner, “Northzone is excited to announce the promotion of our newest Partner, Wendy Xiao Schadeck”, Meet our first New York partner, Wendy Xiao Schadeck, and other news from us, The latest on the world’s most ambitious cheese…, Personio raises $125m on a $1.7b valuation for an HR platform targeting SMES, But First, Product: Resources for Product Builders and Leaders, TrueLayer appoints Jamie Morton to head of UK outfit. Constantly. There is often a balance between the COO and the CEO on who owns what, and you need to make sure the COO is empowered to take charge and lead the team operationally within the agreed areas of responsibility. My third mission was less well defined because, well, it was about five missions at once. Here you should outline the functions this position will perform on a regular basis, how the job functions within the organization and who the employee reports to. Spearheading strategies to steer the company’s future in a positive direction. Unlike other C-suite positions, which tend to be defined according to commonly designated responsibilities across most companies, a COO's job tends to be defined in relation to the specific CEO with whom they work, given the close working relationship of these two individuals.. Examples of COO (Chief Operating Officer) responsibilities. That’s another inherent characteristic of the role. And a final point from David; the COO role leaves little room for egos. At Trustpilot, where the COO role was created relatively recently, at a time when the company already had more than 500 employees, David’s position has developed into a chief “execution” officer. COO has a unique position in companies to take a holistic, cross-functional view, but for this to work, the organisation must be geared up to accommodate it. We had an advantage over incumbents and later up-and-comers because we were willing to do work that didn’t scale to deliver value for our customers. Some COOs go through the motions, look over daily operations and ensure successful completion of projects. So the first team we built at Mattermark was a team of data analysts who filled a forest of spreadsheets with data on companies in VC firm portfolios. Firas Raouf May 26, 2011 6:00 AM Entrepreneur ... By thinking of it as a yin-yang division of responsibilities, the CEO-COO … What is the role of the COO in an early stage startup? But I’ll start by sharing what I know the most: my own job. You quickly learn that to enable change, you need to drive execution through everyone in the organisation, by bringing structure, process and prioritisation. The bigger the company, the more important it is that the COO operates through others rather than being a one-person execution machine. As the CEO, you’ll need to step in and make difficult decisions. The short answer: it all depends. It was basically about the founders wanting to clone themselves to free up time for strategic thinking and planning. No-one knew what she meant, so I had to start building my political capital from there. Every startup is different and has their unique challenges. Early on in my second mission, at one of our company all-hands meetings, I remember when one of our engineers asked, “Andy, I know you’re working really hard, but what is it that you do?” We all laughed, and I explained the things I had been working on. The HR manager had no idea what I was supposed to be doing, so during my first introductory walk around the office, the HR manager kept introducing me as ‘Christoffer, our new Director of the Internet’. • Reporting to the CEO, the COO will lead all internal operations and will have the following responsibilities: • Drive the operational launch of the company product in Q4 2014 • Develop and execute an integrated go-to-market plan for the product, including feature roll-out, product positioning, and routes to market. Most people understand that COOs support and collaborate with a startup’ But that changed over time as the business grew. When we were on the eve of launching Mattermark, I had a bit of an epiphany. At some point at Avito, I would own anything and everything that didn’t fit into the structured buckets like product and tech, finance or sales. I have seen very few companies (but they do exist) where the COO is only focused only on the operationally heavy aspects of the business. Titles shouldn’t matter, but unfortunately everyone has to have one — including me. In 2015, we hired an outstanding Customer Success Manager, Manali Karmarkar. For me at Avito, this was something I had to build up. I set out to (1) increase revenue and (2) determine whether we were actually ready to sell to any of these other segments. COO (Chief Operating Officer) responsibilities and duties. Also, as the COO is the CEO’s right hand person, taking over what was often previously within the CEO’s remit, they need to be in sync on the vision for the company. As I have already highlighted, the role of the COO is to have the flexibility both to tackle different business areas, and also balance the macro and micro perspective. How to Not Suck at Design, a 5 Minute Guide for the Non-Designer. In the early days we got our data by hand. Bring someone onboard in a COO position when this is unclear or still in flux, or the CEO needs immediate direct feedback from all business units to validate, and you risk muddying the water. Sometimes, they’ll divide the team, or piss off customers. Also, as the COO is the CEO’s right hand person, taking over what was often previously within the CEO’s remit, they need to be in sync on the vision for the company. The role varies from company to company, some don’t have the role, and the jury is out on whether startups need one. I led this team in my first functional owner role, and we decided to change my title to “Head of Research & Data.”. The traditional Chief Operating Officer is the member of executive management that is responsible for maintaining and driving operational results within a company. Closely. The short answer: it all depends. Privacy Policy. Founding COOs need to be zero-to-one people who are good at and comfortable with firing themselves. In January 2014, we had just tried to raise our Series A, and got feedback that we needed to prove out some other customer segments. Develop and integrate staffing programs designed to attract the highest caliber of talent while satisfying the needs of our clients; Collaborate with our CEO on five- and ten-year plans for corporate growth and evolution A Startup CEO Should Manage Finances Responsibly. A case study of my own role This only becomes more poignant as … comfortable being outside the main spotlight and roll up his or her sleeves to get stuff done. As we built repeatable processes to get certain data points — we call it the “human algorithm — we realized I had taken the team from 0–1. So that’s what I did, and it’s not that different from what I do now. The chief operating officer (COO) is a senior executive tasked with overseeing the day-to-day administrative and operational functions of a business. It depends on the stage of your startup. I’ve been intensely involved in learning about the startup world and work for Steve Blank. The role of CEO is to work out the product market fit, the vision and strategic priorities of the business. Driving the company’s operating capabilities to surpass customer … For a startup that is still iterating to get the key pieces of the company in place, there is a risk in bringing someone on too early in the COO role. Developing Warrior Like Mental Toughness — 11 Easy Steps, Evaluating the Buzzfeed dossier, by a former Intelligence Analyst, How teams can outperform using the Startup Ops Pyramid, The Cognitive Dissonance Hiding Behind Strong Brands. The main purpose of a Chief Operating Officer is to direct and control all organizational operations in accordance with the strategy and business plans agreed by the Chief Executive and Board to ensure that organizational goals and objectives are met. In this post I explore the ambiguity of the role of a COO (Chief Operating Officer) in a startup, and my journey to becoming one at Mattermark. I remember the lunch where Danielle told me she and Kevin had decided to shut down Referly, and I wasn’t totally sure I had a place in their post-Referly company. The selection of a COO is similar in many ways to the … The COO reports to the Corporation's Chief Executive Officer ("CEO"). From there, you also need someone who gets things done. That team is running like greased lightning now. There is often an unstructured component to it. Responsibilities and similar titles. Typically, the responsibilities of the head of operations are comprised of quality control, order fulfillment, employee/HR matters, ... hire and train a full-time COO for your startup. Once you are scaling, and business growth is more of an execution game, this is when the COO can have a real impact. Instead of coding, a CTO gets new responsibilities, requiring them to: Define and implement development standards according to up-to-date coding methodologies and best practices; Build an agile development culture; Set up a development team workflow It was time to hire a much more qualified Head of Data. What are the characteristics of a good COO (chief operating officer)? But, most startups have similar managerial needs. Usually, developers ask for help only if they can’t solve the problem themselves. We are looking for an experienced Chief Operating Officer or COOto oversee our organization’s ongoing operations and procedures. You are also constantly solving problems you haven’t solved before. Finally, the tremendous variation in COO roles and responsibilities manifestly implies that there is no standard set of “great COO” attributes. At some point at Avito, I would own anything and everything that didn’t fit into the structured buckets like product and tech, finance or sales. Ultimately, I knew an opportunity would present itself and that as long as I focused on driving value for our customers and our business, I was in the right place. Startup CTOs should be very well versed in the tools and technologies available for building MVPs, whether those be web apps, mobile apps, desktop software, or hardware. In short, you need to ensure there is sufficient internal political capital to give the COO the room to operate and lead. Who knows, this data might just be the most recorded history in the world about what a startup COO actually does — and I’m happy to unearth our findings together. How to you build the infrastructure that will enable your startup to operate more effectively? And a final point from David; the COO role leaves little room for egos. Last week I had the privilege of chatting to David Ferguson, COO at Trustpilot, and a group of entrepreneurs in Copenhagen about one of the roles in startups that is most hard to define – the chief operating officer. Sign up to our newsletter, and get our new writings, portfolio news and content straight to your inbox. I believe the job of a founding COO is to do the most important things the company hasn’t hired for yet, hire or delegate to someone in your place, and move on. It’s important to note that despite the focus on analysis and process, this is really a people role. The most valuable thing your startup has is cash and it needs to be treated as such. At this time, I had the choice to go with “VP of Facilities, Recruiting, Customer Support & Success, Finance, & HR,” or something more catch-all like COO. From my point of view, COO responsibilities are different in comparison to those of the CEO. I just read a terrific post from Ben Horowitz that he wrote a couple weeks back about the fallacy of Shared Command in companies. A successful COO has a unique position in companies to take a holistic, cross-functional view, but for this to work, the organisation must be geared up to accommodate it. One of the most dangerous places for a startup to be is in analysis purgatory. I asked Danielle and Kevin, “Am I a co-founder of this new thing? The bigger the company, the more important it is that the COO operates through others rather than being a one-person execution machine. But that changed over time as the business grew. I started as a nobody, with 6 months at McKinsey to my name. Going forward, Danielle was our CEO, Kevin was our CTO, and I didn’t really feel a need to have a title more defined than “Co-Founder.”. This was hard both for me and the company. I was an individual contributor hired when Referly was gasping for air, and my job description was essentially, “go on missions for Danielle.”. In 2020, the task is believed to be becoming more difficult for startups, as the job market is getting tighter, as digital companies continue to grow and require more employees. I think of the COO as someone who can peel the onion and find the core of what drives the business and help drive and focus execution in line with that core. Today i will show you how to include COO (Chief Operating Officer) responsibilities in the Founders Agreement. A successful COO is someone who’s. While resources may be limited, structuring your business this way leads to inefficiency, creates TAKEAWAY: Changing roles often is hard enough for the person doing it, but it can be confusing to the rest of the team. Eventually you have to find someone else to do those things though, or you’ll burn out. That’s another. Last week I had the privilege of chatting to David Ferguson, COO at. For a startup that is still iterating to get the key pieces of the company in place, there is a risk in bringing someone on too early in the COO role. And in a start-up, best things is that decisions are made by a group of complementary people, and the COO role is to also make sure things to get sidetracked by small operational details. I have seen very few companies (but they do exist) where the COO is only focused only on the operationally heavy aspects of the business. I believed I had to directly manage people to be a leader. 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